Rigging for Realistic Movement - Game Character Creation with Blender and Unity - page 184

10. Select the Fin_Index_L.01 bone and add an action constraint to it. In the Target set-
ting of the panel, type Armature . For the Bone setting, type Fin_IndexControl_L
and for the Action setting type FingerAction . Under the Transform Channel setting,
select Scale X. Under Action Length, set Start to 1 and End to 21 . Finally, since the
bones have a scale of 1, for the Target Range setting of the action constraint enter .25
for the Min value and 1.75 for the Max value. Link the rest of the bones in the index
finger to Fin_IndexControl_L, and then repeat the same process for all the other fin-
ger bones on both sides of the body.
11. Save your file. Look at Ch07_Zombie_ArmatureFinished.blend in the Chapter 7 online
resources to see what you should have at this point.
You now have an armature for your zombie character. Not only does this armature
have everything you need to pose a basic bipedal game character, it also has some extra
bells and whistles so you can do complex actions a little more quickly and easily. In the
next section, you will rig the new armature to the zombie mesh.
Linking the Armature and Zombie
This zombie is a good practice mesh for learning how to rig, as it has a slightly broad
frame. Broad, muscular, or fat characters are typically more difficult to rig since they have
wide geometry that can deform in unusual ways. Likewise, skinny characters deform in
much simpler ways and often require minimal editing. As such, this broad zombie char-
acter will be a more educational rigging exercise.
Rigging in Blender is accomplished through the use of weight painting . Weight paint-
ing is the process of linking specific vertices of the mesh to bones on the armature with a
painting-like toolset.
Weight painting is an integral part of bringing 3D art into Unity since anything you
animate must be done either with an armature or with scripting. Object animation—
where you specify keyframes for an object to change its location, rotation, or scale—will
not import into Unity. For example, to make the door in Figure 7.40 swing open, it must
be rigged to animate that way before being exported to Unity.
Luckily, the process of rigging a character will give you a good introduction to the
entire rigging process. Once you have gone through the process of rigging this zombie,
you will be prepared for rigging all kinds of objects for your Unity games.
Using the Armature Modifier
The first step in rigging your zombie mesh is to add the Armature modifier to it. This
modifier lets you call out your armature and binds it to your mesh for you.
1. Continue working from your own zombie model file or open Ch07_Zombie_
ArmatureFinished.blend from the Chapter 7 online resources.