Blender Rigify

>> Hi, folks.

Jason, here.

In this tutorial, we're going to be looking
at the Rigify tool in Blender and learning how

to place a simple rig into a simple character,
and also do a little bit of animation.

So without further ado, let's get going.

So you'll need to open up Blender.

You'll be presented with the usual view here,
with the camera and the object in the light.

I'm just going to get rid
of that by hitting Delete.

And if you hold down Alt and middle
mouse, you should be able to go

into your orthographic view, Shift
and middle mouse juxtaposition.

You'll find a link for the OBJ in
the description below the video.

I'm going to open that up now on my desktop,
though, so I'm going to go from File,

I'm going to go to Import and wait for an OBJ.

Go to desktop and go and find Rigman.

There we go.

And go Import OBJ.

Make sure that the character is fairly central.

You want to kind of have it in the middle,
something like that, so that's hitting G,

and just bringing it down to, say, there.

Next, we want to drop in a rig.

Now, it's probably not enabled on your
computer, so you're going to need to go to Edit,

Preferences, and in the add-ons,
just type in the word rig,

and you'll see there it says rigging, Rigify.

Now, it's turned on, on mine.

Obviously, it will be turned off on yours.

Just make sure that that's there.

Once you've done that, click off, and
then we're going to go and bring that up,

so Shift and A. Armature, we're going
to go through to basic human meta rig,

and you'll see that it's quite small, so we're
going to need to hit S and just scale that up.

So it might just take a few
turns to kind of do that.

Also, I'm just going to move
myself to one side there.

In the Object Properties,
you'll need to just scroll down

and go through to the Viewport Display,
and we're going to need to click

on this little box that says In Front, like so.

So now, we can actually see what we're doing.

So that's the next stage out of the way.

Another thing we're going to need to do,
because we're going to be moving this around

and positioning it, we don't want to do, like,
you know, one arm, then do the other arm,

so what I'm going to do is I'm going to go
through to Edit mode, and then in Edit mode,

I'm going to click on this little arrow at the
top here, and what we're going to do is going

to go through to Tool, and on
Tool, you'll see x Axis Mirror.

We want to click on that.

So now, any changes that we make on
there, it'll happen on the other side.

So in order to minimize this, you can just
click on the edge there and just drag it in like

so until it's popped back into its place.

All right, so we're ready to get going.

So you can do this a number of ways.

You can start positioning it by highlighting
the foot there, hitting G, and then,

like, bringing that over, like so.

So there'll be a lot of adjustment that goes on.

When it comes to doing the spine, I will warn
you that if you don't move the joints in unison,

it can create issues when you generate the rig.

So it's just something to bear in mind.

So I'll just give you an example of that.

I'm just going to move these hip joints.

Now, obviously this is like stylized character,
so it's not like a regular human being,

so I'm going to move these hips
hitting G. I'm just going to sort

of bring these down a little bit, like so.

I'm just going to click on
that bottom joint if I can.

Yeah, that's selected.

Hit G. I'm just going to
bring that down as well.

Maybe just bring it over to the
side, just so it's in the middle.

Now, these are all parented.

This is what these dotted lines are about.

They're all kind of parented together.

Okay, so got that there.

Yeah, so when it comes to the spine, and you
can use these orthographic views if you like,

but just tread carefully, because at
the moment, it's kind of looking okay,

it's fairly kind of central, but if
you are doing this, just select --

make sure you kind of use that marquee tool
and just select them before you move them,

because if you try and move them independently,
it will basically break it, and then when you go

to kind of try and generate a
rig, it'll come up with errors.

So I'm just hitting G, I'm
just basically creating, like,

a bit of a curve on that spline there.

The same on that.

Oh, try not to select anything else.

If you want to be a bit more precise, you
can use these, the Move tool, so that way,

you can actually use arrows, as opposed
to just trying to use the G key.

I'm just going to highlight this joint here.

And again, I'm just going to bring that
back, so maybe like in orthographic view,

get a better view there, and just sort
of see, but it needs to be just fairly --

, you know, you got a bit of a curve going on
there, but, and then we've got the kind of,

as it gets up to near the -- what
would be the clavicle and the neck,

we want to be bringing that back as well.

So I'm just going to go into
the orthographic view again.

I'm just going to highlight
that, bring that to there.

So yes, remember to use the
marquee tool on this,

because it will break it
and it will not generate.

All right, so we're getting close.

We're getting close.

I'm just going to move this up to the top.

So this will need to be at
the top of the crown, because,

you can have a controller there as well.

We've got this kind of this
clavicle area here as well.

It's going to -- I'm just going to move
that into, say, there, something like that.

And we've got this breast area, and I'm
just going to bring those back, like so,

just so the light embedded in the model.

You'll end up with maybe parts of this kind
of sticking out, but don't worry about it,

as long as it's kind of like fairly central.

So you can see here with the legs,
we've got an issue going on there.

I'm just going to go into the orthographic view.

And again, I'm just going to move these back.

I'm just making sure that it's
pretty central with the model,

but I think that's looking pretty much okay.

Yeah, and what we're going to be
looking to do in the next video, folks,

is generating the controllers, and then
we're going to be binding the skeleton

to the character, so that'll
be in the next part.

Just one last thing before we
go into the next part, folks.

Before we go to generate the rig, you will need
to go from Edit mode back into Object mode,

so you've got your armature
selected, and I want you to press Ctrl

and A. And what you need is Scale.

Okay? So I want you to click on that.

So I'll do that again, Ctr.

And A, and then hit Scale.

If you don't do that, when it comes to
generating the rig, it'll basically generate it

at the original size it was at before you
scaled it up, so just something to bear

in mind before we go into the next section.

So as long as you've done that, we're
ready to go to the next part of the video.

So now we're ready to create controllers
and bind this skeleton to our model.

So with the skeleton selected in Object mode,
we're going to go down to the right here,

and you want to click on the
little symbol with the character.

And you see it says Generate Rig.

If you don't see it, just click on
the Rigify buttons and you'll see

that Generate Rig, so I'm going to hit that.

And it's going to go and create our
rig for us, which is looking good.

Next, what we're going to do over in the
top left here, we're going to go in Object,

and we're going to go to Pose mode.

Then I'm going to hit A to
select it, and then H to hide it.

Also, we've got two rigs going on here.

We've got the one that we kind of
created, and then we've got the new rig,

so I'm just going to go and select that.

So we've got our rig there.

Then on the right here, you'll
see all these layers.

Now, the layers just to explain, if I just click
on the little arrow there, if I go to Item,

you'll see there, basically every part
of this skeleton is listed in here,

and they all correspond with these buttons
here, yeah, so just, so you know what these are.

I'll just drag that in.

What I want you to do is I need to go
Shift and left-click on this button here.

And you'll see there, you've got
part of the model coming through.

If I now just go down in this mode to where it
says Viewport Display, and just click In Front,

you will see the model there, and now we're
going to go into -- back into Object mode.

And what we're going to do
next is we're going to go

and select the actual model,
Shift and select the armature.

Then we're going to go Ctrl and P. And then,

we're going to go Set Parent
To with Automatic Weights.

Click on that.

Let's give it a second.

And that's all good.

And now you can test it, to
just see that it's bound to it.

So if you go and select the
armature, then hit G,

it should by rights move it
around, so that's all looking good.

I'm just going to go Ctrl-Z and bring that back.

And then with the rig selected,
we're going to go back to Pose mode,

and then back over to the right
here with the buttons here,

Shift and select that button
that we selected before.

And then, with that done, all
we need to do is press Alt

and H to bring back the visibility of our rig.

And then we're set up, and then all
we need to do is, look, we just, say,

select one of the hands, hit G, and hey, presto.

We've got our model moving.

So if you've achieved that, then well done.

That's absolutely awesome.

So now you're ready to animate.

In the next part, I'm just going to go through
the controllers of the model and make sure

that you're all set up so you know what to
do when it comes to doing the animation,

and that'll be in the next part of the video.

So just to do a little demonstration
now, if I, say, select this box here,

which kind of controls like the bending of
the legs, and I hit G, you see there now.

So I could just go Ctrl-Z that
out and set a keyframe there, say,

hit I, and then go Location and Scale.

We'll drop a keyframe in there, and
basically made that, say, around about 24.

I'll hit G again, bring that down
and hit I again, Location Scale.

So now we've got a little animation.

So general overview of controlling the
character, you've got the top, the crown,

so that, if you hit R, you can
kind of rotate the head, like so,

this one for, you know, rotating side to side.

You can also use these controls
as well, so you can actually --

of course, that character doesn't have a face,

but you can sort of rotate
from side to side like that.

These are the controllers you don't want
to be touching, like, you know, the arrows.

The hands, yes, so you've got the controllers
here, so you can click on, say, that.

Hit G, and then move them around, like so.

We've got one for this sort of --
well, you got several sort of, like,

for the sort of chest areas here.

Again, you know, it's just good for
things, like, you know, if you want to kind

of get some extra movement in there, like so.

Same thing with this one but, you know, have
a play around, do a bit of a hip wiggle.

It's pretty cool.

And then you got other things, like the actual
box, which sort of controls the kind of hips,

and that's going to be good
for, like, walking, right?

So we can kind of like shifting
the hips from side to side.

Again, I'll just Ctrl-Z these out.

And then we've got the feet.

Now, when we're posing this in the next
videos, going into more like walking,

you may want to be adjusting some of these
and making sure that it's bending okay.

So for example, if I just grab
hold of these, like so, those up,

you want to make sure they're not, like,
knock-kneed, you know, like, kind of going sort

of together, so you can make some adjustments,
like using these here, some of those ones there,

but you don't really want
to be animating with those.

You want to be sort of using the feet there.

But if you've got that done, well done.

You're ready to kind of go to the next stage,
which is essentially getting our character

to kind of move, and that'll
be in the next video.

So that's it, folks.

Hopefully you found this video useful.

Okay, thanks a lot.

Bye for now.