Toolkit 3D - Spine and Arms Rig

 Toolkit 3D - Spine Rig

This is a continuation of the legs rig blog. In this blog, I will show how I create a rig for a spine within Blender, which is the program I am planning to use for my final character project. The spine is made separately from the legs and then joined after it has been fully created since the rigs can be connected later.

Same as before, I start with a bone, and begin to make the structure of the spine - I went through everything here in the rigging legs blog, and nothing is different at this stage, apart from the fact we don't have to symmetrize, because the spine is already central.
After this, we name the bones appropriately. We then join everything together before connecting the thighs to the spine, creating the pelvis bones. I also parent the thighs to the first spine bone here.
Due to the differences between Maya and Blender, I don't have to create anything like the controls for a rig needed in Maya. So far, we have a chain of bones for the spine, and the legs connected to the spine via the pelvis. We now move onto the shoulders, for which I create a new bone and move it into place. For the arm, I do the same, and then down to the elbow, another to the wrist, and another for the hand. I then name everything properly, also parenting each bone too: for example, the shoulder to the arm.

After this, we can then symmetrize again, resulting in a basic, functioning rig. This one has oversized arms, but that is only because I didn't use a model to size it with - normally this rigging process is done with a model to reference alongside it.






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