Hey everyone, with the final part released I'd like to thank everyone who is watching the series and a special thanks to those who have purchased the course available at blendermarket.com/products/game-character-tutorial-series. The complete course includes videos for download, detailed step-by-step tutorial notes, starting files and the finished character (or you could jump on the Patreon for a month, download what you want and then bounce). Happy Blendering and feel free to leave comments on what game development tutorials you may want to see next!
Quick question; Blender has the Auto-IK option enabled for connected bones. And it works quite nicely for my weight painted mesh + rig. Any reason why I would want to consider this proper IK rig still?
Hey, good question. I generally say use the workflow that is quickest for you and works for your project. If Auto-IKs are working, then great, use those. The benefit of going through this process to manually set up the rig is that you get an understanding of what is going on in the background and makes it easier if you ever need to create something with greater customisation.
Quick question to you or anyone who might know. Do I need to apply scale to the rig at any point? Also, I've been working in unreal so I've had to set the blender units to .01. Do I need to still be doing that for unreal? When I add bones they are super small and I have been scaling them way up
Hey, if you're using Unreal then you will likely need to change/ apply your scale in Blender. You can do this after you've finished the rigging process and I recommend doing it before creating any animations on the rig (however you can adjust the scale of animations on your rig if you change the scale of the rig). I would recommend taking a look at my video where I go through exporting a rigged character from Blender to Unreal: czcams.com/video/buKsuVINtwk/video.html and you should get a better understanding of how scaling works.
I and I think you as well have the problem that once the PT for arm has been set, the elbow does not bend towards the PT but instead to another direction. This creates an issue when skinning the mesh to the rig. We modeled the elbow extra topology so that it faces towards the arm PT but the bending happens to another direction. Therefore the extra topology is useless since it is basically on the side of the elbow that bends. Does this have an easy fix other than transferring the extra topology to some angle another place (which kind of messes up the anatomy since then it does not point back when in the T-pose?
Hi there! This might be too late for you, but I came across your comment a few hours ago and have been stuck on the same issue, and have since found the solution so hopefully this helps someone! The solution is actually pretty simple, you just need to adjust the positions of the bones in edit mode such that there is a slight angle in the direction you want the joint to hinge. So for the elbow, if you let the point where your upper and lower arm bones meet point backwards (towards the pole target), the joint will bend as desired!
Hey everyone, with the final part released I'd like to thank everyone who is watching the series and a special thanks to those who have purchased the course available at blendermarket.com/products/game-character-tutorial-series. The complete course includes videos for download, detailed step-by-step tutorial notes, starting files and the finished character (or you could jump on the Patreon for a month, download what you want and then bounce).
Happy Blendering and feel free to leave comments on what game development tutorials you may want to see next!
Excellent tutorial! :)
Thanks you so much. I want to let you know that i just finished my character and find this video. I learn character modeling days ago.
Good tips
Quick question; Blender has the Auto-IK option enabled for connected bones. And it works quite nicely for my weight painted mesh + rig. Any reason why I would want to consider this proper IK rig still?
Hey, good question. I generally say use the workflow that is quickest for you and works for your project. If Auto-IKs are working, then great, use those. The benefit of going through this process to manually set up the rig is that you get an understanding of what is going on in the background and makes it easier if you ever need to create something with greater customisation.
Quick question to you or anyone who might know. Do I need to apply scale to the rig at any point? Also, I've been working in unreal so I've had to set the blender units to .01. Do I need to still be doing that for unreal? When I add bones they are super small and I have been scaling them way up
Hey, if you're using Unreal then you will likely need to change/ apply your scale in Blender. You can do this after you've finished the rigging process and I recommend doing it before creating any animations on the rig (however you can adjust the scale of animations on your rig if you change the scale of the rig). I would recommend taking a look at my video where I go through exporting a rigged character from Blender to Unreal: czcams.com/video/buKsuVINtwk/video.html and you should get a better understanding of how scaling works.
Okay thank you very much, I really appreciate your input and videos.
I and I think you as well have the problem that once the PT for arm has been set, the elbow does not bend towards the PT but instead to another direction. This creates an issue when skinning the mesh to the rig. We modeled the elbow extra topology so that it faces towards the arm PT but the bending happens to another direction. Therefore the extra topology is useless since it is basically on the side of the elbow that bends. Does this have an easy fix other than transferring the extra topology to some angle another place (which kind of messes up the anatomy since then it does not point back when in the T-pose?
Hi there! This might be too late for you, but I came across your comment a few hours ago and have been stuck on the same issue, and have since found the solution so hopefully this helps someone! The solution is actually pretty simple, you just need to adjust the positions of the bones in edit mode such that there is a slight angle in the direction you want the joint to hinge. So for the elbow, if you let the point where your upper and lower arm bones meet point backwards (towards the pole target), the joint will bend as desired!
Mine aren’t connecting properly like the leg.
Never mind. Follow the keys to a tea.
made easy indeed 😅 i always struggle with rigging it's my least favorite part of the process.