Character rigging

Rigging a character is the process of adding bones and binding them to the character mesh. Doing this allows you to move and animate a character in a much more realistic way that for example, using a heirarchy. Using a heirarchy to animate a character is very limiting, as more complex meshes wouldnt work, which is one reason you can use bones.

To start with i began by rigging my characters leg, throughout the rigging process i followed a hand out given to me by dave.

To rig the leg i started by adding bones at the appropiet points, i tried to get the points on the points at which i wanted the limbs to rotate. I was thinking about adding an extra joint where the knee is to create a smoother bending motion, but this didnt work how i planned and even if it did it limited movement in the leg because they seemed shorter.


Next i added an IK tag to the upper leg joint, and then placed the ankle join in the end field. Next i added a goal and a pole. The pole determines which direction the leg faces and how far is can move before it flips and faces the wrong direction. It also determines which angle the leg faces.