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**Tea Monster** · 03-27-2014, 07:13 AM

I don't mean this to come across as a gift-horse-inspection kind of question, but why are you using that old thing for?

**MadGypsy** · 03-27-2014, 04:05 PM

I'm a hell of a lot older than Blender 2.49b and people still use me for all kinds of stuff. It's because I work... and so does blender 2.49b.

Maybe if I made 3d stuff as an occupation I would be more inclined to use more up-to-date editors but the bottom line is, even blender 2.49b is far more powerful and versatile than anything I will ever need it for. I also know this version of blender inside-out. I've been using it for as long as it's been available.

There is no reason why my tutorial couldn't be applied to other versions of blender.

**Tea Monster** · 03-27-2014, 04:49 PM

No problem, just wondering.

This looks insanely usefull. I've never took the time to really learn rigging and this looks amazing. Thank you very much!

**MadGypsy** · 03-27-2014, 05:31 PM

This is the beta tutorial. I made a decision that I would post an OK tutorial with an OK rig here at quakeone and from that will be born an even more involved rig & tutorial that I will wrap in HTML and convert to PDF.

The PDF is what you really want to read, and you can, as soon as I finish writing it.

However, this tutorial already has all of the conceptual information that is necessary to build ThisRig 2.0. The only thing this tutorial is lacking conceptually is bone limits.

PS. I sliced the ring finger of my left hand wide open today

That really messes up my 5th, aug 5th, b7th (ex C9 032330) and 13ths. Why am I always stabbing and slicing my left hand open? Last time was the roughly 1 inch long, pointy and sharp business end of a very good five-in-one. That decided to embed it's entire self into the meat of my thumb on the palm of my hand. That didn't stop me from playing guitar though, this one will. No way around it. I couldn't imagine life if I cut one of my fingers off by accident, and the worse part is, I probably will. The odds are not in my favor.

No problem, just wondering.

I'm just grumpy lol. Today kinda sucked. to reanswer your question. To me, blender2.49b is like an old friend. We went through an entire alcoholism recovery thing together. I don't ditch my friends just because I have access to some new ones that wear better clothes and know 4 extra things.

I do ditch my friends if their name starts with Adobe, though [cough FlashDevelopIsABetterFriend cough]

**MadGypsy** · 03-27-2014, 07:18 PM

Finger Mechanics
An Overview Of Simple Finger Mechanics

Preface

This overview will explain the concepts behing the entire finger rig. If you didn't follow Part 1 of my Crushing an Armature tutorial then you will need to know the following:

1)bone 1 is the ultimate parent of the finger bones
2)bone 1 is constrained to the rotation and location of the control finger. This is why it is green, to signify that it has some transformation constraint on it.
3)IK is a child of control finger
4)IK is the IK controller for bone 3. Bone 3's yellowness signifies that it has an IK constraint on it.
5)The IK chain is 3 in length (set on bone 3)

Understanding All of That

Let's start with some facts about parenting. Bone 1 is the immediate parent of bone 2. Wherever bone 1 goes bone 2 must follow, but bone 2 is the parent of bone 3 and bone 3 must follow. So, in short, moving a parent drags/rotates all children with it. Bone 1 is also the child of the hand bone (not labeled in image). This means that bone 1's location cannot change and therefore, it's only trick is rotation.

That's important to consider because, it's movement is entirely dictated by control finger, and control finger can only rotate or scale. This is where the IK chain comes into play. The little nub at the end of control finger is an IK control bone. IK control bones can't be connected to the chain they will control but, they can still be connected to something. In this case, IK is the child of control_finger so, anywhere that any directly connected part of control finger goes, IK must follow. In this case we scale control finger but, control finger is locked to a hand (con_hand.L) so, scaling draws in the IK controller. Bone 3 is locked to the position of this controller on one end. When the IK moves, the tip of bone 3 gets drawn backwards and the entire rest of the finger is at the mercy of the IK.

The beauty behind this rig is that you can hide everything but the control finger. To get the finger to bend you simply scale the controller. For any other manipulation you rotate the controller. In the left half of the image it is clear that the index finger is not only scaled but also rotated. The right half is a wider shot but, it's really a teaser for why to use a control rig. Look at all the bones that are invisible. The entire deform rig and half of the control one too.

What you can't see in the picture (but I did cover it a bit in my tutorial) is that, the handful of bones you see have a certain parenting to them that allows you to move entire groups of bones at once and then move out further on the chain for fine adjustments. You can actually make this armature perfectly sit on the toilet by just dragging the hip bone back and evenish with the knees. A few more adjustments and you can bring that shit to life.

**Spike** · 03-27-2014, 08:23 PM

handy.

**MadGypsy** · 04-03-2014, 07:50 PM

**MadGypsy** · 04-04-2014, 05:14 PM

Dang, I wish there was more interest in this. That last tutorial took me some serious hours (2 entire days) to put together. It's actually a beta for the book I'm writing. I wanted to see just how hard it was going to be to do this.

It took 2 days to make 12 pics. I'll probably get a little faster as I go but I think It's gonna take me about a month to write this book, and that's a month from the time I actually finish The Armature From Hell (or Heaven - whichever means something more dramatic to you).

Really, my current rig is more than sufficient. It does an insane amount of stuff with very little effort but, it isn't The Armature From Hell yet so I want to work on it a bit more. In short, I am going to become the master of armatures in a super incredible short amount of time and then Imma write a book about it. Its going to look a lot like my last tutorial but, I will probably do some other more detailed and informative explaining outside of the images. I will also do some better preplanning on my images. I pretty much nailed everything but, images 4 through 10 do not need the front ortho. If I would have realized that in preplanning, I would have had a hell of a lot more room to put my annotations.

Like I said, the last tutorial was a beta. When I start nailing down a final product I assure you it will be considered down to the pixel.

**talisa** · 04-04-2014, 05:22 PM

this thread might prove very usefull for me if i ever decide to try making a complete replacement monster-model and want to animate it

ill def bookmark it at so i can look at it when i ever get to making a complete monster-model

**Dutch** · 04-04-2014, 07:23 PM

Totally excellent!

This is going to come in handy sometime in the next couple weeks when I get to modeling a main character. Thanks man!

EDIT: I appreciate your plain language. I hate reading tutorials where the writer packs in a bunch of mulit-syllable jargon I'm not familiar with yet.

**MadGypsy** · 04-05-2014, 06:57 AM

This is going to come in handy sometime in the next couple weeks when I get to modeling a main character. Thanks man!

Side A: Yeah that's exactly why I wrote it, cause I wanted it to be useful.

Side B: Silly man, you aren't going to need to make an armature for your models. Even if I just gave you what I already have it would be way more than sufficient. [{mumbling} "I'm building this bad ass rig and this fool wants to read tutorials. Just use my rig and save yourself weeks of headaches, ya' nutty nut-ball."]

capiche'?

edit: If you decide to tackle a non humanoid character (the dog?, vore?) send me your model and let me rig it. I will be more than happy to prove my skills go beyond one shape of armature. Build it in whatever blender you want. All of them are free and the program hasn't really changed at all in over a decade. Sure, it has a few extra tricks but all the panels are still available and the keyboard shortcut list is practically identical. In other words there is no learning curve on any blender for me. Use whatever one you like, I can adapt.

Fact: I'm not building a game but, I am building a rig. My rig is completely useless if someone else does not use it for their project. Ash: {Throws Poke-ball} "Dutch, I choose you. Attack with dedicated game modder strike". It would also be awesome if I did so good that GB wanted to use it for his game.

Really, I have read/watched a shit load of armature tutorials and I can say quite plainly that my work is better. I don't know why everyone is building the exact same thing and for some reason they also refuse to really get into constraints but, Imma tell you now my rig makes those tut rigs look pretty damn sad in comparison.

It seems to me that the people that are making these tuts don't really know how to make an armature. They are just parroting some other tutorial and refuse to take that extra step towards true illumination of the possibilities. If someone knows of some bad-ass rig tutorial that you feel makes my boast inaccurate, please post it. I will either agree with you and upgrade my knowledge or point out every reason why it is exactly what I said.

**Dutch** · 04-05-2014, 09:33 PM

@Side B

Dude it is great to hear you say that. I would appreciate it immensely to use your rig. I'm don't like to ask for help/extra work out of people, but if you're offering, than that would be great.

@Send me models for rigging

I will be making several monsters with non-humanoid shape. Some humanoids will have weird/funny appendages (like a zombie with a gaping mouth for a stomach that opens/closes). Inspiration picture from the remake of The Thing (my model won't be this complex):

I will definitely send you these for rigging if you'd like. I'm using Blender 2.7 at the moment, but besides some interface changes, I see little to no difference from 2.6 or 2.4-something or whatever that I used a long time ago.

And yes, based on what I've seen for some tuts, you are the pioneer of documenting this skill so far.

Thanks buddy, you 'da man.

Ash: {Throws Poke-ball} "Dutch, I choose you. Attack with dedicated game modder strike".

Lmfao

**MadGypsy** · 04-06-2014, 08:02 AM

I told you I was going to help you with your mod. I already knew you weren't going to stay vanilla so, I started thinking about things you'll need that I want to work on. That is pretty much where this whole armature thing started... not 100% but maybe 80%, the other 20% being that I dont feel like programming right now so I want to mess with 3D stuff.

You can use anything I ever make and if you don't ask to, I'll simply beat you over the head with it and call you a nutty nut ball

**Dutch** · 04-06-2014, 04:20 PM

I told you I was going to help you with your mod. I already knew you weren't going to stay vanilla so, I started thinking about things you'll need that I want to work on.

Haha you had a better idea of what i wanted to do than i did.

Ok awesome man, i appreciate it! When i get player physics coded imma work on a new ranger model. I'll send it to you when i'm done.

I'm still gonna check out this rigging though with your tut when i find time.

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