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SUMMARY:
The following is a tutorial to explain the entire process of
skinning a character mesh using a Biped rig. It
assumes knowledge of animating a 3ds max Biped.
Please see links to the right to view other pages of this
tutorial.
f) Transparent/Freeze
MESH
Make sure all joints and the face have good Edge Loops, Quads, and Evenly Distributed Tessellation. If you
intend Morpher facial animation, detach the head from the body: choose a natural place to hide the seam, like a
collar, and extrude the head part (usually the neck) down to overlap the body geometry (usually the shirt collar)
so any uneven skinning later will be less likely to show a gap.
C) ORGANIZING:
Name the model parts, so that each part starts with a character name for clarity. For example, if the character
has a separate head and body, as well as eye-spheres, and was named Brutus, use something like these
names: brutus_body, brutus_head, brutus_eyeL, brutus_eyeR.
Open the Layer Manager and create a new layer. Name it "mesh," put the character into it, and move the
checkmark back up to "0 Default" so the next things you create will appear in the original layer.
E) POSITION IN SCENE:
Move the character so that:
1. The feet are on the "ground" plane (0,0).
2. The center line is on the front view Z-line.
3. The side view Z-line matches up with the center of the torso side, the center of the shoulder, and the feet
ankles.
If feet are too forward or back, the model is "unbalanced" and harder to rig.
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2. Pelvis
3. Legs
4. Spine
5. Arms
6. Neck/Head
7. Other
A BIPED
A) CREATE BIPED:
In the Create/Systems panel, choose Biped. In the front view, position the mouse pointer to (0,0) at your mesh's
feet, click and drag up to create a model about the height of your character mesh.
B) ORGANIZE:
Select the entire biped, open the Layer Manager, and create a new layer. The selected biped bones will
automatically get placed into this new layer. Name the layer "biped." Look under the "0 Default" layer to find the
hidden biped bits, select them and move them to the "biped" layer. Move the checkmark back up to "0 Default."
C) SET UP RIG:
In the Motion panel, with a bone selected, turn on Figure Mode in order to set the structure, binding pose,
position, and bone size to match your mesh:
2. Pelvis: Use the COM Track Controls (horizontal vertical, and circular arrows) to position the pelvis
accurately. Choose the Scale tool and set the pivot control to Local. Non-uniform scale the pelvis until the biped
legs' hip joints are centered in the mesh legs.
3. Legs: Non-uniform scale a leg so the knee is the correct height in the mesh and slightly bent, the foot
bottom is a fraction lower than the bottom of the foot mesh, and the upper and lower leg bones are wide
enough to just fit inside the mesh. If the foot mesh has toes, position and scale each toe bone to fit. If the foot
mesh has shoes, scale the foot and single toe bone to equally share the length and width of the foot, for good
foot bend.
In the motion panel, under "Copy/Paste," hit the "Create Collection" star-button in the upper left to enable
copying limbs. Double click the upper leg to select the entire leg hierarchy (all the bones below it), hit the
"Copy" button and then hit "Paste Opposite." If your character mesh is symmetrical both legs will now be done.
4. Spine: Non-uniform scale the spine links up so the shoulder bones sit in the center of the arm mesh.
Non-uniform scale the spine links out in Front and Side views so they fit inside the mesh.
5. Arms: Non-uniform scale a shoulder bone to fit the height and depth of the mesh and so the arm joint
stays deeper inside the shoulder mesh than you think it should be (for a good armpit crease when it is
animated). Move the hand and scale the arm bones to fit the length of the arm-mesh: the elbow bone should be
correctly positioned and slightly bent and the bone-width should fit inside the mesh (not poke out much).
Position and scale the hand and each finger bone inside the mesh.
NOTE: selecting the first finger bone allows it to be moved, not just rotated (This is also true of the shoulder
bone). Double clicking the first finger bone will select the whole finger, and the rotate tool will then rotate all
finger links at once.
Double click the shoulder bone to select the entire arm hierarchy, hit "Copy" and then hit "Paste Opposite." Both
arms should now be posed correctly.
6. Neck/Head: Scale the neck bone up to raise the head into position and out to fit the mesh. Scale the
head to poke slightly outside of the character head mesh in all directions.
7. Other: Position, rotate and scale any tail or ponytail bones to fit the mesh.
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STEP
3: BIPED ANIMATION:
Set Keyframes for ALL bones and all three COM tracks:
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STEP
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b) Spine Links
c) Pelvis
d) Hands and Feet
e) Head
f) Other Bones
B) SPINE LINKS:
Adjust the 3 spine links. Typically this means scaling down so that the spine envelopes do not interfere with the
arms, head, pelvis, and each other. Depending on the shape of the torso, sometimes it is advantageous to
change the orientation of the spine bones for horizontal capsules rather than vertical ones.
C) PELVIS:
Adjust the Pelvis envelope, so that the dark red capsule overlaps with the upper leg capsules at the hip joints.
The COM's perpendicular line can be used to maintain butt and front.
E) HEAD:
Adjust the head bone proxy and envelopes so it does not interfere with the shoulders, and vice versa, and so all
evryices in the entire face are fully connected ot the head bone (appear fully red wehen the head bone is
selected).
OTHER BONES:
Adjust other bone envelopes: tail, wings, etc. to not interfere with other body parts.
NOTE ON VERTEX WEIGHTING: It is possible to assign specific vertices to specific bones, and decide the
weighting for precisely how much that bone effects that vertex. This can be useful to assign all the head and
face vertices 100% to the head bone. Note that many game engines do not support vertex weighting.
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a) Duplicate Head
b) Adjust Meshes
c) Name Targets
In the Front view select the separate head mesh, hit [Ctrl] + [v] to duplicate ("copy" clone, NOT "instance") and
delete the skin modifier. Move the duplicate over and make as many copies as you want face morphs. These
are called the Morph "Targets" because each represents an end-result for a morph (Maya calls them "Blend
Shapes").
IMPORTANT NOTE: Using [Shift] + Left-click-and-drag to create duplicates of the Skinned head will result in a
failed morph, with geometry flying across the screen. The reason is that the skin modifier "holds" the pivot of
the duplicate in the original position, and so when the morph targets are eventually applied they shift position
horrifically. Use [Ctrl]+[v] and remove the skin modifier from the duplicates BEFORE moving them away!
Adjust the Target meshes without ever removing or adding a vertex (no Target Weld, Collapse, Cut, etc--just
moving, rotating, and scaling vertices). This is critical to not lose the connection between the Morph Targets
and the original.
For a basic performance animation of about 10-15 seconds in length, consider:
Three main emotional facial expressions (adjusting mouth, jaw, cheeks, eyes and brow, ideally with nonsymmetry).
An eyeblink.
An open mouth for lip syncing.
For more detailed lip syncing, create aa, oo, and ee morphs that adjust the mouth, jaw, and cheeks.
Concisely name each of the intended target meshes for their purpose, whether they are full emotional face
adjustments (such as targ_curious, targ_alarmed) or partial face adjustments (targ_aa, targ_blink, etc.).
Select the original head, choose the Editable Poly level in the Stack (make sure no sub-object level is
activated), and apply the Morpher Modifier from the Modifier List so it sits in-between the Editable Poly and
Skin levels in the stack. It is important that the Morpher sit BELOW the Skin modifier!
Load each Morph Target copy of the head by Right-clicking on a channel in the Morpher modifier and choosing
Add. Experiment with each by moving the dial up and down.
NOTES ON USING MORPHER FOR ANIMATION:
Target meshes can be further adjusted and their channel "reloaded" to update, as long as the vertex number
of the target and the original are never changed (*).
Multiple targets can be animated simultaneously, and the effects will add to each other, so that a vertex at the
corner of the mouth that is moved out by an "aa" pose and up by a smile will move both out and up if both
targets are animated at the same time.
The same targets can be loaded into multiple channels to get a multiplied effect.
Animate throughout the percentage of each target: sometimes 30%, sometimes 50%, sometimes 80%, etc.,
for greater variety of expressions.
Be very careful to bookend: set good initial keyframes for each target as they are animated, to control when a
facial motion starts and stops.
Note the green vertical line beside each Morph Target Channel. Green indicates a healthy relationship
between the original model and the morph taregt loaded into that channel. If the target mesh is broken (*) or
deleted, the line will turn blue.
*ADDITIONAL NOTE: The vertex number is not just an absolute value: it is not OK to weld a vertex in one area
and cut one somewhere else. Each vertex is assigned a number in the mesh, corrseponding to the morph
target. ANY non-transform changes to the vertices (any welding or cutting) changes the vertex order and
makes the two meshes incompatible for Morpher.
More elaborate morphs can create a much more versatile facial rig, but for a full feature film rig I suggest
consulting the techniques in the book "Stop Staring" by Jason Ossipa.
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