Rigs and how to create a rig

After looking at what a rigger does within the 3D character modeling and deforming and non deforming rigs i found it would be in my best interest to look more into rigs and the different types of character rigs before i attempt to create my character

So after researching into character rigging is basically creating a skeleton and joins for the mesh/skin of the character so the the mesh/skin of the character knows where to deform/rotate around. just like a normal human skeleton a rig is made of bones and joins that create a controller that animators can use to create the desired pose of the characters. Rigging can be a straight froward process that can take only a few hours to do but it can also be a long an daunting process if the character are meant to be used in a full length film like Pixar and Disney  their riggers spend days even weeks creating the perfects fully articulated rigs for their characters.

So rigging as different areas this starts with creating a skeleton that can be connected to the mesh that was modeled creating a skeleton is easy it just using common sense and placing the bones but most importantly the joints were they suppose to go. joins have to be placed in places were the character is suppose to bend places like elbows, knees, shoulders, hand joints ect any place that the mesh will deform on a normal skeleton.
 the best place to read how rigging is a vigorous and long process and how to produce a good rig for a character is this website that i been looking at.

This is  a great website that explain everything about rigging.
http://3d.about.com/od/Creating-3D-The-CG-Pipeline/a/What-Is-Rigging.htm

What is a 3D Rigger

A 3D Riggers is someone that creates a specialized person that creates riggs the  3D characters/objects that the modelers have created, giving the character/object a skeleton and controls to move the different parts that need to bend and move. A rigger job doesn't just begin when a character/object is finished, they will work with the modelers to create the best possible model so is perfect to be rigged. Riggers have to have good knowledge to solve any rigging problems that may a cure during or even already existing riggs, They also are expected to have great knowledge of all the programs that are used to rigg such as 3DS Max,Maya and Cinema 4D. They have to be team players as they will be working with a large team of animator and also riggers. They are expected to be able to create perfect and simple riggs that can be used buy animators to animate the Character/object movements.

What is a Technical Director

A Technical Director or also know as TD is a very common job withing the animation a visual effects companies, different companies have different meaning of a TD job description is but over all a TD is someone that can be involved in allot of things throughout the animation pipeline they have to be very confident sensible and have a good eye to spot problems and solve them. They will have a wide knowledge into all the aspects of animating and all the pipeline TD will be involved on the production of an animation from early stages doing modelling, rendering, texturing and reggging  if a TD does not specify what kind of TD they are they are often more involved in lighting and rendering. TD are often not very not programmer only a few are but they are because that will fall into the modelers but even so they should have knowledge of the programs being used within the company to help solve problems.
Their is not specific area to study to became a TD all areas can lead you their you can start anywhere within a company and became a TD its just a case of learning and understanding of how the pipeline and the company works.

WHAT IS A 3D MODELLER

In the 3D computer graphics world 3D modelling is the process of developing a 3d model using very specific software some example of this software are Cinema 4D, Maya, 3Ds Max and many other, their are so many 3D software out their that the list would be huge but this are the softwares i have experimented with so far. 3D modelling is creating a a wireframe model that will represent a 3D object, objects that are alive or not alive. A 3D model will be created by points in a 3D space and this points are connected by lots of different geometry such as curved surfaces and lines. 3D modelling is part of the pre-production in the pipeline.

After a character design is finalised by the concepts artists the final drawing will be passed on to the modellers so they can start modelling the character/object in a 3D environment giving it depth and detail giving the character/object life. before computer graphics started advancing and the softwares started to be updated with different and better tools, clay models may have been used to give the modellers a better understanding of hoe the character/model would look like in 3D form for a 2D drawing. But now that technology has evolve so has the software that modellers use and now they have the facilities of using thing like scanners so they can import and the 2D drawing of different views of the character/objects and by having that technology that allows they to do everything they need straight in the 3D software they are using. this is much easier because it less time consuming because it allows the modellers to create everything in a computer environment. this is much better because if the character/object has to be changed in any way it does not have to be re-suptured the modeller just has to go back to the character/object and apply the changes that are necessary in the places that are needed. By having a computer environment only its also useful because all the UV Mapping and texturing can all be done in the same software wish is less time consuming.

A 3D modeller will have to have a very good understanding of how of the work they do so they can approach their work they right way. They need to be always researching new ways and new softwares so they have a great understanding of what is the best way to create the character/object that the concept artist as come up with. They also need to have good knowledge of how the anatomy of the human body and also animals this will be helpful if they want to specialise in character modelling they should study the human body and animals as much as possible analysing the structure and the moments this will give them the advantage of creating great realistic characters. Modellers also need to have good knowledge of polygon flow and mesh and also a good rig because all that is very important if the are creating a deforming or no-deforming object. so having a good knowledge of that will allow them to create any design that have been asked from them by the concept artists.

A modeller may be part of may different areas like Animated films, Short films, Into, adverts, Visual FX, Video games development and also Motion Graphics.

my character turn around

this is my character turn around that i have drowned in my sketchbook but this is very rough sketch so i done a more neat character turn around  on photoshop just to have a more neat and tidy drawing that i could potentially import into maya as a plane image and use as reference material to model my character.  The reason drawing a turn around for our character is so important is because  so we have a visual of how our character will look like in different views because just having a final character drawing will not give us a full on view and when it comes to modelling having reference images that we can model from is much easier then to just have an idea in our heads of how the character should look like. having a visual is a most, because we can see every detail and if the character looks like what we planed it.

my character topology

this is the front view of my character topology, this is ow i think my character topology will look like i added enough mesh in the areas i know is going to deform  so they will deform properly. one thing that i learn is the more mesh we add the better it deforms so the knees and the elbows and neck area have more mesh then areas that wont deform. so by creating a topology i have an rough idea of how my mesh should look like when i am modelling my character.

this is the side view of my character i also done the topology for this view because like i said above this will help me to know roughly how my mesh should look like when i start modelling.

my mesh may change once i start modelling because only then i will actually see how many points and faces and edges i will actually need to model my character exactly how i want it. this is just a rough idea of what i should aim for because like i said it as areas that deforms and area that will not so i need to think that areas that deform need more mesh that areas that don't.

different ways to approach a non-deforming rig to a deforming rig

from my research i have found that ways that we approach an non-deforming rig to a deforming rig

deforming

1. research we the object is going to bend 
2. create different drawings of how the character or object may look like in different poses/angles or in different views.

non-deforming rigs

 this is a great example of a non-deforming rig because its a robot its made of metal and metal does not bend. so machinery is a non-deforming object.

Deforming rigs

  this is a good example of a deforming rig this rig highlights were the skin bends as the joints of the character move.

  another good example to show ho much the skin on a human face will stretch because a human has alto of different mussel that move every time that we do a facial expression.
so a good rig is a most to create a great character that moves naturally.

  this is ab great example of how rubber can be squash and stretch. and deform from its original form to a total complete different form.
i found this in a book it shows a great example deforming human bodies.

meaning of deforming and non-deforming 3D objects

The real wold is full of different objects some of this objects are hard some are soft. The soft objects can bend and fold into different shapes. for example human sick will bend and stretch  around the bone joints as we move them another great example is a rubber ball it will squash and stretch as it hits the ground its soft objects can be called deforming objects. Hard objects such as a cup or glass or wood will not bend the form will never change because its a solid object, this objects are called non-deforming. 

Its very important to know the difference between this objects in the 3D world because they both have different rigs and different ways to that we need to approach the modeling stages.

That's what will be looking at next.

how to draw topology

one of the problems i have is how do we know who the topology of our character is going to look like so how can we plan our topology before we model the character are we just going to guess how things look how do we know how the polygons look like or how the bend and stuff. i got realy confused with that part of my chatecter. but after some reseach on the internet i came across this website.
http://students.autodesk.com/ama/orig/Curriculum/ICF2010/downloads/ICF_Level_2_PDF/ICF_Anatomy_Human/ICF_A_Anatomy_01_The_Character_Study_Sample.pdf
 this is a great website its pages from a book that teaches you how to create the topology for a character.

topology

i found this great website that gave me great knolege of how topology works and how crusial a good topology is to model a great character.
http://www.phungdinhdung.com/Studies_paper/Realistic_face_modeling.shtm

this will defenally be a website i will keep refering to when i start modeling my character

this is my fist attempt of animating a walk cycle on Maya. this is a very standard walk the foot is not actually rotating properly like the toes are not bending but this was just for me to familiarize myself with the controls and the movements on Maya. i will perfect the movement now so it looks like and original walk not a mechanic walk. i used a download rig to create this movement this is not my character.    

walk cycle

this is a 33 frame normal walk cycle this is what i will use as reference for when i m trying to animate my rigged character. 

geometry (bad)

this is a bad example of geometry the mesh is all wrong if this would be for an animated character.

 their is not enough mesh.