All language subtitles for 07_14_character_rig_organization

- [Zach] In this video,
let's organize the bones

and visually highlight them to make

working with a rig in the
animation stage easier.

So all in all our
character rig is done yet

that means we can switch to
pose mode and start animating

the whole thing, so everything
should work as expected

however, the rig doesn't
look too nice visually

and all the bones are
enabled all the time,

that means we have some
bones overlapping like here,

and this can make our
animation work a bit harder.

And that's why we will organize
the bones a bit both with

color and with bone layers.

Now important, we need to be in pose mode

and in the armature settings,

let's go to the bone groups first.

Bone groups are similar as vertex groups

we can group certain bones together,

but here we have one additional
feature which I wanna use,

so let's create a new bone
group and under color,

we can pick a certain color theme.

So for the first group,
let's pick the red color here

and let's call this,
double click on this main,

something like this, you can
of course pick your own names,

and all you need to do now is
to select the main bones which

you will need when
animating the character,

which are the IK bones,

the root bone here than
the IK bones of the hand,

I hold on Shift so I can
select multiple bones

and the head bone.

These are the main bones,

then let's hit assign
and then you can see,

they turn into red, pretty cool.

And of course the hip bone
should also be included,

so let's assign this as well,

that means all these bones are
necessary to drive the main

motion of the character
and everything else

is not so important.

Let's create a new group here,

and let's call it secondary
or something like this,

and let's pick the green color theme here.

To not confuse ourselves too much,

let's go back to the
main and click on select,

then all of these bones will be selected

and then press H to hide them.

In this way we know which of the bones

we added to a group already.

So to the secondary group,

I wanna add all the bones,
which we need more often,

but not controlling the major movement,

which is like the entire
spine and neck thing,

then also these upper
arms and the upper legs,

let's assign them
because with these bones,

we can control the shoulder position here,

which we maybe sometimes wanna do

and here we can control the leg position,

which is something we will not do often

but in some rare cases,
this might be helpful.

Let's select all the bones
and with H, hide them.

Let's create a new
group, let's call it face

and pick maybe the blue color here,

select the two face bones and assign them

and then hide them.

Then we have these bones here,

which are the lower arms
and the original hand bones,

which deformed the mesh,

but we will never really touch
them to manually move them

around, so let's create a new group,

let's call it, helper
or something like this,

and then it's pick this
black-ish color theme and assign

them, then you can see they
will not be highlighted.

Let's press H to hide them,

and actually let's select the
finger bones and add them to

the secondary bones and hide them.

And then we have the elbows and
the knees, and I think here,

I wanna do it in a certain way,

because since these bones
are just floating in space

randomly, it's a bit hard
to distinguish sometimes

in the animation process,

to understand which bone belongs

to which leg or which arm.

So let's select one side here,

which is the left side of the character.

Let's create a new group here,

and call it left and pick
something like this pinkish color

and assign them and then select the other

side, create a new
group and call it right,

and pick a different color or

something like this and assign.

And then we always know which
bone belongs to which side,

or even if this bone moves
over here and this bone maybe

here, then we still
know that this one here

is the right side.

So now let's press Alt
H to unhide everything,

and now we have this nice colorful rig.

However, we still have the problem

that everything is overlapping here.

And for that, we have the bone layers,

which we can find under skeleton.

Well, here we actually have
the legacy layer systems,

something like this we had in the past

before we had all the nice
collections and stuff like this,

but we still have it here for the bones.

And each of this square here
is basically a separate layer.

And you can see when
there's a dot on the layer,

there is something on this layer.

And we can put the different
bones on different layers.

So that means let's select everything,

then hit M and maybe put
it somewhere here for now.

Now you can see, I moved
all the bones over here,

that means here is the dot,
and if I click on this layer,

everything is visible.

Now let's see how we can
separate the whole thing.

All in all, I would probably
go with the groups here,

so let's select the main bones, press M

and put them on the first layer.

Then the secondary bones, select them

and put them on the second layer,

then the face select it,
put it on the third layer.

Then the helpers select them,

put it on the fourth layer
and then for left and right,

I think I put them on these
two layers left and right.

I think this is easier
to remember select them,

put it here for the left bones
and these here select them,

put it on the right.

And now, as you can see,
I can click through here,

and only enable the bones
which are necessary.

And when I hold on Shift, as you can see,

I can also enable multiple layers.

So I could enable all of
them except the helpers

which we basically never touch,

and then we only have the bones enabled,

which are important.

Of course, both the bone
groups and the bone layers,

you can organize in your very own way,

if you feel that how I do it
is not good for your work flow,

then of course do it differently,
this is just one approach.

So and the very last thing I
do usually is to go to viewport

display and change the display
as to something like stick or

wire, because wire is so small,

you can see all these lines here,

they are not totally covering
the character itself so we can

clearly see what the character is doing.

Of course, you can also enable the axis

which makes it a bit easier
to see where the joints of the

bones are, and here, by the way,

you can also enable or
disable the group colors.

Besides the wire display,
the stick bones is also nice,

however, if you zoom away a bit,

you can see it's just a bunch
of dots overlapping each

other, so in this case, I
would just switch to stick.

So this would be my final rig,

I don't go any further
with organizing and so on.

However, there's one more
feature I wanna show you

just in case you wanna use it.

So let's go back to the
octahedral display just to see the

bones a bit better, then
let's go back to object mode,

and we can basically
create any mesh object

and then use this as shape for the bones.

Meaning I could, for
example, add a circle,

which is like totally not
allowed to do in the Cubic World,

(laughs) but there you can
easily see what I mean,

and let's go back to the rig,

let's select the root
bone here, for example,

go to the bone settings,
view port display,

and here we have this custom object field,

and here let's pick the
circle with eyedropper.

And now you can see this circle
is used to replace the shape

of the bone, which can make the whole rig

visually much easier to understand,

to see, okay, this is the root bone.

Then back in object mode,

I could also create a cube for example,

and then here for the head,

use this cube and you can see
it's now a transparent cube,

but here you can also check wire

then it will only show this as wire frame,

and the way it works is
basically picks the cube,

the shape let's press T use the move tool

with the local transform orientation,

and then it will align it in a way that

the Y axis is pointing to the top,

the exact same way as we
have the axis on the bones.

However, if I now scale or change,

the cube here in object mode,

will not change the appearance over here,

but when I switch to edit mode,

you can see how this is changing.

Also, the origin of the object

will define the position of the joint here

at the rood of the bone.

So for example, if I go
to affect only origins,

and move this down to this position,

the Y axis is the up axis here,

that means if I disable this in edit mode,

I could scale it down,
something like this.

And then you can see we have
this nice cube around the head,

which makes this of course
way easier to select.

And in a same way, we could
also create a plane here,

then let's click on affect only origins,

move the origin over here somewhere,

make this a bit flatter,
maybe add one loop cut here,

and use this shape for the hand.

Use wire, and we can
even use the same shape

for the other hand as well.

Use wire and then we could
go into edit mode and change

the shape even more if we like.

So that it is fitting the
shape of the hand here,

then we can easily select
the hand and for the armature

we can also enable the axis to
better see the origin or the

joint here of these bones.

And the cool thing is
when you edit the shapes,

you can simply delete the
original objects and then they are

still attached to the rig,

however, you lose the ability

to change the shapes of course.

Let's disable affect only origins,

and then you can always go in here

and disable the shapes if you like.

So this is definitely a cool feature,

if you just create one character rig

where you wanna have a
perfect rig go for it,

however, since here in Cubic Worlds,

I will create new characters
where I use this character

here, for example, as foundation,

then I need to change
the whole rig sometimes,

and then I don't wanna create
new shapes all the time.

And that's why I will remove
these shapes here once again,

so let's throw them out of
the window and then let's go

back to the wire display
for our character.

Yeah, now you know how
to create a full rig

for our Cubic Worlds characters,

and the same principles we have used

here for this character,

we also can use for animals,
for creatures, for robots,

for vehicles and so on and so forth,

which we will also learn more about later.

Since duplicating and
altering the character

is one important thing which we will do

very often here in Cubic Worlds,

I will show you in the next video,

how you can do this and
how to solve certain issues

which can arise when you're
doing something like this.

However, that's it for this video here,

and as always, don't forget to save.