All language subtitles for 07_11_character_rig_skinning

- [Zach] In this video,
let's do the skinning

for our character rig.

So, but before we can do that,

of course we need to
symmetrize the whole rig.

And of course you could
do it right at the start

when you create all the bones

and symmetrize this immediately.

However, what I like
to do is to wait until

we have added all the constraints,

because these will be symmetrized as well,

and this saves us a lot of work of course,

because then we don't have
to add the constraints

for all the bones on
the other side as well.

Then if you maybe remember,
we added all the Ls here

to all the bones, which are on one side

and then will be duplicated
to the other side.

And with the trick I will
show you in a second,

all the Ls will be renamed
into an R on the other side.

And actually it's super easy to do this.

Let's select everything,
in edit mode of course,

make sure everything is selected.

Let's press alt H just in case,

if we have hidden some of the bones,

and all we need to do is go to armature

and click on symmetrize,

or you can just do right click
and click on symmetrize here.

And now you can see, even
though we have selected

everything here, only the bones
which were on the one side

and not in the center here were duplicated

over to the other side and renamed

into the bone name plus the R.

You can see that, although
the axis is now pointing

in the other direction here,

they are still pointing
in the correct direction.

Z is pointing to the
back and X is going along

this axis here, so that
means in pose mode,

let's disable all the names here

and maybe even all the axis',
if I now select the hips,

for example, everything
should move correctly.

The elbows should move this correctly.

As you can see, all the
constraints are working,

this looks perfectly fine.

And now it's time to connect
the mesh and the armature.

One little note here,

when we added all the controller bones,

we set them up to be not a deformer bone,

so I disabled deform for
all of these bones here,

for the knees, for the
elbows, for the IK bones,

for the root bone here,
and also the IK bones here

at the hand, and also for these
two face controller bones,

which we will take care of a bit later.

So this is important before
we now connect these two bones

and also this bone down here.

This big hip bone should
not be a deformer bone,

because now when we
are connecting the mesh

to the armature system, it will
only generate vertex groups

for all the bones which has
the deform check mark here,

which is set up by default.

So if you want to set up
some non deform bones,

you have to manually
disable the checkbox here.

So now let's go to object
mode, select the mesh first,

then with shift, the armature system,

press control P, and then we
are going with empty groups.

I mean, let's check out
the automatic weights here,

just to see what it does.

We have a warning here,
failed to find solution

for one or more bones.

Then let's go to pose mode
and see what's going on here.

You can see it hasn't worked at all.

So you can see why this is not
a solution here in our case.

So let's do it one more time.

Select the mesh first, then the armature,

hit control P, and
click on armature deform

with empty groups.

Now if I select the mesh,
go to the object data,

vertex groups, we have a
lot of vertex groups here.

So, and doing this is
pretty straightforward.

First, we go to edit mode with alt H,

make sure that all the meshes are unhidden

so we can see them.

Then I would suggest to enable X-ray

so we can see through the objects here

to make it easier to select objects

which are sticked into each other.

And then this is my workflow.

I open up the search
bar, search for the bone

which I want to work on
first, which is the head.

And actually in this case,
let's enable the names here,

which can make the whole
thing a bit easier.

Then let's go back to the
mesh, go to edit mode.

And now we only see the
head vertex group over here.

Let's select everything
inside the head, not the neck.

And in order to make sure that
everything is fully selected,

hit control plus a few times,

then we are growing the selection
and you can also press G

to move this stuff around.

Let's disable X symmetry.

Then we can see if there's any
cube which we have left over.

If not, make sure this is
selected and hit assign,

then with H let's hide the mesh,

which we assigned to a
vertex group already.

And to later on visually see
which vertex groups are done,

let's lock this, then
you can see later on,

okay this is locked.

This is done already.

If you want to add any other vertices

to this specific vertex group,

you have to unlock this
first in order to do that.

Then we have the neck over here.

Let's simply press L here,

hit assign, lock this, and hide this.

Then let's go with the chest,

which is also just one
cube here, assign, lock.

So of course the hiding
and locking is optional.

This is just something so we make sure

that we don't forget anything.

Then we have the belly top here, assign.

The belly bottom over here, assign.

Then let's search for the hips.

Here we have a few more cubes,
so you can simply press L L L

above all these cubes
here and then assign this,

and so on and so forth.

I will now fast forward this a bit,

because you can see it's a bit of work,

but I think you get the idea now.

Just make sure that you assign
left and right correctly.

So now you can see the whole mesh is gone.

Let's disable the names here.

Then let's go back to
edit mode and press alt H

to un-hide everything.

And let's remove the search term here.

And now you can see I
have locked all of them.

That means I'm completely through.

And now you can also unlock them again,

which is a bit easier
to work with later on

if you change anything on
the character and quickly

want to add something
to the vertex groups.

By the way, if you later on
realize you have added something

wrong to a specific vertex group,

let's say I have added
this arm here to the bone

on the other side,

then make sure to select this,
click on this arrow first,

and click on remove from all groups.

Then the vertices will be
removed from any other groups

they are in, and then
you can reassign them

to the correct group.

So now let's check if we have
done everything correctly.

Let's go to pose mode, select
the hips, that looks good.

That looks good as well.

The head is moving correctly, the neck,

the upper chest here, the belly, the arms.

For the hands, of course,
it's important that

this bone is only moving this cube here.

The thumb is moving the thumb cube,

and the finger bone is moving the fingers.

Yeah, and this looks all correct.

So our character is in general
now ready to be animated.

However, we still want to set
up our nice little face rig

that we can move these bones here,

and then he will like
open the mouth, smile,

close they eyes, and so on and so forth.

And we will also organize the bones a bit

to make working with the
bones later on a bit easier.

However, that's it for this video.

And as always, don't forget to save.