Advanced Skeleton

Time has come to start with the rigging process. Due to time constraints, and the fact rigging is complex, timeconsuming and I completely hated it during the previous module, I decided to google around for tools that help me speed up the process. I found Advanced Skeleton, by Øyvind Nøstdal:

Process was pretty straightforward, yet still I couldn't manage to get it work at the first try, so I will list here a couple of tips in case you decide to use it and help you not to get stuck:

1. When they say you shall not move the joints beyond the X axis and you should rotate the previous joint to place them into position instead, they mean it! Not being careful enough about the orientation of your joints from the start leads to funky controllers, and try to fix it later leads to weird mirroring. 

2. If you happen to load a reference that has many layers and you happen to group them, skinCage's "copy skin to selected mesh" won't work if you select the mesh by selecting the group in the Outlier. You will have to select mesh by mesh inside the group node, and press the button each time.

3. Do not touch the "delete all by type" menu. Just stay away!

4. If you ever get this error while working:

... go erase your temporary files from your computer. 

I use a tool for that called CCleaner, is freeware and keeps your computer fit. 

Body rig seems to work wonderfully so far. I will keep on working on the facial rig and come back with updates.