Custom Models - Need Help Rigging

[blacklimo]

Hi everyone

I have a couple of models made by Highelf on commission from me and I need to get them rigged so I can use them in-game.  I have absolutely no idea how to go about this.  As I have zero experience in this area, I would actually rather have someone do this for me, but I am willing to have a crack at it if someone can give me some guidance

Any advice / pointers / gotchas would be greatly appreciated

 

[amade]

I thought Highelf could rig? Didn't you ask him to rig for you as well?

If it wasn't part of the deal you could try out manitas' auto rigging tool, here's a tutorial: http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,61382.0.html
I can't remember where the link for the tool itself is, but you should be able to search for it.

 

[Shik]

There's also two tutorials here about manual rigging:

http://mbx.streetofeyes.com/index.php/topic,1042.0.html
http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,15272.msg286145.html#msg286145

 

[blacklimo]

Hey, thanks for the links guys

Hopefully I will get time to check this out, and maybe learn how to do this (looks pretty darn complicated)

Had a quick read of the tuts....  now I need to give my brain a few hours to recover

 

[amade]

I'd rather have you try it yourself first, but if you still can't do it I'd like to give it a try doing it with a new script for Blender which is supposed to make it easier to rig armor (I could try the new script with native armor or my own but I just don't have the motivation to mess around with an already rigged armor ). No promises though, since I'm not a really good rigger and work very slowly on it too.

 

[Llew2]

Unless you are familiar with a program (Blender?) it'll be a little bit harder, since you need to learn the program even before you learn to rig.

That said, I'd advise Blender, because you can do so much in addition to rigging, if you ever need to.

Some tips: Use the auto rigging tool (basing off a similar model) to get the initial rig on a given thing, and then take it into your program and fine tune it. This is how I did my second-ever armor rigging in about 15 minutes. Also, use someone else's armor as a reference! I used Lynore's plate armor model to see how he rigged it (I used this because it had the same separate elbow-guards as the one I was rigging, and I had no idea how they were done. If your model is simpler, which I suspect it will be, you can find a model more suitable. All else failing though, Lynores armor is excellent, as he is a top-notch rigger. Its in the HYW mod, in the Plate Armor brf file.) and it was invaluable. I wouldn't necessarily advise using a Native model, because the rigging is more complicated than it needs to be and can be confusing.

At some point I intend to put together a tut for how to rig in Blender, because it is wicked easy, but don't count on it to soon.

 

[amade]

...I wouldn't necessarily advise using a Native model, because the rigging is more complicated than it needs to be and can be confusing.

I felt that Native's rigging was simple and crude. With some minor clipping and deformation issues cleverly hidden.

 

[Llew2]

...I wouldn't necessarily advise using a Native model, because the rigging is more complicated than it needs to be and can be confusing.

I felt that Native's rigging was simple and crude. With some minor clipping and deformation issues cleverly hidden.

Clipping and deformation are a fact of M&B animations, as far as I'm concerned. I was busy knocking myself over the head for some clipping and twisting issues in my model, until I loaded of M&B and looked at some of the game models. My conclusion? You really never notice how bad some of them are, so don't worry about it.

That said, if you have rigged them [the clipping and deformation that is] away, I'd be curious to see some of your models.

 

[Highelfwarrior]

By the by; the primary reason (among others) I don't do rigging as commission is because I'm not very confident with my skills as a rigger. Asking money for a skill I'm insecure about is a no-go, logically.

Seeing the demand for rigging is really high (although I don't know if people would actually commission me to do it), I might put some effort into it and get back in touch with rigging the next few days. We'll see.

 

[Llew2]

Seeing the demand for rigging is really high (although I don't know if people would actually commission me to do it), I might put some effort into it and get back in touch with rigging the next few days. We'll see.

There's a market for it, that's for sure. For instance, I just got landed with 22 models, including a Warg, from TLD that need to be rigged. I'll be getting plenty of experience in the near future.

If you could nail down a system to do it reliably and quickly, you could charge a few bucks per model and not do to badly.

 

[amade]

...I wouldn't necessarily advise using a Native model, because the rigging is more complicated than it needs to be and can be confusing.

I felt that Native's rigging was simple and crude. With some minor clipping and deformation issues cleverly hidden.

Clipping and deformation are a fact of M&B animations, as far as I'm concerned. I was busy knocking myself over the head for some clipping and twisting issues in my model, until I loaded of M&B and looked at some of the game models. My conclusion? You really never notice how bad some of them are, so don't worry about it.

That said, if you have rigged them [the clipping and deformation that is] away, I'd be curious to see some of your models.

Yep, most of the native armor have really awkward rigging especially for the shoulder. Though it's understandable if you are limited to one set of animation for all armor.

If you like I could give you my bronze armor model and let you have a look at it, I've kept clipping to a minimum but couldn't really get the deformation issue completely ironed out. Would be interested to hear what someone else has to say about it or suggest any improvements especially since I'm learning this by myself. Shoot me a PM if you're interested.

Highelf: Yeah, like Llew said there's demand for it. If you're not too sure of your skills you could charge your fees proportionately to how good you think you are. If you think you're not very good at it, charge a low fee... at least you'll still get paid for it.

 

[Highelfwarrior]

True. I used to be really good at rigging, though. (for M&B, at least) I'm the first guy that made non-horse mounts work. (bears, boars, Star wars kadoo's, a huge chicken, tiger, some kind of dog, etc etc.) and one of my first projects modding M&B was rigging an armour bigger than a regular human and try and make it work.

The catch is just that it's SOO long ago. But like I said, I'll mess with it a bit, hoping the knowledge returns quickly.

Llew2: Hah, wow. You're just done with your first model and you've got 22 models thrown at you to rig? I saw the desperate cry for riggers in the TLD thread, though. Doesn't mean they would actually hire me to do it.

 

[blacklimo]

Crap Sandwiches!!!!  Am I totally retarded or something???  I can't even successfully re-orientate and resize the weapon models in wings

/facepalm

for the sake of my computer's continued good health, and my own insanity,  perhaps I should ask very nicely for someone to do this for me?   Please?

 

[omzdog]

I'm not very confident with my skills as a rigger.

Wha-Oh.

 

[Alan Q Smithee]

I too need help rigging a thing.

I made myself a sketchy model of a penny-farthing, the old big-honking-ass front wheel bicycle from the 1870s, and now I'm stuck. I didn't think I cared about it being animated so I just used the item editor tool to replace some random horse's model with my velocipede, but in-game I just end up floating in the air. So ok I figure, maybe I actually have to roll up my sleeves and see about rigging the ****er. Only it ends up stretched out in a nasty way when I just toss it in with an .smd of a horse skellington and run obj2smd; didn't even bother trying it in-game.

Next I thought I'd try, just for shiggles, exporting an .smd of a speederbike from the SW mod and throwing that into the mix with obj2smd. Exact same stretchy result.

So what do I need to do? All the better if the front wheel and handlebars can move independent of the rest of the body while turning.

 

[Highelfwarrior]

There would be no way to do it efficiently. The wheels wouldn't turn, and the whole thing would be 100% static. (the front wheel and handlebars wouldnt turn seperately; but the whole thing would) It'd look really stupid. The speederbikes work because they have to be static. They float and nothing in the model itself has to turn or anything.

 

[amade]

There would be no way to do it efficiently. The wheels wouldn't turn, and the whole thing would be 100% static. (the front wheel and handlebars wouldnt turn seperately; but the whole thing would) It'd look really stupid. The speederbikes work because they have to be static. They float and nothing in the model itself has to turn or anything.

I reckon you could make the wheels and handle bars turn separately if you assign it to the head bone and put it exactly on the axis where the head bone rotates, but the head also moves up and down

 

[Highelfwarrior]

Yeah, the bobbing is always a pain. The main body does that too -- that was a problem when I made the first speeder rig. I think someone changed the animation to lose the bobbing or found a workaround or something; so who knows. The wheels still wouldn't turn though, so it'd still look really really wonky.

 

[Alan Q Smithee]

You're probably right. And since I still want to keep horses too, I probably couldn't make all the changes to the bicycle mechanics and keep horses normal.

Dang, and I had this... vision, of legions of guys in waistcoats and tophats, charging each other on pennyfarthings, slashing away with straight razors, jousting with chimney sweep brushes, circling about and taking aim with slingshots... I tell you, I cackled.

 

[Alan Q Smithee]

Thanks amade!

(untextured, that's just my rough sketch for a UV map)