Rigging and Model Importing Tips: Updated June 7th

[nanobuds]

Hello KC:MM!

This is a tutorial that will give tips about creating quality rigs and model imports for Brawl. I will not go over the basics of rigging; there is already a tutorial for that.

This tutorial will cover the following:

Part 1: Aligning the model with the bones
Part 2: Rigging tips
Part 3: Fixing model quality
Part 4: Reducing File Size
Part 5: Special Effects for your models

What you need
-3ds Max 2010-2011 (this tutorial uses 2010)
-The latest Brawl Box
-Basic knowledge of the use of 3ds Max and Brawl Box
-Patience
-Swag

Other Stuff
-I will be rigging Brotherhood Ezio Auditore during the tutorial. Other models will vary, and may need different adjustments that this one.
-If you have questions regarding these tips, feel free to ask. Don't spam me with PM's though.
-NEVER Move or Scale bones during the rigging process. That will screw over your model.
-This is my way of making imports better. There may be other ways and opinions, but this is how I do it.


Part 1: Aligning the model with the bones

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2. Change the model view to Wireframe.

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3. Edit the various areas to fit with the bones better.

Part 1a: Arms and Hands

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The best thing to do is vertex edit the area to fit with the bones easier... use the edit mesh modifier to do this. If you need some tips with vertex editing, you can find various tutorials around the internet. However, by the end of editing, the objects should line up with the bones like this:

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Notice how the ArmJ bone  is where the elbow is suppose to be. The center of rotation for your arm is in your elbow, so make sure the ArmJ is in the center of the elbow area. There should be an even about of verts on either side of the bone.

Now for hands... try to line them up like this:

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Notice how I distributed the verts evenly around the joints. This will help make the rigging process easier. Also take not on the location of the bones.

Fingers tend to terrify people. However, it's just as easy as rigging arms. The only problem that people have is lining them up correctly. If you do this, then rigging will be a million times easier. These hand's aren't even Ezio's... they're SCV's StarKiller's. If lining up the hands is near impossible, just borrow hands from another model.

Part 1b: Legs

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The solution? Just rotate the bones. Its that easy.

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The length is just fine, so no need to do any major mesh editing. This however, may not be the case for all models, and will usually need mesh editing like in Part 1a.

Part 1c:Torso and Hips

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Make sure the hips are centered around the HipN bone. The legs should be lined up horizontally with the hip, and vertically with the butt cheek. Just picture where your leg joints are, and line them up accordingly.

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Part 1d:The Head

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Part 2: Rigging Tips

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2. Weigh the verts 100% to the BustN

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3. Deselect the verts above the BustN bone, and rig the rest to the WaistN

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4. Deselect the verts above the WaistN bone, and rig the rest to the HipN bone:

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This should hopefully prevent you from having any stray verts. I will later go in and show you how to tweak up those areas so they bend more smoothly.

Part 2b:Arms

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Then, deselect the verts on the chest and back, and only rig the rest of the arm to the ShoulderJ bone.

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Then rig the verts about halfway down the shoulder area, near the elbow to the ArmJ bone.

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Finally, rig the Hand to the HandN bone

Now time to make some tweaks. First, turn on AutoKey at the bottom and move the bar to any frame. Then, rotate the ShoulderN bone.

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See how it stretches? Select the verts being stretched, and click the + button or the Blend button on the Weight Tool to try to smooth it out. It just takes experimenting with the tools and weights to master it.

Then rotate the ShoulderJ bone. It should have a nice, smooth, round rotation to it like a natural bone movement. My rig didnt need any tweaking.

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Now for the ArmJ. It is such an easy part to rig, yet I see so many people screw up on it.

First, bend the arm and hide and polygons around it. See how the elbow looks very flat? Not good.

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Select the flat verts, and rig them to the ShouderJ bone, so its not as flat.

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I'm not done yet. It is still flat and unnatural.

Select the verts on the edge of the elbow, select he ArmJ bone in the Weight Table,, and hit the blend tool a few times until it looks better.

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Voila! The elbow looks better.

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Now, rotate the hand bone.

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See how it goes through the sleeve and armor? that is called Clipping. Thats a no-no. Just fix it by selecting the problematic verts, and rig them to the HandN bone.

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Time for the horrible, feared, fingers... actually they're really easy. You just gotta line up the verts properly, and it'll work.

First select the verts of one finger, and rig them to the 1stNa bone.

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Then, select the verts above the 1stNb bone, and rig them to the 1stNb bone.

Then rotate them. See how the joint is kinda flat? Use the same method as the ArmJ bone to smooth it out.

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Do the same for the 1stNb bone if needed.

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Just do the same for the rest of the fingers. The thumb is also rigged the same, its just sideways.




Other parts coming soon!

[Boygos]

Looks good so far! Alternatively, you can press F3 to view wireframe.

[Kamina]

This will be very useful for people who want to get into importing, especially because it looks like this guide will be more detailed then other importing guides.

[nanobuds]

I plan to go deeper into different techniques for rigging, as well as ways to just overall make rigging easier.

[FallenKing]

Just finished reading everything, and I gotta say, this really helps. I never used the wireframe view, and I never really thought about lining up the bones like that. That'd probably explain why I could never perfectly blend even the simplest areas like the elbow and knee-caps. lol

So for the fingers, the finger bones generally go half-way up the fingers? Oh, and the lower finger-bones line up with the knuckles, right? I'm thinking about borrowing another model's hands to properly rig Phoenix Wright's hands/fingers. lol

I'm looking forward to the next part of this guide.

[nanobuds]

yeah, the 2nd finger joints go about midway in the fingers, make sure you group enough verts around the joints

[Ninka_kiwi]

This may seem stupid for me to ask, but we are now able to change the boneset of a model slightly?

For instance, I am rigging meta ridley over charizard right now and charizard as very wide seperation between his leg bones, So I coulde just move the leg bones to ridleys legs?

[nanobuds]

This may seem stupid for me to ask, but we are now able to change the boneset of a model slightly?

For instance, I am rigging meta ridley over charizard right now and charizard as very wide seperation between his leg bones, So I coulde just move the leg bones to ridleys legs?

Heres what I would do.

In BrawlBox, delete all the leg bones. Then, make a new bone branching off the HipN bone for each leg, naming it something that the animations won't affect. Then, branch off bones from that new bone you made, and re-construct the original bone tree...

It's hard to explain... but it's what I'm doing for Mewtwo's tail.

PM Beyond about it... he did it for Pac Man.

[Infernape]

Ah nice! :happy: ill be waiting until it gets done

[Kamina]

Part 5: Special Effects for your models

How did I not notice this! I'll definitely be using this part. (I know most of the other parts to rigging fairly well..)

[Nasca Corp]

How did I not notice this! I'll definitely be using this part. (I know most of the other parts to rigging fairly well..)

Me too ...
I want the shiny texture ... Thanks, cause i'm a noob with riggin, this is helpfull

[nanobuds]

Me too ...
I want the shiny texture ... Thanks, cause i'm a noob with riggin, this is helpfull

I will cover how to do that. I plan to finish most of the tutorial this weekend

[FallenKing]

How should I have the shoulders lined up? I had to really stretch out Evil Ryu's shoulders to match Ganondorf's long arms, so I ended up with this:

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and here's what I have after I finished blending:

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Is this a problem with aligning the model with the skeleton, or is it because I blended it incorrectly? Is it both?

[nanobuds]

make the shoulders a bit wider... also try blending the stretched verts to the BustN

[FallenKing]

Do you plan on updating this eventually? I would definitely appreciate some more rigging guidelines, especially for shoulders. I also usually have problems rigging legs (not the knees), especially when you have clothing or some sort of material covering up a portion of the leg, and you need to rig parts of the clothing to move with the leg.