Placing joints in the model

00:04

OK. Let's start with the left arm and place the clavicle joint first

00:09

and then the shoulder

00:10

elbow

00:12

and rest.

00:14

As you can see,

00:15

Mayer has helped by estimating the middle of the model and placing the joints for us.

00:22

So to use the last tool,

00:23

you can press G so it can quickly jump back into the joint tool and create the thumb.

00:28

We are looking for the main knuckle area or

00:31

the points where each section would pivot around.

00:41

Now the main finger,

00:44

so the knuckle looks like it should be here.

00:48

And remember we added the extra edge loops here so we can get a nicer bend in this area.

00:53

So this can also help guide us with joint placement.

00:57

And then we need another at the end of the finger,

01:00

the claws don't bend.

01:02

So we don't need a joint in those.

01:05

If you're not sure about where the best place is to put your joints,

01:08

then refer to some skeleton reference.

01:10

There's plenty available online.

01:12

OK. The last finger now

01:22

done.

01:24

I'm wondering whether to add another joint further up the hand.

01:27

I'll leave that for this rig.

01:29

It's only going to be a basic skeleton. So we don't need the metacarpal movement.

01:35

Another thing to be aware of with any game skeleton is the joint count.

01:39

Each extra joint you add, will impact on the engine.

01:43

So the more you add, the more chances you have of slowing the game down.

01:46

So it pays to be frugal.

01:49

This obviously depends on the target platform. So to be safe,

01:53

get a rough joint account limit from the team lead or your client.

01:58

OK. We will leave the hand like this for now,

02:01

let's create the lead. Next,

02:06

we want the first joint to be here at the crease of his hip,

02:11

the next at the first knee

02:14

and another here.

02:16

Let's check the texture for a second.

02:20

OK?

02:21

I was wondering how far the toes could spread but it looks

02:24

like they could be limited to the base of the foot.

02:27

OK. Let's add a foot joint here.

02:35

Now, for the toes,

02:47

one here

02:53

and another here.

02:56

Now these joint placements aren't final.

02:58

We will be coming back and tweaking them later,

03:02

we could probably do with an extra edge loop here where the toe bends,

03:06

I'll just quickly add one

03:09

and make sure I enable symmetry two. So it adds this to the opposite two.

03:14

Remember to bring up this marking menu, hold down,

03:17

shift and control and then click with your right mouse button.

03:22

That's good. The edges are blue, which means they are symmetrical.

03:26

I'll just select this edge ring and go to connect components

03:33

there we have it added to the other side too.

03:36

We can also remove this edge here to collapse that triangle.

03:41

We can do this one too.

03:43

There are lots of areas of this model that need fixing.

03:46

But I'm gonna try to focus more on the rigging.

03:50

That's a bit better.

03:52

We just need to soften the edges. Now,

03:57

there we go.

03:58

Distraction over. OK. Let's get back to the skeleton.

04:02

So that's the leg

04:03

and you will notice that I'm only working on the left side.

04:07

This is because we can simply copper these over to

04:09

create the right side when we are finished with them.

04:12

Now, let's add the spine.

04:16

I'll switch to the front view.

04:19

We need to start at his core.

04:21

This is the point where he would pivot if he bends over.

04:24

So this could change depending on the character.

04:29

Maybe around here.

04:31

We then need four more joints ending at the base of his neck.

04:38

Let's double check with the unreal skeleton.

04:43

We have the pelvis

04:49

and then three spine joints before the neck.

04:52

So five in total just like us,

04:55

remember that you can have more in your skeleton. If you need them,

04:59

the spine joints need to be dead center. So we need to check those.

05:04

I'm going to hold down X which will snap to the grid

05:07

and then move them across the X axis.

05:10

There, it moved a small amount.

05:13

But this is important if we plan to mirror anything in the future.

05:17

Let's fix the other joints.

05:19

And another option, instead of using the snap tool,

05:22

you can simply set the translate X attribute of each joint. Zero.

05:27

Each joint's translation attributes are simply an offset value.

05:31

So it's the distance from its parent joint.

05:35

So setting these to zero, moves them back to the middle of the grid.