What is the best way to rig this character?

[hammerjammer]

Hello Again mtbuck24

I know that there is Bind Layer, Bind Points, and Flexi Binding (ctrl+shift+f) and that in most rigs all three of these are used together

Yes I believe that's true. You can use one or any combination of them together in most cases.
Now the next logical question I had when learning this was, "How do I know which one is better for MY rig".
Well, Good luck with that one. This is something very hard to answer simply. I Believe it just comes down to experience.
Just create another one of them proof of concept files I spook of and give it a go.

Speaking of proof of concept. Your South part one is good. I see a bunch of lessons learned in that one. Good Job grass hopper. (as I give you a bowl). I think your doing fine already. all that rigging stuff your worried about will be a thing of the past soon.

True, but I think the thing what I'm trying to figure out is... say I put the overalls with out the details on one layer and then had the details of the overall - like the big pocket - on another layer. Is it just by combining the two layers with one bone how you make it work? and then just do the fine detailing with smart bones.

The process is basically the same whether you have one layer or several. In fact if you look at the rig I made with your art. I have the pocket on its own layer. So yes, you just assign or Bind each layer or points or whatever the same bone.
I hope my answer isn't to overly simplified, because again there are a couple of way to do it. It just depends on the rig.

So if you didn't use patches on something like say...the arm to the body. Would you just correct all the with smart bones? I also haven't heard too many good things about patch layers...

Yes, either smart bones OR maybe even flexi binding.
I did see a tutorial video for Anime Studio 10 that adds a new feature that looks like its going to make this a little easier.
But, its not difficult to do with AS 9.5 either.

Good luck to ya

HammerJammer

[heyvern]

From my side of things I have to be careful with advice because I know that some things work really well but can also be difficult for beginners.

For example my "trick" of keeping a continuous outline shape and offsetting parts of arms and legs with bone offset works well, but then I had to figure out how to do layer ordering of arms and legs. How do you change the layer order an arm if the whole body is on one layer and connected? You can't animate shape order.

So, the trick there is to duplicate that entire body layer with all the shapes; body, arms, legs, and then delete shapes but leave most of the splines. So for an arm, I would delete all the shapes except that arm, then delete as many points or splines I could that doesn't effect the continuous connection. The layers work together and the points move the same on all the layers, making it look like the whole thing is still one continuous connected shape. This technique works great for me and I use it on almost every character I create, but it's hard to describe and it does make things a bit harder to edit because the points all have to line up on all those layers.

The key for learning is to do all the basic stuff first but also to try some harder techniques even if they seem beyond your skill. Any technique no matter how complex isn't any different than learning a simple technique. It's a matter of trying stuff. I often spend time simply experimenting with ideas and techniques. Trying some crazy idea to see if it works. Once I understand how some cool trick works and how useful it is it sort of sticks in my head.

[mtbuck24]

Haha "grass hopper" thank you sensei...

Can't wait to be able to rig like the pro's, besides the timing of the actual animations that is one of the things I find most difficult.

Thank you for the response to my questions! You have been a huge help. I know with time I will figure out my own style, this is all just really knew and I'm just trying to figure out how it all works.

[mtbuck24]

From my side of things I have to be careful with advice because I know that some things work really well but can also be difficult for beginners.

haha that's alright it did take me a while to try and figure out what was going on, but I think I understand now.

For example my "trick" of keeping a continuous outline shape and offsetting parts of arms and legs with bone offset works well, but then I had to figure out how to do layer ordering of arms and legs. How do you change the layer order an arm if the whole body is on one layer and connected? You can't animate shape order.

So, the trick there is to duplicate that entire body layer with all the shapes; body, arms, legs, and then delete shapes but leave most of the splines. So for an arm, I would delete all the shapes except that arm, then delete as many points or splines I could that doesn't effect the continuous connection. The layers work together and the points move the same on all the layers, making it look like the whole thing is still one continuous connected shape. This technique works great for me and I use it on almost every character I create, but it's hard to describe and it does make things a bit harder to edit because the points all have to line up on all those layers.

That is true, I guess that would make it difficult to animate and it is kinda confusing to understand. But if I understand, after everything is set up correctly with the bones and you begin to animate and originally have all the shapes - parts of the body on one layer - when you go to animate the character and move the hand over the head, the shape of the hand is either going to be in front or behind the head or maybe cross over one another because its one continuous shape on one layer. So in the case you want to do a scene with the hand in front of the head, you would make a new layer "hand" and connect to the same bone (or however that works) so that it replaces the hand of the continuous shape layer below it?

I will definitely continue to use different techniques. Thanks for the advice and help! much appreciated!

[heyvern]

Yeah... er... it's kind of tricky.

Basically what I do is create the entire character all smoothly connected with all the shapes created on one layer. Have to do it that way to start. I do all rigging smart bones, point binding etc etc etc.

Then, I duplicate that full body layer with all the shapes as many times as I need for each part, left arm, right arm, left leg, body, hands etc.

On each layer I delete all the shapes except the one for that part. I just delete shapes not vectors. When all layers are visible it looks like one complete shape, as if it was still on one layer, but now I can animate the left arm behind the body, etc etc. Since all of the layers were created from the original with all the binding and smart bones, they all work exactly the same.

This does create some issues with making edits. That's when I look to other solutions to help out. There is a script that allows you to "link" points of identical layers... move points on one layer, and the points of all the layers move the same. It's a big help to make edits.

[mtbuck24]

Yeah... er... it's kind of tricky.

Basically what I do is create the entire character all smoothly connected with all the shapes created on one layer. Have to do it that way to start. I do all rigging smart bones, point binding etc etc etc.

Then, I duplicate that full body layer with all the shapes as many times as I need for each part, left arm, right arm, left leg, body, hands etc.

On each layer I delete all the shapes except the one for that part. I just delete shapes not vectors. When all layers are visible it looks like one complete shape, as if it was still on one layer, but now I can animate the left arm behind the body, etc etc. Since all of the layers were created from the original with all the binding and smart bones, they all work exactly the same.

This does create some issues with making edits. That's when I look to other solutions to help out. There is a script that allows you to "link" points of identical layers... move points on one layer, and the points of all the layers move the same. It's a big help to make edits.

Okay Awesome! Thanks for all your help heyvern!