Best pose for rigging?

[LucyLa]

Hello. I’m new here. This is my very first question. I’m wondering if there is a best-practice pose for rigging a human character. I’ve seen T poses (and A and X?). I can see how that would work for front and back. But what about side view and halfway between side and front?
Thanks
Lucy.

[synthsin75]

I often start with a front A pose. T and X poses make it a bit harder to get the shoulders shaped right. From there, it depends on how you're animating body turns. If not interpolating the turns, you just rig 3/4 and side poses in their own bone layers, and throw them all in a switch layer. This method is used in limited animation and can be effective, especially with proper anticipation, snappy animation, and follow through. If you want smooth, interpolated turns, you'll need to use actions/smart-bones to move the bones and morph the artwork to the other views.

The major benefit of starting with the front view is that you don't have to contend with bones overlapping, but not all animation needs a direct front view. There are plenty of animations, like Family Guy, etc., that only use 3/4 views. In that case, I'd just rig in 3/4 view. Only rig for what you need, and don't be afraid to do one-off rigs for any special cases, like a sitting rig.

[Greenlaw]

It depends on how you intend to use the rig in your production. I'll assume you want to build a general-purpose rig to re-use for many situations, so I'll focus on that.

If your intention is to create a turning character, start with the front pose. This will give you the same starting point regardless of which direction the character is turning. It's much harder to set up a turn when the character starts at a 3qtr or side pose.

But if you're not planning to have smooth turns and you're just 'rig-swapping' different angle views (like a Character Wizard rig,) then it doesn't matter. But even so, I'd still start with the front view as the primary pose in the Switch layer. Again, it's just easier to manage when you start with a front view, especially if you're using a bi-directional Smart Bone Dial to select the different views.

As for arm position, I usually do a traditional T-Pose (arms out in T shape.) This is because I often include an 'roll' control for the arms and this is easier to create when the arms are aligned horizontally. Naturally, this works for vertical alignment too--that's good for a 'roll' control in the legs but for some character designs, it may work well for the arms too.

Tip: Regardless of alignment, it's usually better to draw the artwork for the limbs straightened with no bend in the joint. This makes is easier to bend the limb in either direction and get the same deformation in either direction. You might want to put a slight 'pre-bend' in the joint of the bones so there is a preferred direction for the IK to bend. (Don't worry about committing to a direction in the rig; when you're animating the character, you can change the IK's preferred direction by keyframing the bend in the opposite direction. Just pick the most common 'pre-bend' direction you anticipate for your character. Also, this is more of a thing I do for the legs, and less so for the arms.)

In short, there's no right way or wrong way for every character. For some characters, I've even used a relaxed T-Pose (arms in an 'A' angle) because it worked better for the particular design, but either a traditional T-Pose or arms down the sides of the body ('H' pose?) is normal for most character designs I've worked with.

Hope this helps.

[Greenlaw]

Only rig for what you need, and don't be afraid to do one-off rigs for any special cases, like a sitting rig.

This is good advice. Building a full 'all purpose' rig can be time-consuming, and for some projects it may be easier and quicker to make shot-specific 'one-off' rigs. A lot of times, I wind up doing both, but having the simple shot-specific rigs usually means I don't need to over-engineer the general-purpose one to assume really difficult poses.

[Greenlaw]

BTW, when I'm asked to create a full rig for a character at work, I usually make a front view that does a smooth 3qtr turn in either direction, and then the rig snaps to a separate 'side view' artwork for the profile. This is because it's easier to have a separate rig for the face in this angle, especially when the design requires the mouth to be cut out in the profile (instead of pasted on the side, like you usually see in anime.)

In many of my rigs, the character's smooth turning range will be only be from front-to-3qtr view, and depending on how well you animate the character, the 'snap' that occurs from 3qtr to profile can be barely noticeable. (Check out the Boss Baby footage on my demo reel for examples.)

For the back view rang, I usually only have the three angles: Back3QtrL, Back, BackQtrR, without the smooth turn. Sometimes I'll do the smooth Back to 3Qtr but only when the character is expected to act with his back to the camera. (My Puss-In-Boots rig is a good example of that. I have a separate reel for that footage.)

[chucky]

I actually go with a 3/4 view.
It's the most useful view.
Front on should really be used sparing and with good reason, in many situations a character may not even need it.

A pose for sure.

[synthsin75]

I actually go with a 3/4 view.
It's the most useful view.
Front on should really be used sparing and with good reason, in many situations a character may not even need it.

A pose for sure.

All that is absolutely true. I'd only rig a front view if I'm doing a smooth turn or specifically need it.

[Greenlaw]

I actually go with a 3/4 view.
It's the most useful view.
Front on should really be used sparing and with good reason, in many situations a character may not even need it.

I guess it depends on how much and often the character swings from 3qtr to 3qtr view. (See any of the King Julien, Boss Baby, or Kung Fu Panda stuff on my DWA reels. The chars are always swinging their head from side to side, and rarely stay locked in 3qtr view.) During rigging, for me anyway, it's more difficult to set up the turn to go from a 3/4 to front view and then to the other 3/4 view. When I start with front view as the 'neutral' pose, and then create the controls to turn to Left or Right from the Center pose, I find the process is easier to initially set up and to make revisions to later. This symmetrical control is also more intuitive for me to use, and for other animators I work with to pick up and run with it, with minimal explanation or documentation for the rig.

But of course, the approach may depend on the character designs and style of animation expected

[chucky]

you have a good point Dennis.
My bias against the front view is probably a bad idea when it comes to rigging and may just be a result of the frame zero system.
Placing all the assets and backdrops into place, I like to see my character in at least a close proximity to its action position.

Also if I'm making a sample rig for Moho ( for example) I want it to look good when it's loaded in so I'll rig to that pose, to please the eye of a new user.

In a bitmap rig, ill draw an aggregated position which uses the pose that is seen for the longest period of time in that shot and just draw a new picture with new angle, lighting and expressions for the next.

I do sometimes set up actions for the 3/4 position and click to it on frame one, front it probably great economically, it just often looks so terribly flat and sanitised that I find it hard to build a character that I like in front view first up.

[hayasidist]

Yeah - it's really down to what you want to do with it... most of my stuff is short one-offs, so I rig the artwork I want rather than have a set of standard starting poses. Sometimes that means several different and specific rigs for the same character - which, as has been said, is often quicker and easier than trying to build an all-purpose rig. (I'm no big fan of the current Moho Character Wizard but that has a set of 8 rigged poses for each of the "quarters" from front-on all the way round which might give you some ideas - of both what to do and not to do!)

What hasn't been said yet is about on-screen detail - IOW if you've got a long shot crowd scene then the rigging for a character (presumably to be cloned and animated with minor variations from other clones) is quite different from that for a close-up of (say) a hand playing a piano key. There really is no point in adding detail to a rig that is never going to be used.

If necessary I'll plan the shots to avoid having to show movement that is "awkward to animate given my strategy to 'Keep it simple' when rigging things" -- e.g. transition from front-view cross-legged seated to standing needn't show whole body - perhaps just a profile close-up of head and shoulders "rising" or a cut-away to "the other person in the room" before cut-back to profile of the person standing.

My bottom line here is planning. Know your storyboard, know the shots you *need*, change the storyboard to replace those "would be nice to have but oh my how time-consuming will that be to do?!!" shots with something that will work in the context of the overall look and feel of the work, then, and only then, draw and rig the artwork.

[LucyLa]

Wow! That’s a whole load of great sense in response to what now seems like a question that didn’t need asking. I actually have no idea what I want my character to do! I’m a student teacher for primary schools and I was thinking that some animation might help with engaging the kids. I’ll go and have a think about what to animate!

[Greenlaw]

Also if I'm making a sample rig for Moho ( for example) I want it to look good when it's loaded in so I'll rig to that pose, to please the eye of a new user.

I prefer to put the demo pose in frame 1. To me, frame zero should be as neutral as possible to allow for more posing possibilities in later frames. That said...

I wonder if it might be useful or simply desirable if Moho had the option to open a project on frame 1? This way, when the animator opens a character rig project, the first thing they see is the rig posed 'in character'. It's not a necessary feature but a nice aesthetic one I think.

[Greenlaw]

For production rigs, I may include a few demo poses in the first few frames to suggest the rig's posing possibilities, maybe even include them as Morph Actions. (But I don't think anyone actually uses these, so I don't bother anymore.) If it's a really complicated rig, I might create a short animation in a separate project file to show how it's meant to be used. The T-Rex rig-demo from Boss Baby seen on my reel is a good example. In fact, the artist who did the final version of that scene used my demo animation with very few changes. But normally, the rig demo animations are just something I do to test the rigs. I almost always include a brief document to explain any unusual or experimental controls I've added.

I think creating user content rigs to include with Moho is the same. Presentation may even play a bigger factor here because the content is created not just for educational use but for marketing purposes too.

[chucky]

I wonder if it might be useful or simply desirable if Moho had the option to open a project on frame 1? This way, when the animator opens a character rig project, the first thing they see is the rig posed 'in character'. It's not a necessary feature but a nice aesthetic one I think.

This is a really great idea Dennis, seems so obvious and simple.
It would also be a great place for the scene thumbnail to be generated, which would be really useful in production.

Liked

[arglborps]

I personally tried starting with the front pose for some rigs, but I always find it hard to have a natural looking 3/4 pose in that case. That's probably due to my drawing style which is using outlines and some overlapping shapes. And some of my characters have "impossible" proportions that don't really work in 3D. Especially I create mouths so that they have the right look from an angle, but then you can't use those for flat front poses and I don't want to have to create two more mouth set for frontal view (apart from the two I have for neutral/happy and angry/shouting)

Also when I start with a front pose I have to flip feet/legs around all the time just to get the most used 3/4 pose.

Now considering that 90% of the time my characters will be in the 3/4 pose, and that I use the actual "flat" front pose very, very rarely, so it's just a transitional state, I personally create my characters at a 3/4 angle and then do the head/body turns based on that. That said, I don't do 360 rigs, most of my rigs aren't even full 180 (because a "flat" total side view is just rare and so my characters tend to turn heads from almost side to almost side). Just my two cents.

Maybe it's just my lack of experience and maybe the bloopanimation Moho rigging course I just bought might enlighten me, but these are my two cents…

P.S.: Ha ha, the Bloopanimation course (https://www.bloopanimation.com/moho-animation/) also starts with the 3/4 view. But man, am I learning stuff. I can only recommend this course.