Animating with Blender

General Rigging and Skinning Work Flow

Before we begin to analyze a rig and look at specific techniques, let’s run down a general work flow for developing and testing a multilayered rig.

1. Build the basic structure. This is the stage where you construct the first part of the armature, adding bones to follow the contours of the character. Even though some of these (such as leg bones as we’ll learn later) are really “helpers,” it’s okay and even necessary to include them at this point. Figure 9.3 shows the first stage of construction of the mother’s rig.

   Figure 9.3. The first stage of the mother’s rig

   

   At this stage, you will set up basic parenting ...