In this exercise, you will practice creating a rig for a polygon mesh. You will create a simple biped rig starting with the base mesh FBX file.

Learning Resources:

Lynda.com: Character Rigging

Weight Painting

Lynda Tutorials: 12 Principles of Animation

Steps to Completion

1. Watch the rigging character rigging tutorials.
2. Download the base base mesh FBX file.
3. File → Import the FBX mesh into a new Blender scene.
4. Scale up the model.
5. Add subdivisions (edge loops) to the polygonal mesh to minimize unwanted distortion when posing the mesh. Add geometry to articulate the head, torso, legs, and arms.
6. Object → Apply all transforms including scale, rotation, and location.
7. Create joints for the torso, hips, knees, legs, feet, shoulders, arms, neck, and head. Name and number them for your reference.
8. Attach the armature to the polygonal mesh. Do this by selecting the mesh first, select the armature, and then press ‘CTRL-P,’ and choose “with automatic weights.” If you do not see this option, you have selected in the reverse order.
9. Adjustm the influence weight where needed to create a posable character.
10. Pose the biped to be in a sitting pose. (You can add a chair if you like)
11. Do not model the character into a sitting pose, it must be modeled in a T pose, and posed in a seated position via the rig.
12. Save as rigging-YOURNAME.blend and upload to the submission dropbox.
13. Ensure you’ve included everything properly. Failure to ensure that you’ve uploaded the file will result in your exercise being graded according the grading criteria.