Rigging a Robot Character

[Take24studios]

Hi guys,

I'm quite a n00b when it comes to rigging a character. The character is a robot but with limited movement capabilitys. How can I rig it the best way? Some object need to reform and some objects need to stay rigid. And I want to set it up so that I can animate it easily. And how do I avoid objects moving trough each other?

You guys recommend some tutorials about this for me? Or maybe willing to give my model a basic rig?

Well thanks very much already!

Maarten

[mclawest]

can you post a screenshot with your robot?
maybe you can do it with it (http://www.3d-palace.com/2010/04/machines-and-pilots-in-3ds-max-the-crux/) or this one (http://www.3d-palace.com/2010/04/the-ed209-set-downloadable-25/)...

[Take24studios]

Thanks. I am trying to rig this one: http://maartennauw.com/images/Samurai.jpg

Maybe got some free ones?

[niezpro]

nice model.. looks real hehehe

[krizard]

nice model....

[Mosquite]

Nice model but it seems pretty challenging to animate if you really want to approach it as a robot. (Not as a partly mechanic suit...)

Robots are usually made from metal or plastic (or something similar hard material) and thats why they don't allow any deformation like all organic creatures. That's why you should clearly decide where all joints are and create the model according to them to avoid any interpenetration.

[Georg]

And how do I avoid objects moving trough each other?

Hi, Maarten.

You can either (1) choose to animate the objects around so that they don't move though each other or (2) you can limit their range of movement by the way you rig it--like limiting their "axises." But such rig can result in unexpected & undesired jerky movements that ruin your animation. I prefer to use option # 1, since it never have that jerky movements.

Hope it helped. :)

[Take24studios]

http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/5425/speedycerviche.png

I found out I modeled the wrong character. So I remodeled a lot of it. It's a bit easier to animatie / rig now I guess? What do you mean excactly with the (1) ? That I have to animate all the objects seperately?

[Georg]

What I meant with option # 1 is that the good-old ways of tediously animating the limbs of your character so that they do not intersect with each other might be the best way to achieve the most convincing and natural animation rather than resorting to an "automated" or axises-limited rigs.

And I think you figured out on your own one of the principles for good rigging: creating an animation-friendly model from the start. Excellent.:)

Does anybody know any software package that can automatically solved that "inter-penetration" problem to make the rigger's job easier? (Without that jerky movements, of course.) I don't.

[mclawest]

you can try to set-up this model as toy and just link a parts together, but for palm and face you should to create an another setup by bones.

[Take24studios]

Oke thanks. So no easy way unfortunnately. I will update you some animations soon.