[Thomas]

Fifth part: Bones attachment and IK

It's time to start to play with our character! Select both Pelvis and character, and in the Skinning menu, choose "Attach Skelton"

The previous step was an easy one, now; it's time to do the real work! To verify the default parameters for the skinning, the easiest thing is to create a pose for your character. But don't do it at the 0 second time but at 1 second. Like this, you can edit your skinning at 0 and see the result at 1 second. And if you need to go back to the default position, the Skinning menu include a function to "Send bones to references position" Below, a pose for the character, done by only rotating the bones (don't move them!) done at 1 second. The result seems clean and deformations are well done by the default Skinning parameters.

Before continuing the skinning, a little bit more rigging: actually, to move the members of the character, only the rotate tool can be used and it's not easy to set a pose like this, especially if the feet need stick on the floor, etc. Then, we will use the Inverse Kinematics chains (IK chains), to create a kind of connection between the bones of a hierarchy (ex, from the shoulder to the hand)

IK chain creation is easy, only follow the steps in the good order: 1 - pick the IK chain creation tool 2 - Pick the starting bone of the IK chain to create 3 - Pick the destination bone 4 - A blue line, representation of the chain appears 5 - move the IK chain manipulator (the kind of blue cube) to move all the chain, and then, deform your character.

Continue the IK chain creation for your character, for each member to animate. Only use them for the arms and legs. Don't add it for the spine (only if you already master the IK and IK chains!) 1 - from the shoulder to the wrist 2 - from the wrist to the last bone of the hand 3 - from the hip to the ankle 4 - from the ankle to the last bone of the foot When it's done for one side, do it for the other side.

Now that the character is easier to move try again to set different poses and you may find some problems: on the screen capture below, the rotation of the arm generate a kind of pinched polygons inside the bust/torso. It happens because of the influence of the arm which is very important. In fact, the problem has been over-exaggerated to show what can happen! On the next part, we will see how to correct this problem. .