Let’s Start Rigging

Having prepared the model and learned the basics, we’re almost ready to begin rigging our character.

But first, we will start by bringing in the model using the ‘Model Updater’.
If we only began rigging, this tool won’t do much, but in the future if the model will change and we will need to update the model, this tool will assist us in transferring the skinning from the old model to the new.

1. Create a new Maya scene (Ctrl+N) and a new Arise scene.
   
2. In ARISE go to ‘File’ menu -> ‘Model Updater‘.
   
   
3. In the field ‘New Model Path’, enter the path to the Maya model file we created earlier.
4. Press the ‘Reference and Analyze’ button. This will display compare items, but as this is our first model version, there are no weights to transfer. You can read more about it here.
5. So simply click ‘Finalize and Close’. This will create the rig groups structure in Maya, parent the new models under ‘Geometry_grp’, and tag the new meshes to make them upgradable in the future.
   

So far in this tutorial, we have cleaned the model, learned some concepts, and imported the model into a new rigging scene.

Let’s start rigging the character now:

1. Go to the ‘Presets‘ tab in the ‘Inventory’ docked widget.
2. Double-click on the preset that best fits your character.
   Nodes, attachments, and their connections will be created in the workspace that together form an advanced rig.
   
   
3. Switch all the nodes to ‘Template‘ mode so we can position their guides.
   
4. Position all the guides to match the character’s anatomy.
   Help on how to position the guides is available in the node documentation (‘Attribute Editor’ Docs tab or here).
   Remember that even if you position the guides incorrectly, you can always fix them later.
   
   
5. Once that’s done switch all the nodes to ‘Build‘ mode.
   
6. Are the ctrls too large or too small? You can play around with the ‘Ctrls Scale’ attribute on the nodes then click ‘Re-build’.
   (You can ‘Re-Build’ only selected nodes by right-clicking on an empty spot in the workspace and then clicking on ‘Build Selected Nodes’)
7. After you have built the rig that matches the anatomy of your character, you can start skinning it.
   Select the meshes you wish to skin and click the ‘Skin Selected’ button on the ‘Helper Tools’ menu (see below).
   ‘Skin Selected’ is just a convenience button for creating skinClusters on selected meshes with all the nodes skinning joints as influences.
   
    Your character is now ready to be skinned using Maya’s skinning tools.
   Another reminder that even after skinning your character, you can always switch to ‘Template’ mode and reposition guides without losing your progress.

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Get Arise at: https://www.ariserigging.com