alright @temdatem I'm gonna lay out a couple stuff that I keep in mind AND learned during the time I was rigging Peashooter
LETS GO
1. Topology is key
So Ethan's middle poly with a subdiv modifier and this is really important cuz the edges he has are where I put the deform bones, with the vertices being for control bones
check it. The deforms align with the face grid thing, this makes the bones move more accurately to the body. Here's some pics to show how they follow along
Peashooter also has the same build of mouth bones just to show that it can work for anything
BY THE WAY! All the deform bones are bendy bones with a stretch to constraint, targetting the control bones. It's better if you were to learn about that on your own cuz it's a flexible function that I don't think I could explain it properly here
Side note... Wallnut has been retopologized three times and rerigged twice. The latest model has the most optimized topology and ended up being the easiest to rig
2. Bones that control other bones
As you saw, there's like ten deform bone for each eye and twelve for the mouth. That gives you 42 small bones combined (54 if the cheek bones included). It's gonna be a pain in the ass to move all of them individually which is why its important to give the bones a heirarchy themselves
One example I can show is Wallnut's mouth. The top and bottom lips (tiny bones) are controlled by their respective jaw bone (the green ones)
The jaw bones are controlled by jaw controls, and then both of those are controlled by the mouth master. This way you can say for example, move the bottom jaw control down and it would easily open his mouth
The tiny bones act as tweaking bones to adjust the mouth shape
The eyelids has a heirarchy too and so does the brows.
3. Manually weight paint 💀
Weight painting isnt really annoying if the topology is manageable and you know your way around the shortcuts. Personally I had more trouble with the auto weights cuz sometimes a tiny bone at the top of the head will mark the whole ass of a model yellow.
Recently I learned that it's easier to use ctrl + X while selecting the root/master bone, it turns the whole model red and everything will be parented to it. After that you can do the weights for the deform bones yourself, with auto normalize on. This way there's no random stray strokes.
MAKE SURE ITS SYMMETRIZED ALREADY BEFORE PARENTING. symmetrize it first before parenting or else both sides will be controlled by ONLY the left side bones
4. Play with your tuoy
Stress test the rig any chance you get and have fun with it. It will make you see if there's any problems that need to be fixed and also it's really good enrichment to make yourself proud of what you'd already made. Dont just play with the poses and expressions but see what kind of constraints or add ons could be used to improve the performance or quality of the rig to make it more fun to use.
for my rigs I abuseeee the fuck out of the stretch to constraint, it just gives the models that cartoony squishy feel. Ocasionally I use BONES shrinkwrap and limit transforms too
But it's up to you which ones feel right for YOUR model
that's so interesting!! and insightfull! every tutorial i used for what i needed with my stupid ass stretchy limbs robot(Task for those who know) did NOT explain what they were doing so it was more step by step almost every time.
(the only time i found interesting looking rig courses was from a guy that uses ai to model and seems proud of it enough to make a video of the process "ōvō)
i do definitely need to figure out how to retopologing works and how to go about it in lower poly that i work in.
But using bendy bones and like this is interesting! i have no idea what the constraints you are talking about do bc i haven't messed around with the other things other than the limit copy and ik yet. And you can shrinwrap on bones???. hwaaaaaa???? ovo??
i started messing with shape keys for eyes and brows and also i do see you have the controls for the peashooter on the side! i didn't figure out how to have such controls for the mouth itself.... but again putting bones on every like loop? of the mouth does feel like it gives more flexibility than what i did(but then again topology isn't best for my models bc idk how to do do it bc the only way i see is by hand for every one of them??????)
i also don't even use automatic weights bc usually i need to fix most of it anyway lol but autonormalise is the goat even if for some reason it started leaving 0.00008 weight behind for me lmao but i do see how better topology will help with weightpainting >> and better movement....
that being said thank you for answering! it is so cool and great for me to get some explanations with a model as an example (bc i did watch a vid for all the modifiers but i remember nothing from it lol)
Bendy bones with a stretch to constraint is pretty powerful. Here's a vid that introduced me to it and here's another one that utilizes it for mouths but set it up a different way than the first vid
And the menu panel for Peashooter, oh she's a whole different ballpark 😭
Its all drivers and limit location movements in there. For her mouth rig, it's actually the same control bones but I changed how they look in the custom shapes. It really makes a rig look profesh....
Also I'm pretty sure you're gonna figure the topology stuff out. If you're working on a lower poly model I feel like it's gonna be faster than what I'm doing wiskkdd
Remember that you can try and try again too. Both these models were remodelled so much before they got their final look
Thank you also for asking, I love talking about art stuff skskdkc. Hope these replies help for you
alright @temdatem I'm gonna lay out a couple stuff that I keep in mind AND learned during the time I was rigging Peashooter
LETS GO
1. Topology is key
So Ethan's middle poly with a subdiv modifier and this is really important cuz the edges he has are where I put the deform bones, with the vertices being for control bones
check it. The deforms align with the face grid thing, this makes the bones move more accurately to the body. Here's some pics to show how they follow along
Peashooter also has the same build of mouth bones just to show that it can work for anything
BY THE WAY! All the deform bones are bendy bones with a stretch to constraint, targetting the control bones. It's better if you were to learn about that on your own cuz it's a flexible function that I don't think I could explain it properly here
Side note... Wallnut has been retopologized three times and rerigged twice. The latest model has the most optimized topology and ended up being the easiest to rig
2. Bones that control other bones
As you saw, there's like ten deform bone for each eye and twelve for the mouth. That gives you 42 small bones combined (54 if the cheek bones included). It's gonna be a pain in the ass to move all of them individually which is why its important to give the bones a heirarchy themselves
One example I can show is Wallnut's mouth. The top and bottom lips (tiny bones) are controlled by their respective jaw bone (the green ones)
The jaw bones are controlled by jaw controls, and then both of those are controlled by the mouth master. This way you can say for example, move the bottom jaw control down and it would easily open his mouth
The tiny bones act as tweaking bones to adjust the mouth shape
The eyelids has a heirarchy too and so does the brows.
3. Manually weight paint 💀
Weight painting isnt really annoying if the topology is manageable and you know your way around the shortcuts. Personally I had more trouble with the auto weights cuz sometimes a tiny bone at the top of the head will mark the whole ass of a model yellow.
Recently I learned that it's easier to use ctrl + X while selecting the root/master bone, it turns the whole model red and everything will be parented to it. After that you can do the weights for the deform bones yourself, with auto normalize on. This way there's no random stray strokes.
MAKE SURE ITS SYMMETRIZED ALREADY BEFORE PARENTING. symmetrize it first before parenting or else both sides will be controlled by ONLY the left side bones
4. Play with your tuoy
Stress test the rig any chance you get and have fun with it. It will make you see if there's any problems that need to be fixed and also it's really good enrichment to make yourself proud of what you'd already made. Dont just play with the poses and expressions but see what kind of constraints or add ons could be used to improve the performance or quality of the rig to make it more fun to use.
for my rigs I abuseeee the fuck out of the stretch to constraint, it just gives the models that cartoony squishy feel. Ocasionally I use BONES shrinkwrap and limit transforms too
But it's up to you which ones feel right for YOUR model
