Maya 2011 Basic Joint Rigging and Smooth Skin Bind Tutorial by Stuart Christensen

You have to start somewhere when it comes to rigging and hopefully this tutorial by Stuart Christensen will show you the process of how to create a simple bone structure for a low complexity character rig to get you started with some simple animations. Rigging is an exacting art form and the end goal is to create a superb rig for the animators to bring to life. At first it is most important that you understand the joint tool and some of it's various complexities and in no time you will be bringing your characters to life!

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Maya
• 2011
• Joint
• Tool
• Smooth
• Bind
• Rigging
• Basic
• Tutorial
• Stuart
• Christensen

[ealdie24]

i have a question about skin binding that has bothered me for quite sometime now, everytime i bind, and i move a limb, vertices seem to "tug each other" like their pulling nearby vertices.. how do i fix that?

[deepfriedectoplasm]

@ealdie24 There's a process called "painting skin weights" which is the last task involved with prepping the character before animation. It's a tedious process at best and there are may tutorials out there showing the process, I just haven't gotten around to making one yet . Search on the tube for "painting skin weights" and you will be able to fix that problem! Hope that helps.

[Kevinge3]

An amazing tutorial Stu, always feeding my brain. I am still waiting on the [I <3 deepfriedectoplasm] t-shirts. Also, I'm really curious how you made that character. Character modeling isn't my strong point, since I'm more skilled in modeling environments, but I'm eager in learning how to become better.

[deepfriedectoplasm]

@Kevinge3 I made the character model in Mudbox. If you have it, try it out and play around with the sculpting tools on a standard human shaped model template. There's some great tutorials online about how to use mudbox and it's very intuitive to use. For character modeling Mudbox or Z-Brush are essential tools so give them a try if you have access to either. Thanks for the positive vibes! Stay with it!

[SolidCapo]

Ok, i've seen most of your tutos and i like them a LOT, but i can see that particularly on this one you didn't mention some important things about joint positioning and orientation (yes for orientation there should be another video). I know it's a beginners level video but those are essential tips..like where to put the joints.. anyway..that's my point of view and keep the good stuff coming :)

[deepfriedectoplasm]

@SolidCapo I agree with you 100%....And, I will create a following video about some of those details. I actually re-did this tutorial twice in an effort to shorten it from 50- minutes to what it is now just to get the "basics" out of the way and to introduce newcomers to the process. That way I can show all the technical stuff better without overloading the brain. Thanks for watching and for the kind words and the keen eye for detail!

[universetechnique]

Your the best in teaching.Upload more Thank you.Magi Thai 7:39PM 2/19/2012

[aaroniks1023]

Thanks for the tutorial.. it helps me alot! =D

[stenchinator]

I have a rigging problem. When I translate (move) a bone, the child bones do not inherite the translation. Any ideas how to fix this?

[ealdie24]

@deepfriedectoplasm

thanks, I'll look that up.. great tutorials by the way. cheers!

[animationenema]

and i love your channel name!!

[animationenema]

awesome tutorial

[hukosaka]

can anyone tell me how to make this character to sit ? that is by selecting which bones i will be able to make it sit. i select the root bone which selects the whole skeleton, so how ?