 Today is Friday and that means f&a Friday for new animators and today we're going to talk about another part in the Blocking animation series and today it's all about testing your rig Before you animate you got to know if your rig is working You got to know what the strength is of the rake what are the weaknesses what is working What is not and kind of test it so that it works for the shot that you want to do Because what you don't want is a surprise that when you're halfway through the shot You realize this is not really working and I can't continue with this shot The easiest way to test that is to look at what other people have done with that rake So you have very famous rakes that a lot of students have used So you're gonna see a really wide range of shots and types of shots and styles and where to really push the rig to the Limits, so if you have that at your disposal, that's great It's the best way to go I can do this this and this unless you're gonna do something that no one has ever done with that rake But you might have a rig that no one else has used it's something brand new something that you have done potentially And then you might know more about the details of the rake or some rake that you bought online That hasn't been really used that much if that's the case Then I think there are a couple things that need to do to test that out Even if you have a rig that other people have used there's still a good checklist Just in case because you still have to make it work for your shot and the content and the ideas of your shot So right off the bat if you have your rake take your rake and move it off the origin Sometimes you have rakes that work well If they go off the origin and you start rotating them or you start transiting them over and rotating and not just the main Rook controller, but the overall body control or the overall rake control that Rotates the whole rake and on top of that you move the route things can explode I did a shot a long time ago with a dog and realized that if I move that in Y in 180 to kind of place it Just things were not quite working then again It might have been me I might have not seen something in the rake so it doesn't always have to be a rake problem It's probably also a user problem another thing that can bite you in the butt is the scale Can you scale the rig make it smaller or bigger now? If you can't you could leave the rig and just scale the environment if you have one to make it small and bigger to Kind of fit the needs but scale can definitely be an issue then generally you want to check if the controls are there I'm obviously obviously the controls are there and that could be something missing But do you want to check for basic things like does it have an I care FK spine or can you switch you prefer to have Lots of joints and controls to rotate what you prefer a box that just kind of moves the chest around and does rotations at the same time Does it have an accurate I K FK arm switch? Is it going to be a switch that pops do you do intricate subtle animation where you need to have a precise switch and that pop is Going to be a problem. How are the foot controls? Does it just have a foot roll or does it have if it's off the side? Does it have squash if you do a compression? Does it have potentially an I K ankle to move things around if it's a rig without shoes? Do you see the toes? How are the toe controls? Can you spread the toes all that jazz that being said you might go through all this list and then realize? Well, I don't really need all of this because again You should test your rig so that it works for the shop that you want to do So besides just a general look over does it have this and that you can then also check for specific things So if you do an acting piece it could be with or without audio where the characters breathing a lot Well, does the rake have a chest control that allows for breathing or do you have to kind of cheat it with a kind of a spine joint scale type of thing So if you have very specific things like that then I would test for that for sure another shot I did a while back was with a shark and the general motion of the spine was just not quite working to get that smooth fish Movement control so it was quite a cheat and ended up doing a lot less with that rake because of it But it was also the only cool looking shark rig at the time and I just had to use it So sometimes you're stuck with something that doesn't work Then you have to come up with a couple cheats and and just ways to get around that But I think you're gonna use a lot on rigs or hands So can you do a nice hand pose if you do a fist and you close it Is it gonna be where the fingers are evenly spread out or can you really pose it out with a nice curvature here and compression here So look for general hand poses and again, they need to fit for your shop But in general are they going to be appealing poses and especially with fists You don't want this claw like thing if you need to have a nicely posed out fist But can you also do this? How are the palm controls to cave in? How are the individual finger controls? You potentially need IK fingers because of something where it's sticky and needs to stay like this I mean again, it depends on your shop now if you don't do a super far away body mechanics jump action shot Then you're gonna have to check for facial controls Then I would look at extremes how far can you go with a smile or compression for your somewhat of a squash and stretch in the face But your extremes with the outs and the ins if you do a lip sync and the character says How nice is your ooh shape or a poker shape? How are the eyes? Do you have nice eye blinks if the shape goes down as a really cover nicely to have individual eyelid controls if you need that Man of detail. How are you eyebrows? Do you have separate controls as you just one ginormous thing? Can you go separate you potentially have control that has one control for the whole browser? They're more connected if you do go up and down Does it take whole skull geometry down and make it some weird neanderthal and how much detail does it have? Do you have cheek controls if you smile and you then push the cheeks up which then push up the lower eyelids? Do you have a nose control if I go? Whatever it's gonna move the nose in general. It's gonna move the tip. Do you have nostril controls? Do you have separate side nostril control are your neck controls? Okay, so you can do all kinds of movement but with separate joints from here and here Do you have a swallow control? Maybe in a shot you need to swallow a lot of rigs don't have a swallow control So how would you be able to do that if you need to now the extra bonuses? Does the rig have the ability to modify the rig in terms of different hairstyles? Wigs or mustaches or beard or clothing and obviously not many rigs have that But if that rig has it that's great and is it helpful and if it's not helpful Should you go with another rig? Maybe because all those extra options are slowing down the rig So maybe don't go with that and speaking of speed now Let's pretend all that stuff is there all those extra details and everything's there You like all the controls all the options are there But then is it a pain to animate because it slows everything down So do you potentially have a low resolution mid resolution high resolution option on your rig Or maybe just low res and high res is it broken up into separate elements And then the high res is one ginormous piece Do you potentially have a low res body with a high res head Because ultimately you want a really good workflow and you want a fast workflow So even if the rig is awesome if it's super slow to animate and that's kind of a problem So besides checking your rig for controls I would do a quick little test animation and I wouldn't just move IK arms around or FK arms around and kind of turn it like that seems fine You got to test it within actual animation So maybe just do a basic jump kind of goes back to bouncing balls It's simple to do a squash and full extension compression and landing A little bit of some offset and arms something quick and dirty Don't worry about full placement all that stuff But look at how does the rig perform when I actually animated move it away from the origin And use pretty much all the main controllers But maybe all of that is good but it's going to be a multi character shot So what happens if you bring in another rig a different rig Are there any complications or does it suddenly get really slow Or if you bring in the same rig can it work with two rigs together And that can be referenced or unreferenced You might have clashing nodes where some controls don't work Or some shapes can be dialed in And again bringing in a second character if it's a different one or the same one How does that affect speed But then let's pretend all that is okay So the speed is okay the animation is okay multiple characters All that stuff is great your animation is done What if you go be on a play blast and you're actually rendering So it would be good to do test renders before you do any of this If you have just a regular render Is the texture showing up correctly Are there any problems with normals Are there any geometry problems Some lighting issues If you have a big close up and you show eyes If you render is there some texture or some refraction or something That if you look this way and you render It's actually looking this way that can happen too So you might have to reanimate all the eyes So look at your specific goals and target ideas for your shot And just test and again don't just test the rig But potentially test the renders So you know ahead of time what are the potential pitfalls Like render time in general How long does it take to render Because the speed issue is important Because if you animate just at home when you got zero deadlines And you got time Yeah okay well then you can waste time And you know try things out and fix things And do a couple hacks and whatever you can do Well let's pretend you do have a deadline You do something you do a test for a freelance job Or you're working on the 11 second club And you know that's the deadline there You don't want to animate till the very last minute Because I got time I got to animate Do make this extra beautiful animation And then you got five hours left So let me render this And realize oh my god it's gonna take five hours per frame The lighting is all messed up This doesn't show up The head is all black The eyes are all red Arms are white Everything explodes So overall as the title says Test your rig Test the controls Test some general pitfalls Test for specific elements that you know you're going to use for the shot Test for speed How long is the play blast How long is a render And if you go beyond and you think about workflow Does the rig have a body picker Can you quickly select the controls Well that's more of a workflow issue we're going to talk about later But again you don't want to have surprises in the middle of the shot I did another shot a long time ago Because it's been so long since I did personal shots Where I had to animate a separate character And the facial controls were not really there I was testing the rig and the beard was deforming It was nice with the jaw But then I realized that the brows The eyelids Just the blinking All that stuff was really either not working Not there or very crude Which then eventually compromised the shot So don't make my mistakes Test test early And again if you have a rig that other people have used Just check it out online See what other people have done So you don't have to do all the prep work But even then you might still want to test it just in case Maybe there are problems with your machine Your graphics for it I don't know whatever it is There are always problems when you animate on the computer That being said I'm sure there's a ton that I have missed This is kind of the stuff that I look for That I remembered Or that I remembered from my own problems So if you have other things that are super important Please please please Let me know in the comment Let other people know There's I'm sure again a ton of stuff that I probably have missed So whatever checklist you have It would be awesome if you could share that And that's it That's it for testing out your rig Next time it's going to be about libraries Post libraries Finger libraries Facial libraries What to do What to use What you could do to get around it If you don't have it So hopefully I will see you next week for that If you like this As always as I say I would love a like I would love a subscribe Hit that bell button for all the notifications And if you watch the whole thing till the very end As always I appreciate it That you took the time out of your day To watch this clip And that's it for me