Conceptual Question about Rigging

[BlindTelepath]

OK, I've been reading up the on the process of rigging, and I was wondering what, fundamentally, bones and such are. I understand that they are the foundations of animations, i.e. they determine how parts of the model move, bend, and rotate. But what are the bones themsevles? I.E. how are they attached to the model itself? From what I've read, it seems that they are essentially the equivalent of steel rods inserted at arbitrary points in a rubber sculpture. Correct?

Or are they attached to specific vertices/faces/edges?

 

[wakarimasen]

You have to assign vertices to different bones. So if you have one bone for the head, you would attach all the vertices on the head to that bone, one bone for the right forearm, attach all vertices of the forearm to that bone, etc. So when you animate, you move the head bone, and that moves the vertices connected to it.

 

[FictiousWill]

Bone weights are values that are applied to the vertices that a bone has control over so that bones can move vertices different amounts, so vertices can be controlled by multiple bones, and verts that are closer to a moving bone are moved more tightly with that bone than verts that are next to other non-moving bones, useful for areas such as elbows and shoulders.

 

[BlindTelepath]

So placing bones doesn't automatically set you to go? You have associate a bone with the relevant verts?

 

[FictiousWill]

That's the "rigging" part. Setting up bones, is, well, setting up bones. Getting the bones to move the model and look nice while doing it - that's rigging.

 

[mindless_moder]

bones are pretty much any form of geometry that can deform the geometry of a static mesh to animate it it does this by moving the verts asigned to it .. it doesnt necessarily have to be something from the bone tool it can be a box but the bone tools are made so that you can have joint and ik (inverse kinematics). thats the concept behind bones. as for an equivalant its bones lol.

 

[BlindTelepath]

That's the "rigging" part. Setting up bones, is, well, setting up bones. Getting the bones to move the model and look nice while doing it - that's rigging.

OK, thanks, that basically answer my question.