abAutorig overview, how to create a rig in 5 minutes
[update] if you found that video through Google and missed the Pyro abAutorig tutorial make sure you check the following series of posts for a full tutorial with audio explanations and skinning tips. Original post after the link]
abAutorig Pyro tutorial Part I
The following video is a quick 5 minutes intro to the excellent abAutorig mel script.
Double Click on the Vimeo logo to get the full screen video in full HD res.
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/10220416[/vimeo]
Related post:
abAutorig Pyro tutorial
Autorig tutorial preparation work part 04
Autorig tutorial prep work 03
Autorig tutorial prep work 02
Autorig tutorial prep work 01
Low polygon modeling tools
He did you see that someone automated Jason Schleifers rig from animator friendly rigging? That’s also very nice!
Hey Remi, well Jason’s DVDs are a very solid foundation in rigging and I would absolutely recommend them but Jason uses a lot of Set Driven keys and expression which I have been told are very slow to evaluate.
abAutorig is entirely node based which supposedly is much faster but I am not a professional rigger so I have no real clue.
I might give Jason’s autorig a try but there are licenses, copyright, intellectual property issues so I prefer to stick with abAutorig which is free for any kind of use with no restriction whatsoever according to the author.
I actually love this rig… abAutorig…
But then the skinning starts 🙁 I hate that
skinning shouldn’t be too hard if you have a good technique. I should show you how I deal with it.
He there Olive,
Looks like a nice program. I tried TSM for a recent animation job. It was a quick en easy setup and the weight painting was also a pretty easy proces. But it the rigs felt a bit heavy to work with. Maybe I should try this Ab autorig. BTW I have you tried Stretchmesh from Kickstand? That makes weight painting a breeze. I tried it on a character I rigged with TSM and it worked already pretty well without the weight painting.
I still have to try it out for facial deformations, but it seems that this is also a good alternative for The Face Machine which only works fine on realistic human faces. And after rigging one face with TFM I had the feeling again that I lost speed because of the rig. But Maybe my iMac with Maya 2008 is just slow.
hey Joost, no I have never tried Stretchmesh. I am not even sure what it does to tell you the truth. Keith Lango was raving about it some time ago on his blog but maybe I don’t have enough experience with rigging to fully realize its benefits.
I don’t think weightpainting is too hard to be honest. You just need a good technique and the Fahrenheit Skinning DVD really helped me. I also use a specific mel script called SkinningTools v2.0 by David Walden. It is just an interface for the usual Maya tools but it is better organized than the usual Maya interface.
I don’t know if you do that but I normally create an animation of all the joints then step through the timeline adjusting the weighting.
Regarding Facial rigging, the Fahrenheit DVD is also a very good one. I also started a thread on CGTalk a while ago regarding Warner Brother facial rigging and got some really interesting answers.
Hi guys,
Well, i’d love to see you do it one time 😀
Regarding the stretchmesh, I have tried it, and it does work pretty darn good!
But you can’t share rigs unless everyone has the plugin… it’s good for making blendshapes and then deleting the history!
it’s on my TODO list 😉
hi,
Your blocking is looking so cool. I am sure you must ve enjoyed doing it. All the very best.
Hello,
I download this script but how install it ? Which folders ?
Hello, sorry i didn’t see the video
thank you
I am glad you got it sorted, yes it should have been shown in the video. Thanks for checking the tutorial