DISQUS

Cuby · 1 year ago

Thanks a lot for this new Blog Shawn! I'm absolutely loving it, and have it bookmarked as RSS.

This question is one I've often pondered myself, so it's great to hear an answer!

Cheers, and keep up the awesome tips!
Cuby

Julien Abenhaim · 1 year ago

Thanks a lot Shawn! I bought "The Art of Rigging Part 1" for maya at adapt last year but didn't start reading it yet since I'm animating in every spare time I get. Maybe I should look into it a bit :)

Jordan · 1 year ago

First off, I'm loving this new blog. :)

I started off as an animator, and due to necessity, I had to learn how to make my own rigs as a mean to an end to get some animations going. I ended up becoming addicted to rigging, so be careful, animators. You may like rigging TOO much!

Julien, "The Art of Rigging Part 1" is an excellent book to get started on rigging on the right foot, as well as a great crash course in automation via MEL, you won't be sorry. :D

Kristafer · 1 year ago

First off, Lemme just say a huge Thanks to Shawn for putting together yet another awesome resource for us animation junkies! You're attitude and love for our art is both contagious and inspiring keep up the good work man!

As far as the question goes, I have to agree with Jordan. . know enough to get along and speak intelligently but beware of becoming too proficient in rigging.

The problem is once a studio knows you know how to Rig you always run the risk of getting pigeon-holed into being "JUST" a rigger. . . least at Imageworks. :)

I graduated from Ringling School of Art and Design with the unfortunately bad habit of loving to write scripts and rig characters. . . Now instead of being an amazing animator who's spent tons of practice time making great animation, I'm a professional rigger wondering if I'll ever get to realize my dream of being an animator. There's a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction to being the guy that makes the rigs/tools that help the animator create the performance, but at least for me, it's a sad small joy compared to being the animator him/herself.

just my 2cents.

nemirc · 1 year ago

First post here :)

Well, I pretty much started with rigging and then I moved to animation, mostly because the characters I had were not rigged.

The "rigs" I used to make were very simple, though. Nothing ultra fancy as automatic deformations and joint chains with lines and lines of code to make the bones move "exactly the way you want them".

I know more about rigging now, but I am still not a master rigger, and since I'll animate bipeds and such most of the time, I don't spend a lot of time researching on fancy creatures and such. I do, at least know how to add some extra functionality to almost any rig, though. You never know when you'll have to animate something and that little "extra" that you came up with may save you hours of work.

Bruno Andrade · 1 year ago

amazing blog Shawn, thanks a lot. I´m almost done with the Tips and tricks book, it´s gold stuff as well. I made a little book and read it when I´m at the bank, waiting for the bus, etc.

I´ve recentely finished a Rigging tutorial from Digital tutors, good stuff and it was good to get some knowledge on that area. It´s easy to get addicted to it for sure, but I know it takes a lot of time and practice to get to a professional level obviously, so I settled on taking this time to practice animation, but it was great to know a few things about it for sure.

3DTodd · 1 year ago

I just discovered this blog today. Coming from such respected animation professionals, I have no doubt I will learn much from this site.

I'm especially interested in getting a good handle on rigging since I hope to create character animation shorts as well as apply my skills on professional projects. My main apps at the moment are Cinema 4D and Modo. Thanks for creating this blog. I'll be popping in on a regular basis. Cheers. :)

Ben C · 1 year ago

thanks for this blog Shawn, really is a great thing you're doing for the animation community :) now among my list of daily-checked sites.

amdbcg · 6 months ago

Hey, so who rigged optimus prime and how long did it take to rig that monsterous thing?

oh yeah, and did the rigger also put controls/ sliders in there too?