With this responsive brief, I chose to do something that I had never done previously, therefore I knew that there would be complications that I would come across and have to solve independently as we were not being taught this in class, however I wanted to take the risk so that I could learn something new and take a big step out of my comfort zone! I decided to use After effects to rig my character for my short loopdeloop! I came across several videos on Youtube that offered tutorials on this process, and the one I opted for was this one:
I felt like the man who voiced this tutorial was very patient and easy to listen to so I followed his instructions and was successfully able to rig a character (successful for a first timer!). And I was also able to look in the comment section to see other artists who were having similar problems to me, and then seeing more experienced users solving these issues! So I feel like during this whole process, I was never alone.
Because I only have Photoshop which I pay monthly, I did have to download the free trial of After Effects in order to make this loop. I also had to download a 'plug-in'. I had no idea what a plug in was, but they are like add ons which you can download and install, as extra tools to use within the software. The plug-in that I had to instal was 'DUIK'. This was an extremely complicated process for me because I had to rewrite a script to get it to work and although I am quite computer savvy, I am not that savvy, therefore it took me a while to find out how to do it. After an hour, I was able to install it and enbark on the rest of the learning journey!
Firstly, I imported my whole .psd (Photoshop) file into After Effects. The tutorial called for an Illustrator file, but I feel like I am much more comfortable and experienced with Photoshop, so tried importing it to see if it could work the same way, and it did so I stuck to staying within my limits. By importing the whole file, I was able to pick each body part of my character separately, but whilst also keeping them in place and in proportion. Whereas if I had saved each body part as a .jpeg or .png file, I would have had to manually place each limb where I think it should have gone and resize them instead of the way I had originally placed them in Photoshop!
Then it was time to rig my character. I started off by using the 'puppet pin' tool which is placed at the far end of the toolbar in After Effects (image 1). I then chose the part of the body I wanted to rig, so I started with the torso. This was very similar to using the skeleton tool in Maya, because the result of each tool was to create 'bones' for the character in order to be able to move the limbs. I used three pins for this part of the body, the shoulders, the spine and the hips. This is essentially the 'core' of my characters body, where everything will end up connecting, therefore it was important that I started with this, and connected it correctly (image 2). Once I had my pins in place, I then went into the deform option, opened it up and found the three pins unnamed (image 3).
This is where the plug-in comes into place. I opened DUIK up, and chose the 'Bones' section, whilst highlighting all three of my pins (image 5). This then made my torso look like image 5. At first I was a bit worried why my torso had red squares, but this was just so that you can see where the bones are in place. When it came to animating, I could uncheck the visibility of the bones so that they disappeared, but I could still move them and key frame them, so it wasn't really a problem at all. But to make things even clearer for myself, I renamed the pins that had become bones, so that I would be able to distinguish which body part was which, something I learnt from when making and rigging my character in Maya! (image 6+7).
Next was another stage that sounded familiar and this was parenting. I had to parent my bones to each other so that they would be able to move naturally, and be influenced by one another. Therefore I parented the hips to the spine, and the spine to the shoulders. More parenting is important later on, but this was the first time I had done it here, and after a few tries I was able to see where I was parenting my bones to and why I was doing it (image 8). The last step then, in order to get my torso, or any other part of the body really, to move was to make an ik handle. I wanted the back to be able to bend if I needed it to, and at least try it out, so I used the hips as the starting point and built a controller to connect my IK handle to (image 9). I feel like this is like a 2D version of Maya and I am really enjoying learning new technical aspects of rigging!
I did this exact same process for the legs and was able to do it successfully, and almost not have to refer back to the tutorial video. I did encounter one problem however, and this was when it came down to adding an IK handle. When I connected my controller and added the handle, the leg would flip horizontally in the sense that it would bend the other way it naturally bends. I kept repeating the process to try and try again just in case I had missed a step out or pressed the wrong tool, but it still kept happening. I had an idea of what it may have been, so I redid the whole process following the steps in my head of what I thought could have gone wrong and I ended up solving the problem! Basically when I put the three pins in the legs, the middle pin was more left that it was to the right so when I added the IK handle, it assumed that the leg was bent the other way and therefore that was the reason it flipped. By adjusting the middle pin to the right a bit more, the IK handle followed through and I was able to bend and stretch both of my characters legs!
I did ALL of these steps with my second character and had a much more successful time. I have learnt from my previous mistakes and the steps have all become more concrete in my mind so I was able to use all the tools cohesively and effectively in order to create another rigged character. I really enjoyed learning this new process and I feel like I understood it much more because I had practiced it in Maya previously. Knowing what IK handles are as well as parenting, made it easier for me to process the information, and it also makes me excited to think about what else I can learn and understand if I keep on pushing myself!
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