Rigging our character
Rigging is the process of adding a digital “skeleton” to our mesh, in order to move and pose it more easily. This process is commonly used to pose/animate characters and creatures, but we can rig machines and inanimate objects too.
For our purposes, though, we’ll focus on making a simple rig for humanoid characters, using the base meshes we made and optimized in the previous chapters. Note that this chapter will not include face rigging, since it can become very complex very easily. However, also keep in mind the geometry we have on the face works great for face rigging in case you want to add it later.
Alright, so how do we add a bone to the scene? Simple, they are on the Add menu (Shift + A in Object Mode), just like every other object. The difference is that, instead of adding a mesh, we’ll add an Armature. So select the Armature option from the Add menu, and add a Single Bone:
Figure 10.11 –...
