Blender 2.5 Introduction to Rigging - Creating an Animation Using a Simple Model/Rig

This tutorial shows how to animate the rig (monkey man) created in the previous tutorials

The key points are -

How to remove transforms from a rig ready to start posing
How to copy and paste mirror flipped poses
How to add key frames for a posed rig
How to fine tune the animation using the dope sheet


In detail -


In pose mode use A key to select all bones, in the pose menu, Clear Transform - Location and repeat for Rotation
Select all the bones of the posed arm, in pose menu select Copy Pose, select all the bones of the other arm, in pose menu select Paste X-Flipped Pose
In the first frame, pose the figure, use A key to select all bones, insert keyframes - LocRot (location and rotation)
Go to frame 20, pose figure, use A key to select all bones, insert keyframes - Available
Using the Dope sheet, zooming, scrolling ready to grab and move the keyframes.

For the original file and the final file go to -

[fujifox]

This tutorial just saved my skin for my computer animation class. I was getting so frustrated with animating with armatures. It just wasn't working out until I watched this tutorial. Thank you so much!

[animalderancho]

gracias por los vídeos, están geniales me han ayudado mucho saludos

[nogoghi]

please make more tutorials. Thank you very much for the videos

[ianscottBlenderTutorials]

@ghanmy thank you and I hope to make many more tutorial videos

[ianscottBlenderTutorials]

@KevinZS I don't know other than it works, I think it is to do with rotation mode quaternion which you see if you go to bone properties. In addition to x, y and z rotation values for bones there is a fourth 'w' value. It think it is something to do with the complexity of chained bones and to understand it you have to go into graph theory, which unless you like pure mathematics you most probably don't want to.

[ianscottBlenderTutorials]

@videofountain Oops! well spotted, I use VirtualDub video utility to link together all the parts of the tutorial and I did not spot this mistake, definitely not intentional.

[ianscottBlenderTutorials]

@AbaiiChalDrin Armatures are not rendered, objects linked to them are.

[aldnav]

@MrHallajs
In object mode, select the model.
In edit mode, Press "A" to toggle select, deselect.

[videofountain]

Thanks.
Interesting Rig Videos.
There is some kind of video repetition ... perhaps intentional
08:07 is the same as 11:06

[ianscottBlenderTutorials]

@zargotlord View menu, Toggle Quad View.

[likesoursugar]

How can I add multiple animations/actions to my armature?

[Utubedude]

Do I need to clear the pose before starting to animate?
Once I rigged my model, i was able to pose initially from the spot I created it.
I rotated and moved it to be level with the grid and set a keyframe for that pose. Should I clear then? When I went to move the armature again, only it moved and not the mesh. It was parented before with automatic weights and when I tried doing it again, it snapped the mesh back to the grid leaving the armature, and the mesh was wonky. Please help, thank you

[aldnav]

Why is it that when i render image / animation ... nothing shows up? Well the Armature is visible in Object mode and Render mode. ???

[Banism]

what is x flip?
and why locrot in 20 frame+ not work?

[MrHallajs]

@ianscott888 in edit mode how do i select all points on my model?

[AngelasWings]

how do you get your screen like that? (with the four screens)

[ivanvolkov]

What the heck? Whenever I render it nothing happens. I followed all the steps, but it's just my rig standing there.