Rigging Training.. stuff..

[hevjudo]

Just wanted to comment on the training that I have come across so far..

Now Im new to lightwave and have dabbled in Messiah but found the training for messiah more suited to users who have a complete grasp of the mechanics of rigging..

Training 1 - Johnny Gorden Rigging and Animation - absolutely awesome series which really needs to be worked through step by step. Was created on lightwave 8 but the principles have really got me thinking about rigging in general.

Best thing ever was having Johnny actuually respond to an email from me and take the time out to review some issues I was having in the training..

Training 2 - Lino Grandi's latest DVD - Really found the set up part to be very helpful and my rigging work space is more based on his set up.. General workflow is helpful but somethings like zeroing bone coordinates and changing coordinate systems brushed over.. Still.. an awesome series. Loved the simplicity of the presentation and the fact that the model is not your standard biped..

Training 3 - Rebel Hill RHR - Only recently started on this but blown away by his rigs and the depth of his rigging system.. Couldnt believe that even his intro movie (where he tries to the logic, or thought process to apply to rigging) set off some mini explosions in my brain and had me playing with rigs, nulls and parenting.. just to see what happens!

I plan on having a lightwave / messiah workflow (only because I have messiah and havent given it a chance yet.. (and my wife will kill me for wasting money).. but.. Im finding that the training available for rigging in lightwave (not necessarily animating) has far more depth than I have experienced in other software (limited as it is.. blender and messiah).

Anyway

Id be interested to here what people have experienced in learning rigging, what helped, what wasted time.. and what got you animating well.

[daforum]

All the training material you have listed is very good.

RebelHill also has RHiggit http://www.rebelhill.net/html/rhiggit.html
and is absolutely brilliant for setting up rigs.

[hevjudo]

I will definately play around with Rhiggit after Ive completed rebel hills training.. So much to learn!

In regard to the messiah workflow.. the reality is that if I learn everything in lightwave, it will probably come down to the animation tools.. Im used to blender where you can mirror, copy and paste poses.. seems like you need additional plugins just to do that in lightwave?

I should also add - that one of the interesting differences with Lino's dvd and Johnny Gordens training is that Johnny does all his weight maps first.. while Lino rigs then adds weight maps and control bones once he has an idea of how his mesh will behave (although Johnny goes back in and checks and adjust as he uses the rig to check his deformations..).. I really enjoyed that approach.. Linos DVD is very good at focusing on checking deformations and skinning of your model.

[wesleycorgi]

I concur with all three. I started out with Jonny's books. Then I got the RH training (then RHiggit Lite). Then I wasn't able to use for awhile. But got Lino's DVD, which inspired me to jump back into RH training plus a character rigging project came along. This lead me to upgrade to RHR Pro.

RH's training and plugs are pure genius. I also got Messiah and really like its tools and how it works with LW, but I also like using "pure play" LW stuff. So I'll eventually jump back into Messiah (just waiting for the right project).

[RebelHill]

Well, one tries one's best.

As a side note, what you'll tend to find I think, between the three trainings is this.

First off, Gordens book is very good, lots of good ideas and details. Do be aware though that since it predates the new rigging stuff that was added in 9,6 that a lot of the methods have been superceeded by others, and some of the tricks that were previously used (like gimbal fixes for IK n such) no longer work the same way anymore.

Lino's thing is very good, but ofc much more of a walkthrough, clikc this, now this... very little to no explanation of "why" things are done a certain way, or the differences that you get when doing them different ways. Like many tutorials, its great for reproducing the exact thing covered in the tut (paint by numbers) but not so great at giving you concepts you can apply to different characters.

My own... much more focussed on exploring and explaining the tools in LW as thoroughly as psooible, so as you can know what each tool does under dfferent circumstances, how it works, and why. The character "walkthroughs" in my training are much more of a hodge podge of various bits, and techniques... much more "experimental" rigs who's prupose is to show how things can be built up and up and up into more complex machines out of very simple parts, rather than trying to teach one specific start to finish character rig.

So in summary... Gorden and Lino's works are great for getting a sense of a given individuals workflow, and how they go start to finish (though some of the techincal how to of Gorden is outdated and should be ignored)... And if its the nitty gritty in depth detail that teaches how to think and design rigs for yourself, then mine is still the only training that touches on such things as they stand in LW for the past few releases. There's even a hefty amount of such learning in the 3 hour free set, so there's learning available to all.

[hevjudo]

Thanks for the comments rebel hill.. I am loving your tutorials.. and you're right.. the most important thing about rigging is the 'why?' not just the 'how'.. Given that rigging is about problem solving the knowing why is the most important aspect.