Learn how to setup a train to follow a path!

Using the rigging techniques shown in this tutorial you can easily rig a train to follow a path in any direction! Check out professional character rigging techniques with Puppeteer Lounge training workshop programs here!

How to setup controller visibility

Did you know you could turn on and off the visibility of controller with mouse cursor proximity? Using the techniques shown in this tutorial you can easily customize the visibility of control objects based on mouse proximity which can be very handy to simplify the rig visibility for animation. Check out professional character rigging techniques with Puppeteer Lounge training workshop programs here:

How to paint skin weight

Skinning is the process of binding a modeled surface to a skeleton. You can bind any model to its skeleton using skinning, or you can model over a pre-existing skeleton to create its skin. In this video tutorial I go over the techniques of skin weighting. Check out professional character rigging techniques with Puppeteer Lounge training workshop programs here!

How to rig a rocking chair | Rigging tips & techniques | Puppeteer Lounge Free Tutorial

Learn how to rig a rocking chair rig with this video tutorial. Check out professional character rigging techniques with Puppeteer Lounge training workshop programs here

How to rig cloth | Rigging techniques without using simulation | Puppeteer Lounge Free Tutorial

Learn cloth rigging techniques for clothing and accessories without the use of simulation and dynamics. The technique can be used for rigging character clothing such as skirt, coat, cape, loin cloth, etc with proper sliding and collision deformation that seamlessly follows the base model.

Grizzly Asset I Anatomy Model - Rig - Simulation Cache

For those of you learning ZIVA VFX here is a really nice digital asset by Nicolas MOREL to get started with!

Show Controller on Mouse Proximity (Puppeteer Lounge)

Show Controller on Mouse Proximity (Puppeteer Lounge) from Suchan Bajracharya on Vimeo.

Add this cool rig feature to your character setup to turn on and off the visibility of the controller based on mouse proximity. Lean character rigging at Puppeteer Lounge!

Skirt rig based on bell collider

Skirt rig based on bell collider by Alexander Zagoruyko. Here is the link to the tutorial.

VTS Animation Tutorial by Keith Lango

I have been an avid fan and a big time follower of Mr. Keith Lango, truly genuine and inspirational animator in the industry. Keith has recently made all his VTS tutorial series publicly available under his YouTube channel here. I would like to thank him for his willingness to share his valuable knowledge. Thank you kind sir :)

Direct Selection of Character Controls in Maya from Stephen Candell

Direct Selection of Character Controls in Maya from Stephen Candell on Vimeo.

Check out this video overview by Stephen Candell on setting up direct selection controls inside Maya which replicate a similar workflow we see with Pixar, Dreamworks and similar big studios. The idea can be well integrated into any rig system thus creating a clean and intuitive setup for the animators. Give it a try!

Skip Animation Tutorial

Skip Animation Tutorial from Felix Sputnik on Vimeo.

In-depth explanation of the skipping motion in animation by Felix Sputnik.

Workflow Breakdown - BodyMech Transform by Adam Turnbull

Workflow Breakdown - BodyMech Transform from Adam Turnbull on Vimeo.

Animation workflow breakdown by Adam Turnbull showcasing transformation between three rigs.

Setting up Multiples on Character Rigs

Here is a quick #rigTips on Setting up the Multiples. 

Multiples are traditional animation gimmicks to give you those wacky cartoon look, more like motion blur these days but 1000 times more cooler if you implement properly in 3D animation. Watch the video below which shows multiples on Eyes (yes multiples can be applied any where):

Now the trickery... Well the trick to creating Multiples is pretty simple! You might be wondering on creating each and every rigs one by one from scratch!! Well, let us keep it simple, the idea is to just select the nodes associated with any limb and Duplicate special with input graph connection (Yes that Duplicate Special button/command is the magic wand :). Works like a charm!!!

To make it even more simplier, easier and convenient without much headache; just duplicate special the main character node (See the image below). When duplicating special, make sure you have "Duplicate input graph" and  "Assign unique name to child nodes" is checked on (Very important, we want all the input output connections well connected and ofcourse with unique name for every nodes.) After a few second, minutes or more, you have multiple copies or clones of the same rig. Now, just some clean-up and organising to do which I will leave it upto you! And ofcourse you will also need to show hide the mesh parts which you can simply achieve by detaching and separting mesh parts for head and limbs, simple stuff, just make sure you don't delete the mesh history; finally some tweaking with the shader for blending transparancy and that's pretty much it. (Check the image below for breakdown :) 

Implementing multiples will slow down the rig as you know we have multiples for every rig, so I think it is wise to create 2 version of rig one featuring multiples and the other the standard one OR you can make some smart connection on the visibility of multiples mesh to show and hide depending on user input to make the rig faster to compute.

Well that's all folks! Easy as a piece of cake. Well go on, add some multiples on your rig, let us bring back those good old tradinal animation back into CG!

Check out this cool site for reference on many trickeries (gimmicks) used in traditional animation: http://animationsmears.tumblr.com/

For more exciting topics on character rigging, feel free to join Puppeteer Lounge training workshops at Puppeteer Lounge! We offer a wide range of training workshops! 

We now offer an exciting new course called Super Toon Character Setup which goes over creating a super cartoony rig featuring multitudes of animation gimmicks.Watch a quick demo here ;)

BTW do check out a quick animation test below with multiples!

FLEX Super Toony Animation Test from Puppeteer Lounge on Vimeo.

Automated Normal Maps with ShaderFX

Automated Normal Maps with ShaderFX from Suchan Bajracharya on Vimeo.

A quick tutorial on creating automated multiple normal maps blending using ShaderFX as per special request of my student William Esteban Méndez at Puppeteer Lounge. I find using ShaderFX pretty comfortable than DirectX11 Shader, probably because of more flexibility and similar workflow based on game engines such as UE4. Check it out! I hope it is helpful for your next rigging show-reel/project.

Dorito Effect for facial Rig in Maya by my student Veronica

Check out this wonderful tutorial by Puppeteer Lounge student Veronica on creating a Dorito effect for facial rig.

The Dorito technique allows for the rig’s controls to move with the deformations, making the rig much for intuitive for the animators.

Mirroring Blendshapes (rigTips)

Mirroring Blendshapes (rigTips) from Suchan Bajracharya on Vimeo.

#‎rigTips‬ on easy mirroring of blendshapes

Pigeon Rigging in Blender

Screencast of a robotic Pigeon rigging by Puppeteer Lounge #Blender instructor Jeremy Davidson for Tears of Steel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41hv2tW5Lc4)

Blender Workshops: http://www.puppeteerlounge.com/blender-workshop

Vehicle-Terrain Interaction Demonstration

Vehicle-Terrain Interaction Demonstration from Suchan Bajracharya on Vimeo.

A quick video on using Closest Point constraint for vehicle real-time wheel-terrain interaction from one of my classes at Puppeteer Lounge.

P.S. the suspension and lot of the vehicle rigs are going all over the place at the moment, don't worry, this is a work in progress file and I just scrubbed through the timeline with dynamics enabled.

If you want to learn more about Training Workshops at Puppeteer Lounge in character modeling, rigging , animation and coding, feel free to check out our website: puppeteerlounge.com/

Or contact us: info@puppeteerlounge.com

Stay posted by following Puppeteer Lounge's Facebook page: facebook.com/puppeteerlounge
Twitter: @puppeteerlounge

The 6 Steps of Animation

The 6 Steps of Animation from morrmeroz on Vimeo.

1) Shooting reference video
2) Key posing
3) Blocking
4) Splining
5) Smoothing
6) Adding life

A video tutorial guiding through the process of character animation by http://www.bloopanimation.com

Rigging Tutorials by Marco Giordano

Check out some of these cool tutorials by Puppeteer Lounge's instructor Marco Giordano. He has shared with us some very useful rig tips and trickery!

Come join us and learn to build your own rigging tools and auto rigger in #Python.

MAYA TUTORIAL : How to place correctly the polevector with Python from Marco Giordano on Vimeo.