Rigging the Spine & Arms

Today, I combined rigging the spine and arm into one day, as it was a repeating process where I could apply what I learned so far.

I will divide the process into

1. Rigging the Spine

2. Rigging the Arms & Hands, creating controllers

1. Rigging the Spine

- Create 6 short consecutive joints where the spine would be. I did not worry about the length at this stage.

Shift the 'Translate X' value to a good amount. Put the same values onto each joint to stretch the spine up to the torso.

- Create three controllers for the lower spine, mid-spine, and shoulders. Align the pivot with each joint that it would be controlling. I placed each controller with the 5th joint, 4th joint, and the 2nd joint.

- Parent the controllers in the order of lower-mid-shoulder, so the rest can move with the lower spine controller.

- Constrain each controller onto the joints.

- Parent the hip joint onto the lowest spine joint. Also, parent the lower spine controller onto the hip controller.

2. Rigging the Arms & Hands, creating controllers

- Create 3 consecutive joints where the shoulder, elbow, and wrist would be.

* checking the topology and matching it with the fold helps

- For the hand, make a central 'hand' joint, then start the three fingers(pointer, middle, index) from there. Structurally, the pinky finger and thumb are more natural to move from the wrist point.

* make sure to check in all directions, and tuck the joints inside the mesh properly.

* decreasing the base joint size from the tool options menu helps!

- Orient, then mirror the joints after freezing the transformation & deleting history.

- Create three controllers for the shoulder, elbow, and wrist. Hands are to be tended to next lesson. Copy the same onto the other side.

- Constrain the controllers onto the joints, and parent the controllers to each other in order.