Multiple characters / meshes, same rig?

Shuriken UK

Over the past few days I've been modelling a character, but the character also has 3 variations (average, muscular, fat), so I need to find a way to share one base rig between the 3 character meshes. The differences between the meshes aren't huge, they still keep the same general shape.

I thought I saw a video ages ago on this subject, but I cant find it anymore...

Does anybody know how I can sort of "copy & paste" rigs between similar meshes?

Thanks in advance!

cryrid

what software do you have access too?

Neox

how differentare your designs? if they are just human, keep in mind the skeleton stays pretty much the same, no matter if you are chubby or muscular.

also whatvengine are you planning to use? i think unity4 has support for exactly this now

Ark

What about exporting weightmaps?

ChaosEidolon

yeah, i guess it depends on what you mean by 'copy & paste'. Are you talking about the rig itself? The weights? the animations?

Simply bringing the rig over shouldnt be a problem, as long as your joint positions are all in the same place on your meshes. This is the most important thing to consider when sharing rigs like this.
You may have to do the skinweights separately. You can try to transfer the weights but if there is a major difference in the volumes, if may be easier to just reskin, especially on the fat mesh, as collapsing becomes a bigger issue the further away the mesh is from the bones.
Something you may consider if you are building the skeleton yourself, is including bones that are optional depending on the mesh you're using, ie, a belly bone. You don't skin anything to it on the thin mesh, but then you have access to it on the fat guy so you can get some variation in the animations.

Shuriken UK

Sorry lol, I forgot to mention Im using Max 2011 and UDK. The characters just a basic human shape, no detail, just a base body. I haven't started the rigging yet, but I'll use CAT for that.

Thanks for the detailed information and that idea about the extra bones. I'll try and copy across the rig and weights when I've made the skeleton, see if it lets me.

Bigjohn

This is done quite often. As long as the rig is the same, same bone-count and the bones are named the same, it should all work just fine.

I would come up with one rig, and sort of build your meshes around that. Making sure that each mesh works with the rig, not the other way around.