Animator Friendly, or something else?

jengy

Hey guys,

I wanted to get better at rigging for games, but I'm not sure what resource is best to learn from.

I found this series of videos from Animator Friendly, but they look slightly old and I wasn't sure if they were worth the $$$ being a few years old.

Can anyone tell me if these are worth the $100, or if getting another DVD/book resource would be better?

I like tutorials and teaching that really explains the WHY of technical stuff. Knowing how something works, even on a minor level, lets me understand how to fix problems if they arise (which is important for rigging).

Any ideas?

Info: I have a novice to intermediate understanding of rigging, but I don't mind going back to the basics.

jipe

Jason is a unicorn -- very talented as an animator (I believe he's supervising at DWA?) but also very technically oriented. I have a special place in my heart for his AFR series because he breaks down why animators care about specific controls or movement capabilities and then explores how to solve them. In my opinion, this approach is much more helpful than tutorials that focus on software features (e.g., "Here's how to use IK in Maya") or even videos that show off fancy rig features ("Build a sweet ribbon spine"). The latter is useful, but nothing beats learning how to think critically about locomotion and implementing animators' requests in a holistic way.

The series itself is also thorough, with detailed PDFs and videos and scripts. So even though it may not match 1:1 with your goal of improving at game rigging, you can probably adapt his approach and make it work with a non-broken joint hierarchy, for example.

I also hear good things about Rigging Dojo, which would allow you to focus on more targeted learning with a mentor (albeit for more money). Curious if anyone else has suggestions!