[Dota2 Tutorial] The Rigging Process

heboltz3

Hello world!

So, in the short time I've been around in the community, I've seen a lot of questions and threads about problems related to rigging, be that a question about the process, skinning, exporting, or just the theory surrounding the process.

I've realized to stop sounding like a broken record, I'll just make a mini tutorial series on the basics of "how rig" with a focus on the dota requirements. I know this might be a little redundant with the amount of tutorials there are available on the web, but this is also an exercise in instruction and education I am equally excited about taking on personally as I am about helping out the community.

While I've alrady got a streamlined process for typical dota content creator X recorded and outlined, and added in some hints/tips about how to make everything go a little quicker, I was wondering if you guys had any specifics, or suggestions about things I should add, or suggestions about "This one time I was doing Y and I really wish I had know Z"

I'll make a note that I'll be using maya to do rig, however I'm going to try to make this as much about theory as practice so the skills should carry over from program to program.

Any suggestion will be helpful, thanks guys

ceed

i think you'll make it good just start questions will pop up faster than you might want ^^

TrevorJ

The one biggest thing that saved me a shat load of time and headaches is mayas Skin -> Edit Smooth Skin --> Copy skin weights. Just select a default item and then your item and hit that. Make sure it's set to "Closest point on surface" that seemed to work the best. It also works for getting skinning from your LOD0 to your LOD1 very well.

If your items are at least somewhat similar volume to the default items you actually get pretty good skinning for free. If anyone needs more explanation i can do i quick mini tut image for it.

heboltz3

Skin weighting with copying, component editor, painting, and interactive are already in there, and detailed in depth. I figured that'll be the part most referenced by everyone, so It's the part I'm spending alot of time on.

TrevorJ

awesome, sounds like you got most of the problem areas covered. Will be super helpful to the community

Xajai

Before i knew about copying weights I did everything by painting them... took forever and the results were not always perfect, you deal with a lot of clipping if you don't know what you are doing, or if the items are close to the model, like cloth.

L0N3Y

Side tip, make sure it's a single mesh when binding to the skeleton and not multiple meshes.

heboltz3

Of course! That's included as well, don't you worry

The Intro video should be up by tomorrow, and I'll pop it in here for some lookin.

GhostDetector

In your videos can you explain what each step/the importance does rather than telling people to do a step? I ask this because if I learn the purpose of a step, it's easier for me to remember. In many tutorials I've seen, the guys usually omit the information on the importance of a step or process and just limit it to "Press (x)", and then moves on.

This way people can use the knowledge from your videos and apply it to different situations without having to be dependent on tutorials.

heboltz3

For sure! That was the approach I was planning on taking, dealing with several different programs, and approaches to do the same thing, I think explaining the reasoning behind the steps is the most valuable part. The first video will be sorta theory intensive and definitely deal with some of the over arching concepts like you've mentioned.

Its good to see my ideas are congruent to the communities needs so far!

polarbear

I have no new input to give, but I am very glad you are doing this!
To me the most important is that you cover different programs and really show what to click and where the button is. There are way too many tutorials that just mention the button or even just the name of the process and simply show the results, but that's not helpful.

AndrewHelenek

L0N3Y wrote: »

Side tip, make sure it's a single mesh when binding to the skeleton and not multiple meshes.

Its not required, my last three words and lsat few couriers have all had multiple meshes. Unless that pertains to armor sets and only armor sets.