A Little Bit Lost When It Comes To Rigging Armor

Hypocrita

Hey everyone, hope all is going well for you!

I'm currently stuck at the point where I need to start rigging armor for a character in a game I'm working on. Some of it is straight-forward enough, but parts such as the shoulder plates have me a bit lost.
Basically they need to have upward movement, but only to a certain point, and no downward movement.
I'll be looking into solutions myself as this post sits around, but any and all suggestions are welcome!

I'm currently working with Blender 2.77a and my target platform is Unity 5, the rig I'll be using is from RIgify, modified slightly to allow for more control over various actions (blinking/breathing.)

Below is a picture of the armor with character model.



Thanks, and take care!

Eric Chadwick

If the armor is not supposed to bend (e.g. leather armor does bend a little, metal doesn't) then bind each piece to a single bone. You may need to add bones specifically for pieces of armor, to give you precise control and prevent interpenetrations. Then link those bones into your hierarchy where it makes the most sense. Shoulder plate bones probably linked to your clavicle bone, etc. 

Hypocrita

Hey Eric, thanks for the response!

Hm, so the solution could be to just add bones for specific parts of the armor?
I think I can see that working, not only in the short term, but long term as well. It just may mean a slightly different workflow within Unity, but at this point, it's hard to tell.
I suppose it's time to mess around a bit and see what happens!

Thanks again!