However, there is definitely order to the chaos, since everything is organized in a hierarchy of movement. If you examine a 3D rigged character, it will normally look like a confusing bunch of lines, shapes, and dots connected together. Imagine that you are creating 20 dance animations (think Fortnite): it will be a huge hassle to animate the hundreds of body positions frame-by-frame, but rigging lets you create an algorithm for how the body holds itself and moves, so the time spent on animation is cut exponentially. The greatest advantage provided by rigging is saved time. For example, a non-rigged character that is set to walk will look like they are frozen and gliding across the map, while you will see the legs and feet of a rigged person move with every step. With this rig in place, it is possible to create realistic movement animation for selected parts of the body.

This is a structure outlining the various bones, limbs, joints, and movable elements of a character. It is one variety of the general rigging process, often referred to as skeletal animation.ĭuring character rigging, an artist takes a character model and creates a digital “skeleton” for it. What is Character Rigging in Animation?Ĭharacter rigging is the process of creating the conditions for skeletal character movement in animation. Strap in, because we are about to take a deep dive into the world of character rigging, and specifically 3D rigging services, answering your questions along the way. Though character rigging is just one stage of a much larger animation process, there is a lot to consider, and the process can be much more complex and time-consuming than you think. Today, rigging is an essential part of animation design and an absolutely mandatory addition for producing character realism. Unsurprisingly, this is also when 3D animation started to take off, and production companies started making a real effort to give their digital characters realistic features and movement. Since the 1980s, rigging has been the gold standard in character animation.

C4d character rigging