Character Rigging Joint Placement

Updated: Jun 8, 2021

Tips on Biped character Joint Placement

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Scene and Character Mesh Preparation

Set up the Asset scene

Set up with texture and lighting
Clean the outliner: toolbar>windows> outliner
Merge the character mesh to one: Mesh>combine
Delete the history of the combined mesh: Select the mesh > edit> delete all by type
Naming convention: Charactername_Geo
Make sure the character sit exactly in the center on the (0,0,0)
Adjust Pivot point (0,0,0) Hold down the D key to adjust the pivot point and snap it to the grid
Zero out the transformation: Modify> Freeze transformation
Check symmetrical.
Save Geo as a separate fold, then reference into the rigging scene

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Joint Placement

turn on x-ray joint and wireframe on shade to help place the joints
When placing joints think about skin weight, which verts will be effect by the joint, keep the joint in the center of those verts/mass
for those joints on the center, keep x transform 0
Joint orientation is very important when placing the joint, in simple turn, all the joints' XYZ is pointed in the right direction. (Skeleton>orient joint tool)
joint rotate order:
for example, when the rotate order is xyz that mean x rotate itself, y rotate x and y, z rotate x, y, z
game-engine tend to use xyz
plan your joint rotation order around what types of movement your character is doing
Gimble lock