This class will teach you how to design and rig characters for animation in After Effects. Rigging is the process of setting up your artwork to streamline the animating process. This course will teach you everything you need to know about character animation.
I will show you how to use the free Duik Bassel script for rigging your characters. Duik Bassel's structures system is a new way to rig characters in After Effects. Structures allow you build a character rig without having to use the character artwork. This is a more efficient and flexible way of rigging characters.
This technique can be used in any type of design. You can create a flat vector character using Illustrator or a hand-illustrated and textured character using Photoshop. If you are able to design it, I will show you how you can rig it.
Class Outline
- Complexity of character. Complexity of your character will make your rigging more complex. By looking at four different character shapes, you can see the different levels of animation design difficulty.
- Design Guidelines and Requirements. You'll first learn how to make your animation characters large enough for rigging. In Photoshop and Illustrator, you'll also learn how to create guide layers for your character’s joints.
- Install DUIK and import your artwork. DUIK is an After Effects script that you can download for free. It has many features that will allow you to rig your character. After Effects will show you how to set up DUIK. Otherwise, you will need to prepare your composition settings (comp duration and pixel resolution). You can then begin rigging.
- The Puppet Tool. This tool is essential for After Effects animation. The puppet tool is able to determine the movement of your character as well as its distortion resolution. You will learn how to place pins using the puppet tool and how to use puppet starch for customizing the puppet mesh. You'll then learn how to use DUIK for controlling those puppet pins.
- IK is used to rig an arm. You'll start with your character's arm and learn how to build an IK structure using Duik's structures. You'll use the puppet tool to place pins. Next, you'll rename your Pins to make it easier to track your progress. Next, you will learn how to attach separate parts of an arm using "parenting." Then, you will learn how to make one part of the arm move by animating it based on a single, localized motion.
- Rigging the Legs, and Body. The process of rigging the leg for your character is the same as that for the arm. This will give you a quick refresher before you move onto the body. Once you have locked the limbs and secured your character's hair to the head, you will be able to see how to parent them to the body. This will allow you to ensure that the movements of your character are consistent.
- Clean up your Timeline and Lock the Neutral Position. You'll learn how to recognize the different controllers that control your character's movements and how to lock certain aspects of your work. Your scale remains the same no matter how you animated.
- Rigging Stu. Stu's longer body means that he will need multiple movement points in his torso. In order to create complete body movements for a long-bodied character, you'll need to know where to add anchor points.
- Automated animation of a procedural walk cycle. Finally, you will create an animated loop of the walk cycle using all the skills that you have learned.
Looking for more inspiration? You can find more After Effects classes here.
