11 Pose Test | The Baked Potato Rigging Course

[@domingo2390]

Really good session! I really appreciate going into what the animators will do. This sets this series apart from other vids I have seen which do not go as far as you have. To see you (as the animator) make the spatula-holding hand may seem almost too simple to present, but I am glad you did. Will the animator infer from the line current hand line style or is there a design guide that says "Hand lines shall be 15pt tapered"? The animator then adds the spatula-holding hand to the library and hopefully(?) the animator follows that hand ordering convention you (the rigger) were disciplined to create. Do studios have a tracking system which can see who made that new hand and when it went into the library? You do a fantastic job at communicating to the virtual audience and anticipating what that audience probably is thinking as they follow along.

[@mattwattsart]

Thanks so much Domingo. Often, there are just 3 pencil presets at the most for drawing lines on a series rig. Thick (12 pt), medium (7 pt), and thin (3 pt). Not specifically those numbers, but that kind of idea and all of those lines would use the same kind of line texture, if one is applied, and they'd all have pressure sensitivity. All characters will have art limited to being drawn with those pencils for the show. Often, no one ever goes through to add the new hands from scenes back into the library. Sometimes there are hundreds of scenes and occasionally someone will draw a hand that doesn't look all that great, but is passable. It would take some organization and planning for people to think ahead and note which scenes new hands were carefully created for. Sometimes a junky garbage hand will be drawn in with a bright color to indicate that someone good at drawing should draw a good hand in later for the scene. I am a huge fan of reusing elements, but sometimes studios are too busy to reuse the work they are quickly trying to pump out. My rule is to just leave any new hands in my scenes named 1, 2, 3 etc. so they are easy to spot if I were to open the scene back up later to try to collect reusable hands, then I would name the swap with my nice organization system when I put it back into the main rig. Does that answer your question?

[@mattwattsart]

Even if a production bible is created for a show, I often find that no one looks at it. You want almost everything to be very easy to identify and copy the style of in the rigs. For layered hands, I like to leave notes in backdrops to tell people how the different OL, LA, CA, UL layers are being used.

[@domingo2390]

@@mattwattsart Yes. Thank you for the info from behind the scenes.