Rig a Low Poly Character in Blender 2.9x

Learn how to easily rig a low poly character in Blender 2.9x. This is the second in a series of three videos. In the first video, we modeled this character and in the third video, we key frame animate an idle and a running animation.
Video 1 - Easy Low Poly Character Modeling in Blender 2.9x: • Easy Low Poly Characte...
You can download the tutorial files as a Tutorial Tier Patreon at:
/ imphenzia
Palette texture used in this tutorial:
www.dropbox.co...
In-depth learn how Low Poly Modeling in Blender:
• Learn Low Poly Modelin...
Twitter:
/ imphenzia
Imphenzia Discord server invite:
/ discord
Blender settings video (shiny borders):
• My Blender 2.82 Setup ...
Imphenzia Merch:
teespring.com/...
My Twitch Channel:
/ imphenzia
Gradient Texture Download:
www.dropbox.co...
If you want to use the palette style UV coloring method, I go through that in both of the above linked videos.
Official web site:
www.imphenzia.com
My Itch.Io page with all my Ludum Dare games:
imphenzia.itch...
Additional info:
I've been modeling in Blender since about 2015 but more recently in the past couple of years. I've been making games and assets in Unity since 2011 and I'm currently working on a multiplayer RTS game that I'll be happy to announce later this year.
I use a Canon Lumix GH5 camera to record my videos with the Olympus 17mm F1.2 lens as well as the Laowa F2.0 7.5mm compact dreamer lens. Sometimes I also use a GoPro Hero 8, a Insta360 One X and a Sony rx100 mark vii. For audio I use a Rode NTG shotgun microphone connected to a RME Fireface UFX II sound card.
Thanks a lot for watching and sharing my videos :)

[@mattkaiser8984]

“I’m gonna put the balls… *looks at camera* … where they go” Lol I died

[@shotbycaleb]

"and then- click on the tip here"

[@FracturedPixels]

"And it's gonna insert a big fat bone right here"

[@trueblue97]

Haha same bro!

[@desaindigital]

revised .. groin.

[@billybillyman]

*rock meme*

[@mdp7193]

0:39 - Creating the armature 6:30 - Inverse kinematics 12:30 - Symmetrize 13:00 - Parent rig and object + testing/problems 14:33 - Weight Painting (Fixing the belt) 17:07 - Vertex groups (Fixing the eyes) 19:30 - Constraint "Child Of" (Fixing the hat) Thank you SO much, this is an amazing tutorial!

[@rdssanimationtamilzhan5569]

But why the leg bone twist

[@deniskamenski]

@@rdssanimationtamilzhan5569 Twistbones are a way in animation to prevent joints from shrinking/distorting, by telling geometry near the joint to twist when the next bone down the line does. I hope this explanation helps.

[@laugher8065]

This is the only Blender rigging tutorial that is exceptional. You were the reason why I got my first character to move.

[@pebls3736]

i agree, same thing here :)

[@moritz_r]

same

[@fabexl5898]

Same

[@OfficialPoisonBoi56]

ngl, same here

[@OwllYranni]

same :D

[@Furlockthe666th]

I cannot believe how insanely helpful this tutorial was. Every single step, no matter how many times you had mentioned it before, you dictated what you were doing as you did it. Every time you selected the armature, every time you pressed a key, you said what you were doing. For someone like me who has never done this before, this was EXACTLY the kind of tutorial I needed to see. Absolutely the gold standard of this type of video, and I cannot thank you enough! This really eliminated that introductory fear of getting to know Blender for me. While I'd still consider myself an utter novice at using the software, your skill at teaching has really excited me to delve further into the murky depths and learn even more. Thank you so, so much!

[@codinginflow]

You have by far the best Blender tutorials I've found so far

[@Sucesss_Nation]

Fr fr

[@Charduza]

ye

[@drebbwaffle1858]

ikr

[@apersunthathasaridiculousl1890]

yes

[@samratix2497]

Not only blender, he teaches Unity too cool

[@jamest6199]

I've been bashing my head against the wall for a few weeks with different rigging tutorials this is the one that made all that separate info click together and enabled clipping in my brain, thanks!

[@TheOneWithComments]

In case any other beginners have this problem with the armature symmetrize mirroring front to back instead of left to right(@ 12:48) here's what worked for me: After some googling I realized my front was not to the Y-axis like in the video but to the X-axis instead, so I rotated my model and rig. BUT you still need to (in object mode) do a "CTRL+A" and select "Rotation" for armature symmetrize to work properly (and you probably should go back to 6:58 and do that again with the new axis). Hope it helps.

[@wen8739]

Thank you, I had this issue and I didn't know what was wrong.

[@ykrop6662]

Look at the name of Bone . I just removed unoccupied the space after the direction name .

[@azy_boy]

I don't understand : ( You can help me please ?

[@onatkocabasoglu2634]

No mate, it won't.

[@volkitolkitorino]

I want to kiss you on the lips. You have saved my life.

[@Janovich]

Despite being a low poly model this is actually the clearest rig basics tutorial I've encountered so far. Great job

[@esphilee]

I have watched at least 4 rigging tutorial before this, and failed to rig a model independently. Got it done after watching this. Best tutorial. Thank you.

[@I_hu85ghjo]

for people having problems with parenting the mesh to armature due to weight: -select mesh -edit mode> select all vertices -press "P"> seperate by loose parts -with all the parts of the mesh selected parent it with the armature you can join all parts once you've parented the armature

[@nunothebard]

you're the real MVP

[@disquad420]

took me far too long to find a working solution, thanks so much!

[@eduardyudistiro601]

it work for me THANKS!

[@bizonelleme]

the normal method worked for me normally to this day. but only the change was my arms and legs was set apart. i think its the problem that causes this. great help brother/sister.

[@justaspiral13]

You're a life saver haha

[@ZEDCorbett]

You can have multiple objects on the same armature. So you could add the hat in the usual way instead of via constraints. Shift+I in Pose mode is another way to add the IK constraint. Select controlling bone > Shift + select IK bone > Shift+I Also, didn't know about weight copying from 19:05. That's super useful!

[@kat74809]

I joined my character mesh with armature and set it to automatic weight. But my character's clothing, accessories(earring, glasses, rings, hair, hair tie), eyes, eyebrows, eyelashes, etc. none of them are following (they are their own object/layers separate from character mesh). Do I parent every one of these separate objects to my character mesh or do I parent these objects to my armature? In what order of the keys would I need to press to get everything to follow while keeping the weight?

[@ApplePaai]

I've been learning blender off and on for almost a year and still suck at rigging. Now I'm getting into game dev and this was more helpful and concise than all the blender-focused rigging tutorials I've already seen. Thank you.

[@grimreapybones2875]

Im getting very good at rigging on my own, but i sometimes forget something or run into problems And I always come back to this video for help Because it's simply the best Love the channel ❤️

[@archmagesalamar1377]

Looks like it could be a good series. Even after years of using Blender can always learn something from your videos. Thanks!

[@GaryParkin]

Great tutorial! thank you so much. For anyone else having issues at 14:40 weight painting. Make sure you don't have the root bone selected, i.e. shift-click it to unselect it before you shift click the upper leg to remove the weights from the bone. I accidentally had it selected and couldn't figure out why my mesh no longer moved with the bone. Lesson learned.

[@GrowthFuelTV]

the best part with having mistakes during this kinda of videos is you teaching how to solve them!!! thanks mate!!!

[@notfernandoalonso]

my god. thank you so much, i've been trying so many tutorials and giving up because they never explained the armature / rigging process easily. this and your low poly modelling tutorial are the best. i only have the colouring / texturing left to do. once again huge thanks

[@Bloodstained_]

13:08 SOLUTION (Bone Heat Weighting Error) Go to Object Mode > Selcet your LowPoly Charakter > Go to Edit Mode > Press A > There should be a TAB called "Mesh" on the same height as the Edit Mode Button > Press on "Mesh" > Search for "Clean Up">(Version 2.9.x) Click on Merge by Distance || (Version below 2.9) Click on Remove Doubles > on the Left Lower Corner there should pop up a box with a number > set to the number to about 0.01- 0.001 > now Try again It worked for me this way, good luck!

[@faishakim526]

Thanks Bro it works for me too.

[@mihailovasic4623]

After the last episode I was so impatient and excited for the rigging part and boy did your teachings not disappoint! Love your tutorials man!

[@donalodomhnaill]

I am looking for a spiritual successor to Brackeys. You... you just MIGHT be the one. Brackeys channel was definitely my first love when it came to unity programming and when he left I literally stopped making games. You are getting me back in gaming again. Genuinely thanks. To quote Mr. Brackeys himself " you rock".

[@sriramramesh3360]

I have been bushing around for 3 years finally this video made me do low poly run animation 🙏

[@VikVaughnMISC]

Thank you so much for this video, dude. You saved me a ton of headache - very simple to follow and I feel like I learned a ton even for understanding bones in more complex models.

[@sometf2player752]

4:50 "Click on the ball" lol that pause when he realized what he just said

[@Mikehy.mp3]

the amount of times ive re watchd this video in order to remember which bone is the target and which is the pole is more than id like to admit, thank you for this video

[@Rambho009]

I cannot thank you enough for making this such an easily followable process with explaining each step so articulately! Sir, you are truly appreciated .

[@vexedev]

If anyone gets the "Bone Heat Weighting", try selecting all your model faces in edit mode and hit M (merge) by distance and try again! Fixed it for me

[@craft99]

This fixed mine, so thank you! I'll also add that I needed to go into x-ray view so I could drag select all of the face.

[@diongding7377]

Thanks! For me i had to select all the body and then merge so that it could work

[@MagicAscend]

Oh my Lord, thank you! Tried the Merge without your way and it found nothing. Thanks a lot!

[@isaacgoerz5308]

Please help it isn't working

[@adslpiulentoditalia2545]

Thank you Amazing

[@logan4179]

Thanks for this tutorial. It was to the point, didn't waste time, short intro, didn't contain obnoxious attempts at humor, and it went into decent depth instead of just skimming the surface. I wish all Blender tutorials were like this.

[@jophan8702]

Really helpful, have tried and failed many times with other tutorials. But you managed to explain everything so simple and kept repeating every key press and everything you did and why. Thanks a lot!

[@mukeshkumar-pj5sn]

Its THE BEST VIDEO on Rigging. I have searched whole KZbin. Thanks. Continue the good work.

[@Janovich]

01:59 I never laughed so hard at a tutorial Thanks sir :)

[@AlexH91]

The only video on KZbin that actually helped me learn how to rig, 10/10!

[@triangle4studios]

Exactly what I am learning right now, I just discovered you yesterday, and because of your rigging.

[@ExplosionMare]

I will have to learn basic animations for school soon, so I’m glad a good and understandable tutorial like this is out there

[@michaelmcfadden8187]

Thank you so much for such a clear and precise tutorial. I am definitely a beginner and I blend just for fun. This is the first rigging tutorial I followed through without missing a step along the way. Keep up the great work.

[@markolitrop8723]

Thanks you for this tutorial. You did what no one else managed to do. You told me that I needed to press tab. For that, I am eternally grateful. Thank you.

[@PaulEmsley]

Fixing up the mis-connected belt vertex to head bone was extremely valuable - thanks.

[@kmsskyquake7330]

brooo you are such a god , this lecture went like utter into my head

[@nfdgoisn]

You are doing the lord's work. Thank you for this!

[@Nezbellx]

tysm it work!!! i was searching this for sooo long this is an actual good video i gave a thumbs up😭❤🧡💛💚🤩💯

[@Gatitasecsii]

LOVE your tutorials, Let me tell you that the fact that you do low poly modeling is helpful because when you look for other tutorials it's full of stupid jargon that nobody understands except professional modelers with decades of experience or training. Thank you so much.

[@nexuzinnovation-com]

hi Stefan, I want to say thank you for sharing this useful video, it help me to understand the usage of Inverse Kinematics and built my first rigging model with IK. I watched and repeated many times to rig correctly, all the necessary steps you mentioned are essential to result in a clean rigging. PERFECT!

[@MayHowdy]

For those having trouble with the foot bending even after applying copy rotation, make sure you have turned off inherent rotation!

[@androidtechreviews8968]

Bro I have this same problem the back foot doesn't move with the from

[@MayHowdy]

@@androidtechreviews8968 Hey man. I'll be honest I have no idea what I was doing wrong back then. But in the past year of working in blender I've figured out how to rig things pretty well. You just need to keep at it. It gets easier. Blender's fun when you get to know it but the first 100 hours are brutal. I believe in you!

[@androidtechreviews8968]

Damm bro thats cool ima definitely keep at it thanks

[@ckay7816]

This saved my last bit of sanity, thank you!

[@seth_9367]

Your tutorials far surpass all others I have seen for blender. Thanks for doing what you do.

[@done.8373]

Also, NGL this is one of the best simple rigging tutorials on YT.

[@ajkitsune9312]

Thanks. I am a complete noob at Blender. I know my way around ZBrush, so this is a new way of modeling for me, and finding an instructor that I could easily follow, without thinking, "HOLY CRAP MAN, WHAT A WASTE OF MY TIME", has been daunting to say the least. Almost enough to get me demotivated from using Blender at all. I have MANY questions and much to learn, so lets see if you can get me there 😊 Thanks

[@kurojei419]

Amazing tutorials for a programmer trying to learn some art for solo projects! Highly recommend these videos

[@Robhearts_]

Am I the only one geeking out on this stuff?! Thank you good sir! This helps a lot

[@Phantomewzick]

You sir, are a gentleman and a scholar.

[@ashhaf63]

Thank you very much. I searched the net for days and looked at a lot of tutorials and non show how the character squats (knees go down to ground). Excellent Video.

[@SantinoDeluxe]

thank you for this, things can be so hard to find and remember that without youtube and people like you, forget about it

[@kat74809]

I joined my character mesh with armature and set it to automatic weight. But my character's clothing, accessories(earring, glasses, rings, hair, hair tie), eyes, eyebrows, eyelashes, etc. none of them are following (they are their own object/layers separate from character mesh). Do I parent every one of these separate objects to my character mesh or do I parent these objects to my armature? In what order of the keys would I need to press to get everything to follow while keeping the weight?

[@Faygris]

This is the best and most helpful tutorial on that topic I've come across now. thank you soo much!

[@mographlab]

Can' wait for the next video! It'll be cool to go through different motions/poses.

[@JunkerJames]

This is really useful stuff. I have a weird idea for you: in a few cases you say "do this arcane trick, because it'll be useful for later". It would be nice to see an example of what sorts of problems you have when you've missed those steps. Like, seems like modelling, rigging, animating involves a long list of stuff that's going to screw you if you don't remember to do it at that stage of the process. It would be nice to have examples of the screw-ups, as well, so that we'd be able to "debug" what went wrong, and then go back and fix it. So, things like: making sure naming is correct for chirality, and adding bends to joints.... "If you didn't add a bend to the knee, this is what the IK looks like". I dunno. I'd find it super helpful! A "so you fucked up your rigging..." video or something.

[@Thunderhorse007]

100% agree. When you get some weird problem you have absolutely no clue in which on of the 50 steps you made a mistake. A video with examples of common problems people have sounds alike a great idea.

[@matofilipovic7818]

Not a weird idea at all. These types of things are sorely missing from tutorial videos, so I 100% support this idea :D

[@dansdaily3489]

This is easily the best tutorial for this.

[@TheGooch111]

Thanks for all of the great quality videos and the Patreon content! What a great start to 2021 with the slowed down, back to back videos putting all of the pieces together. I wish there was a love button beside the like button, above.

[@rossiesp5379]

Thank you very much you are my god of riging in Blender. Very helpful every minute of your speaking

[@James-qe8lu]

So clear and detailed instruction video ever seen in YT. Thank you so much. Thank you !!

[@7teen17]

I had to remodel and re-rig the entire character three times but i finally got it working! Thanks for being a big help!

[@dremovremen1764]

19:15 if you haven't crushed your head against the wall yet due to vertex weight not copying, it might be that your vertices belong to different objects (check that in obj mode). Join them into one, and then copying will work.

[@PhotographyAdventure]

So many time-saving tips I keep coming back for, thanks so much! 🙏🏼

[@notinajaronmars]

I like how you said; "put the balls...(blinked, thinking)... where they go..." at 1:58 - you paused, realized the pun, you didn't even laugh or acknowledge it. Why not? It was funny. You even said "click on the tip" of the bone right after that. Too funny.

[@klonadediscontinued9177]

Yes! I did it! IT'S ALIVE!! Thank you so much.

[@Bolleboos]

If you will make a couple of animations, can you please make them in a way (+ info) on how to export the character + the animations into unity ? I find a lot of info about making 1 animation like a walkcycle but very difficult to find info on how you can for example export multiple animations and use them in unity.

[@felixfrandes6136]

Id like that too, i am having the same problem

[@EdKidgell]

Google is your friend....

[@luckyizzac]

he made a video on it

[@kritanai8928]

@@luckyizzac what’s the name ?

[@huethedev6537]

Here's a list of most SHORTCUTS that Imphenzia mentioned Press Mid-Mouse button to rotate. Shift + Mid-Mouse button to pan around. Scroll Wheel to zoom in & out. Keypad#1: Front view. Keypad#3: Side view. Keypad#7: Top orthographic view. Keypad#5: Toggle btw orthographic & perspective mode. Left-click: Select. Right-click: Context Menu. Del key or X: Delete. Ctrl+Z: Undo. Tab: Object mode & Edit mode. Shift: Toggle/Multi-Select. 1: Select Vertex. 2: Select Edge. 3: Select Face. G: Move . GG: Slide along Edge. R: Rotate. S: Scale. To Move, Rotate or Scale on axis press X,Y or Z after G, R or S is selected. A: Select All. AA or Alt+A: Deselect. E: Extrude. Alt+E: More options - While Vertex, Edge or Face is selected. I: Inset. B (During Inset) if mirror mod is on: Boundary on/off. Ctrl+R: Loop Cut. Palette link: lospec.com/palette-list I'll be adding more. 👍

[@disobeysector4880]

Your the best... out of everyone teaching on this platform

[@narenhait]

The best teacher on blender ..you are more than excellent...from India

[@Cabazorro0]

This helped me a ton! I was having issues exporting my rig to unity because I followed other video that said to constraint the foot in a way that it ended as a child of the target ik in the ankle, and unity said missing "foot bone". This solved my problem, thank you very much!

[@Kimb4000]

I keep coming back to this tutorial because I can never remember how to set up the "child of" constraint for things like the hat. Actually, every time I have tried to rig a character I come watch this tutorial and follow along.

[@MAS9Nine]

R.I.P

[@rubangakeneinnojoseph6882]

I like the fact that you kept it simple

[@tommyd2235]

Did anyone else giggle when he said "A big fat bone right at the bottom and slides it straight up". Love your tutorials by the way

[@ImmortalPanic]

Didnt know Jason Statham was this good at teaching blender....great vid!

[@joejones2621]

Best rigging tutorial I've come across, thank you!

[@malibaturhan]

Before this video I recommend you to watch blender's official tutorial of inverse kinematics, this video is a good practice but that video has very good formal knowledge

[@nicholaserickson8567]

You are much more informative than the most watched videos. Thank you so much!

[@joe_fabricator]

"I wanna put the Balls where........they go." LOL. Educational AND Funny! Jokes aside, great series, thank you.

[@shrutibhagat5464]

Thank you so much for your tutorial😍❤️, literally the best one which i found till now😇

[@Nezbellx]

agreed sister ✌🏼🌺

[@rottennugget8197]

Words cannot describe how much I appreciate you doing this tutorial. You always get to the point and explain everything understandable and easy. Thank you for giving my character life x)

[@Imphenzia]

Thank you!! I also have a newer version in my channel, look for the one with a yellow thumbnail :)

[@minecraft333girl]

Please help! @@Imphenzia I followed carefully to fix the eyes but they STILL do not move with the head! Do you have any idea why this could be?

[@collinkim9839]

"the balls... where they go"

[@hennyheartily58]

Thanx, very clear and enjoyable tutorial. Structured and with a pleasant pace and tone too. I've been trying to anymate a rigged caracter for a while, but postponed it because I did not get all steps clear. Thanks to you, I do now. I am not a beginner anymore, but I also enjoyed the previous steps about making the lowpoly caracter. Realy fun to do.

[@Wolf-kx1pv]

Awesome guide, used this to make my first ever rig in 3.0 :)

[@wenchaofarid4643]

nice

[@SukhrobR]

Awesome. Watched a lot of videos about simple rigging. This one is very clear and simple to understand. Thanks man

[@DougCooperTech]

This is very helpful. It has saved all of us noobs a ton of time. Thank you.

[@lucasborges4599]

thnk god i have found u i devote to u thanks for teaching me everything so easily and understandable I love u

[@gelfeatherweight5335]

2:58 - his face when he said the next ten words lol

[@paahdin]

I always come back to this video when i have to rig a character or an object!

[@candybaer6005]

thnx all the other tutorails i seen were like i didnt understand but yours i understand thank you

[@apersunthathasaridiculousl1890]

i finally made a character, but didn’t have a rig, but now it does, and it works SO WELL! THANK YOU!

[@ahmedbajalan1274]

Definitely better then the other rigging tutorials on KZbin.

[@AhmedHan]

1:58 4:50 I like these "balls" moments.

[@taash32]

i adore you bro, yourChannel is all what I need;

[@lindsay5985]

Hey, thanks for doing a tutorial that actually explains things properly and is followable!

[@LaEstrellaProductions]

Back to back tutorials you're amazing

[@aashwindev2318]

Hey, I tried this tutorial but there's an issue, Everything was fine till I tried to make a parent, starting from 13:00, I can move my armature but the mesh does not follow it. Please help!

[@basedboyzfl]

@@lukas_is where do i select mesh ?

[@ronnie_6947]

@@lukas_is Thank You. I was facing the same issue. Your instructions helped.

[@ronnie_6947]

@@basedboyzfl In object mode, select the character. Go into edit mode, then press A to select everything. Press F3 and search Clean up. You will find an option Mesh > Clean up > Merge By Distance. click that. Go out of Edit mode. Then go into pose mode and try moving the bone and see if the character follows. This worked for me, hope this helps.

[@darth6129]

@@ronnie_6947 you saved me man i was searching for hours

[@ronnie_6947]

@@darth6129 glad I could be of help!

[@the_bluguy]

"Now I'm gonna put the balls, where... *blink* ... they go." Didn't except dry comedy here! I searched for copper and found gold.

[@VitusPolikarpusSM]

Thanks for the tutorial, I'll try to practice it myself

[@deepeshkumar1131]

Thanks I have learnt a lot from your videos

[@thirdreplicator]

At 13:06, in Object mode, I selected the man and then shift selected the armature, the pressed CTRL-P, then selected "Armature deform with automatic weights" but when switching to Pose mode, the bones don't take the man with it. How do I debug this? When I move the bones they fly out of the body, and the body doesn't move. Thank you!

[@spitefol5504]

Having the same issue, have you solved this yet?

[@basedboyzfl]

Same issue i cant see any help

[@owenlawson6925]

Ya same i need to figure this out

[@done.8373]

Seriously cracked up...."I'm gonna put the balls.....where they go, and then click on the tip."

[@fryifiedgaming5883]

your super underrated!