EASY and QUICK Character Rigging in Blender - Blender Basics Tutorial

Animation is a whole thing, but before you can make any animations for your game, you're going to need to rig your characters. Lucky for you, in most cases you'll be able to get a very powerful rig within minutes due to blender rigify add-on!
Use the same base mesh as me from here : www.cgtrader.com/free-3d-mode...
Join the discord for any help you need! : / discord
support the channel and development over on patreon : / thegamingcaves
gameplay channel : / @vlogergames

[@virtualSimBS]

When parenting the object to the rig for some reason you have to use control instead of shift to select both objects, usually it's shift when selecting multiple objects. When using shift the automatic weight option doesn't appear.

[@thegamedevcave]

good to know, that seems to be an issue more people are having! thanks for the headsup and the solution you found!

[@Samsung-gs4cn]

I've tried this and still have no option for automatic weight. Do you know a fix?

[@pexels1479]

not sure what yall believe in just wanted yall to know Jesus loves yall if yall didint already know that come to Christ repent non denominational

[@roxassora2706]

Blender is so frustrating to learn@@Samsung-gs4cn

[@user-od2ld3jg9z]

It's the issue of which object is Active. With Shift the last selected object is Active. With Ctrl the first selected object is Active. You need the Skeleton to be Active for the Automatic weight option to appear And if you want manual weight painting - you need the Mesh to be Active.

[@valuedbyvaluable2922]

Thank you for such easy and comprehensive tutorial, I was always afraid to rig anything since the process always looked so intense and complicated however, your tutorial made me break through that fear of trying, and the whole video was just breeze and easy to follow. Thank you so much! once again you gained my follow and my like + this sincere and genuine comment! hope you have a great day sir :)

[@huongthao2741]

Thank you for this! Goes straight to the point! it saves me tons of time instead of following other tutorial (that kinda make me feel dizzy hahaha)

[@Doubleaa500]

Brilliant!! Now that they have good base meshes for me to use, this video is perfect to pose characters for scenes for a graphic novel!!

[@DylanSnider]

I got it to work. Took two hours just to make the rig, but it paid off. Thanks lol.

[@sandgrube4116]

Great tutorial, exactly what I've looked for!

[@AcerbusShroud]

I actually logged in to say thank you for an amazing video this really helped. So, thank you!

[@HE360]

This is an EXCELLENT video!! Thanks!!

[@IKP1000]

Thank you, thank you! I've been trying to rig my basic character for days now, but every tutorial let me down at some point (I'm sure it was me letting myself down actually, but it's the same thing in the end: failure..) Following your superb tutorial, everything has worked perfectly. My character moves! And in a controlled way. I'm subbed.

[@thegamedevcave]

Great to hear!

[@stylaender]

Thank you man! Awesome video!

[@Damanzz101]

awesome video man!

[@pipjacjjones]

thanks you, you made this simple and easy to understand.

[@VitusPolikarpusSM]

Thank you for the tutorial, very helpful for me who is just learning blender, I will try to practice it myself

[@thegamedevcave]

Glad it was helpful! Lots of practice is how you build your skill! once you have a good rig to work with, animation becomes a lot easier :)

[@Lluminor]

thank you so much for this super helpful tutorial

[@Polychi1998]

AWESOME IT HELPED ME!! THANKS!

[@user-bs1xt5rf7m]

Thank you very much for letting me know there is an addon can help to build bones very quickly!

[@thegamedevcave]

happy to help out and save you some time :)

[@user-uj1wl5hq9m]

This was so clear and easy im very happy with this tutorial:))

[@thegamedevcave]

Glad it helped!

[@shantanu83]

This is a very good tutorial, thanks!! The options and keys in Blender are so innumerous that what follows what can be hard to comprehend. But with this tutorial, I was able to make excellent progress.

[@thegamedevcave]

if you follow blender Guru's donut tutorial, he goes over a lot of the basics of blender and I believe he also provides a 1 page document with a bunch of shortcuts as a cheatsheet to teach yourself what all the keys do. Certainly helped me a lot when i got started!

[@BlenderVIzzLab]

That was really very helpfu... thanks for the video. 😇

[@bestpranks7852]

thank you, great video!

[@flardrynn1]

great tutrioal! thank you very much

[@onthegreengolfchannel]

Just got a sub from me great video! Very helpful and fantastic zoom screens showing what your selecting! I would say have a set format of the video written down next to your screen to stay on track and keep it less disjointed. But other then that keep up the great work I've learnt something from this!

[@thegamedevcave]

Awesome, thank you! I've been getting in the habit of going through and doing the whole process of what i'm about to make a tutorial for before i start the recording to help with exactly what you mention here so it's a little easier to follow along in the future!

[@robertdmovibesrdv8643]

It's my first time watching yo videos but thnx i learned alot keep up thnx

[@thegamedevcave]

Thanks! always happy to help :D !

[@terabhaisecretgamer]

you made it simple. Thank youu

[@thegamedevcave]

Glad it helped!

[@lucual]

I'm doing a university work and I spent more than 10 hours rigging a character step by step. I feel so dumb now watching I could have finished it in less than 15 minutes... Thank you so much buddy, next time I'll search a tutorial in YT instead of follow the teacher's steps HAHAHA

[@thegamedevcave]

It is very much worth learning to do things from scratch. This is nice if you need to pose or animate something quickly but is also severely limited in its use. So I would say those 10 hours doing it step by step (which will also be a lot faster as you get more used to things) was well worth it if the goal of the whole thing was a learning experience:)

[@RickHenderson]

That’s awesome. Much easier than I thought. And I plan to make some tentacled thing too! Surprised it uses the extrude tool but I guess that’s so the end of a limb is an extension of the parent and not a separate object.

[@thegamedevcave]

you could very well just add new bones in edit mode instead of extruding them but this way they're already parented and connected properly, very nice quality of life improvement! If you're doing tentacles, this other video builds on the things I show off here, might be helpful to you too! kzbin.info/www/bejne/opSVXmawmcqAl80

[@HipBlooD]

Just found your channel and damn, very very useful!

[@thegamedevcave]

Glad I could be helpful!

[@rara-tv3gd]

thanks sir. A good tutorial with a nice voice. :)

[@thegamedevcave]

Thanks! I'm happy it was helpful!

[@btdxpm]

Great vid.

[@ripL25]

I really want to be good at making animations, good tutorial, I'll subs your chanel, sir

[@VMYE-ir6vw]

Awsome!!!

[@sanantonioroach7458]

Bring it around town...And BRING IT AROUUUND--TOWN!

[@animanoir]

Thank you my dude.

[@thegamedevcave]

Any time!

[@joey.bailey]

great video, would u be able to show how to rig the fingers as well as the entire body?

[@josuesilva4765]

Thank you buddy

[@barackyunus901]

Thanks so much guy🎉❤❤

[@voguelapsha]

thank you!!

[@iojoe229]

big thanks

[@Gametime05577]

Thanks

[@godrumaster1077]

Great information ℹ ❤

[@thegamedevcave]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Main_Grain]

thank you :3

[@buvsicle5697]

This was so helpful! Do you mind making a tutorial to attach clothing to the rig?

[@thegamedevcave]

clothing can be a bit of a pain to deal with, in a general sense it's best to make the clothes part of your character model if you can (you can join objects together by selecting them and pressing ctrl+J). you'll likely have to manually fix up some things in the weight painting but it's the quicker route to getting clothes to work. if you have a lot of outfits that need to be swapped in and out, that can get a bit more complex to deal with though. (this is in no way the ideal way you're supposed to do it I believe, but it's the way I tend to do things, but frankly, most of the work I do, i tend to design my characters to need as little clothing as possible because I hate having to worry about things clipping through the clothes XD)

[@blackespectral]

thank you

[@cghsae]

tysm !!!

[@lolaswift111]

Thank you so much. You made it so easy. Now I want to learn 3d modeling from you. Please make tutorials or paid courses 🙂

[@thegamedevcave]

i have a few blender videos on the channel. later this year I plan to do a whole course for free here on youtube but it'll be a few more months before I get to that

[@lolaswift111]

@@thegamedevcave For absolute beginners please. feeling hopeless with blender. I can't wait for that. thank you very much♥

[@sportshighlights030]

I love you thx

[@Alexandro_atb]

Great video it helped me a LOT with Rigging Thank you ❤

[@bolovanbolovan5236]

Great content! Could you make someone that swims ? Thank you

[@dariosposato289]

Hi, I got an issue. When change from edit mode to object it re-change the position of my bones to the original phase, so the rig that I generate has that "shape". How can i solve this pls

[@iris89936]

Thank you so much for this video it helped a lot!

[@ximenamo28]

Love the tutorial, can you teach us how to do a walk cycle animation? please!

[@thegamedevcave]

Thank you! Walk cycle tutorial is noted down to make soo ! Its pretty intimidating but once you get the basics its not that bad :)

[@thegamedevcave]

I've made a quick video on the basics of making a walking cycle! kzbin.info/www/bejne/il7GXpWcgK6Bf5Y&ab_channel=TheGameDevCave

[@CrowClouds]

I follow all the steps exactly but after parenting the mesh body to the rig, go into pose mode, move the rig and it is detached from the body. I did parent with automatic weights. Maybe I have to manual weight paint? I don't know

[@thegamedevcave]

the auto wights probably are failing, that sometimes happens, trying again a couple of times can help (make sure the amrature has it's scale applied too, so it's scale should be 1,1,1) and if your character is not in a T-pose, you'll want to make sure you apply the rigging in a T-pose and then afterwards use your rig to put it in whatever pose you want. if all that doesn't work, manual weight painting it is, which is a pain to do but sometimes needed :(

[@ansanorasol219]

thank you so much..

[@HBProductions.]

What version of Blender are you using? When applying the scale via "ctrl+a", I don't get the pop-up menu you do. I get a pop-up wheel with similar options but the wording is different which throws me off some from your video.

[@thegamedevcave]

i'm not sure exactly which version i'm using here but anything past blender 3.0 should be like this setup here i believe

[@Smoked_beatle]

Quick question for some reason I did it step by step but my rig isn't attached to the body what did I do wrong?

[@TheTrashsmith]

I'm having the same problem.

[@hotsauce7124]

Hello, does Blender rigging do corrective blendshapes that are driven by set driven keys like Maya? For example, when you bend an elbow the inside of the elbow will use corrective blendshapes to correctly deform the elbow when it bends? Forgive me for asking this question in your blendshapes tutorial as swell.

[@thegamedevcave]

i'm not very familair with maya so i'm not really sure. sometimes i do see a little pinching in the elbows when posing things at very sharp angles though, I assume this is what you mean? I don't really have a quick and easy fix for that other that : A) make sure your weight painting is god (auto weight paints are pretty good but can be an issue) B) if you have very extreme pinching there is a good chance that the pose you're trying to make is unnatural as it is and maybe posing the shoulders a little different may help make the elbow angle less sharp and reduce pinching. It's not really an answer to your question but I hope it helps!

[@hotsauce7124]

@@thegamedevcave These are valid suggestions. Thank you.

[@ianbarddal7294]

I just loved your tutorial: it was the only that worked for me! haha! But I have got a problem when I click CTRL+P > "With automatic weights": I get a message saying that the program failed when trying to find a solution for one or more bones, and when I go moving my rigged character, it distorts his members.

[@BoschlooStudios-bx7rg]

The tutorial helped a lot, but I can't grab the animation controls, pressing G gives me a "change bone layer" menu.

[@user-sm5gu3vc6p]

good channel

[@tinnims]

What version of blender are you using? My rig will never attach, I don't use blender much but I think the parenting worked but when I go into pose mode the rig just moves independently of the model, driving me crazy

[@thegamedevcave]

the version of blender shoulnd't make a difference as long as you're not using an ancient version. I'm guessing there is some sort of error that's happening when you're trying to parent with automatic weights. i can't be sure what exactly though.

[@symphan3641]

My rig didn't attach when I used the shortcuts, but when I clicked on the same option in the Pose Menu, it worked. I don't know why, but my problem got solved.

[@fionabellimain9924]

i cant find the (with automatic weights) option when i want to parent the object with rig

[@mitch_jc]

Any problems with Ctrl + A? Make sure you are in layout tab with object mode on for the menu to appear! Great tutorial!

[@thegamedevcave]

very good point to keep in mind and easy to forget!! (I'll admit it happens to me more than i'd like to admit , being in edit mode instead of object mode XD)

[@Oljankylegs]

legendary

[@zerosaber2242]

Having issues with the rig system. I did was make custom fingers and used symmetrize the right side of the model to save time, but only up to the left hand and left leg will the program let me rigify the model for movement. Can I get some help to rig the right arm, right fingers, right leg, and right foot please? :(

[@thegamedevcave]

i'm not quite sure what could cause that problem. my best guess is that symmetrize doesn't work with rigify skeletons very well. i've never used that combination so i'm not sure but if that is the case, you have discovered a pretty big downside to rigify honestly. still, i think it'd be worth it to manually line up both halfs for how easy to use and powerful the control rig that it generates is

[@abrahamlugano7458]

hey quick question what if you dont have automatic weights on tge setting??? coz i don't have one

[@oj_originals4304]

If I’m correct is just keeps the bone and body disconnected You need automatic weights for blender to see them as one

[@erino_0]

Great tuturial but whenever i press control p to parent my human character appears massive and is no where near the rig how do i fix this?

[@LeoCoyote1685]

Can you recommend me the video where you did manual weights?

[@mahersabit9265]

i dont know what i did wrong, but after i did a ctr + p to my mesh, only the rig moves but not the mesh when im in the pose mode

[@Craftonix7]

I’ve read some comments and I think I have found my issue with the bones not lining up correctly but I have a model with limbs that are not attached so how would I resolve this issue

[@thegamedevcave]

if your character model has seperate arms I'm assuming it'll likely be too different from a normal human-like character to use this rig so you'd have to make your own custom setup rig.

[@Frank_Art]

i don't get what to do with the pelvis bone, its suposed to be left combined below?

[@ismaellopes9041]

if your rig does not affect the model, try "with envelope wights" when pareting!

[@ThisKidAden]

how did you get that human rig because i need that for my rig

[@Katana_0000]

Do I still have to make the actual person skin mesh? Or is there an add on for that?

[@thegamedevcave]

you'll have to make or find your own mesh still

[@Gambler_Airsoft]

I had got my character rigged but when I go to move the rigs around the character doesn't move.

[@DanRyder207]

I really appreciate this; my middle school and high school learners will be using this as we turn our tinkerCAD models into poseable figures. My only question is select vs tweak. Have. you -- or anyone else on here -- ever found that the only way to pose the figure is through the tweak function on the select tool and not the select box? I feel like I'm doing something wrong and for what we're doing it is "fine" annnnd I know I'll have kids asking how to do it right. I'm running Blender 3.3 on Mac OS btw

[@thegamedevcave]

I can't say i've ever run into that issue, i can use box select on multiple bones and they'll all move/ rotate. although selecting multiple things could result is slightly weird behavior sometimes with the pivot point. in the dropdowns at the top Middle of the screen you have one that is to do with the transform pivot. It could have something to do with that being set to a strange option that's causing issues. Aside from that I'm not sure

[@meika7561]

Hello, i have follow you tuto step by step but the RIGIFY BUTTON option is not showing please i really need help

[@mooshroomplays9675]

Good Tutorial. Straight to the Point, Although when i click generate rig it doesn`t work. is there any fix?

[@thegamedevcave]

i'm not sure what the issue is but usually when things dont work, it shows an error at the bottom of the screen telling you where it went wrong.

[@Ashabeer_stories]

How can I fix the legs and arms too?

[@lionelson7098]

So, here's the deal: I attempted to slap some bones onto this super basic model I whipped up from a photo using TriPo3D. But guess what? After hitting that 'automatic weight' button, my model went all Picasso on me-completely twisted out of shape!

[@Avertspl]

What model did you use?

[@Tibiscuit_OW2]

Hey, great video Is there a method to extract a pose from an image/picture? Imagine I take a picture of myself doing a specific pose, can I get the pose and apply it to a 3D avatar? Thanks in advance!

[@thegamedevcave]

there's some apps that withh try their best to do something like that but generally it doesnt' work very well...

[@Tibiscuit_OW2]

@@thegamedevcave Ok, unlucky, thanks for the reply

[@russelltiley8187]

hi i was just wondering how deselect the generated rigg please

[@AlexAlex-er5ek]

Where did you take the model you use?

[@calisthenicswithandrew7183]

For me, it is not showing ,,with automatic weights, any tips?

[@kbk489]

why does the arm move after i rig it in edit mode then switch to object mode, then it changes back after i go back to edit mode

[@esfru8780]

how do you get the model first, idk how to do that?

[@bernardonoriega2731]

Hello, the generate rigg button isnt there! Any fix?

[@ZeekDoesStuff]

Is anyone able to help me out? I generate my rig and it's always generating smaller than the model, I can's seem to fix it with the regular transform Ctrl+A function.

[@utkarshvishwakarma7622]

my model stretches it's mesh if dragged very much , how to stop/prevent that?

[@drspecter]

So, I followed the tutorial, and everything went fine until it was time to actually go to pose mode and move the character. When I click on a part of the rig, the cursor doesn't change to a little directional arrow, and I can't move the character. I can only select. I made sure 'auto run python' was ticked, and it is. I've hit a wall, and any help would be appreciated.

[@shonsoul2596]

If your models face is messing up , delete the shoulder joint , that's if you want😊

[@thegamedevcave]

that's a smart quick workaround! however, the best way to fix that would be to adjust the weight painting for those joints to not include the face :)

[@Jayanimations-cw2mr]

I have a problem where I'm trying to rig a character and it doesn't move the body parts it just moves the armature when I press pose mode and then select the armature so please respond please tell me how to fix

[@alexanderg8466]

Is it possible to rig complex characters manually without addon? I have not seen any tutorial about it. I tried but it is very hard

[@thegamedevcave]

the 2nd half of the video shows how to make an armature on your own, if you want IK controls, you should also check out my video on making simple IK constrains kzbin.info/www/bejne/opSVXmawmcqAl80

[@ahmetomercicek5848]

I modeled the character ( humanoid ) with blender . I then equipped it with rigify. I made an animation and now I want to export it. When I tried, only the model that does not move comes out. How should I do the export? Can you help me please ?

[@thegamedevcave]

if you're making animations you should you should change your timeline to the dopesheet, then choose the action editor from the dropdown. once you've made your animation press the push down button to make it into an action. then export as FBX, then when you import it into other software like a game engine it should have the animations attached to it

[@thegamingdryo6668]

Ave tried for a couple hours now and I just cant do it.

[@Kevin-ok3sm]

Keep trying and don’t be a quitter you’ll figure it out. 😊

[@Legen_predator4]

I've also tried for a while and didn't succeed in doing it

[@Legen_predator4]

​@@Kevin-ok3smI'll also try again some other time since I'm focusing on other softwares for now

[@teylercotrell3660]

when i do the automatic weights, the models moves away from the bones into a slightly different pose than before. How do I fix this?

[@thegamedevcave]

not 100% what causes this but is sounds like it could be due to the bones not being lined up with the model properly before parenting.

[@BLZ-bp8qv]

i cant see the rigify buttons in properties any clue?

[@randomike__]

2:51 Whenever I'm parenting the body to the rig, my human object becomes huge, turns to another axis, so eventually the rig doesn't work. Tried to parent in otherways, nothing works. What might be the reason of that issue?

[@thegamedevcave]

is the scale applied for both the mesh and the armature? if they dont have scale 1.0 that causes issues

[@randomike__]

@@thegamedevcave yup, it's applied to both of them :((

[@randomike__]

@@thegamedevcave gotta admit, the mesh is horribly complicated, around 800k faces, I know it might cause fps drops and all but can this be the reason of that issue as well?

[@thegamedevcave]

@@randomike__ 800K is hardly ideal but that should only cause lag, not this kind of thing so i'm not sure what would cause something like this.

[@randomike__]

@@thegamedevcave alright, thanks a lot for reply, I'll try another model

[@artspirationnn6065]

my rig appears few meters away after i apply transforms and generate

[@ahmetomercicek5848]

Well , can we rig the hand first , and then rig the whole body ? Because when the whole body is involved, problems occur in the hands and fingers. I will be glad if you help me .

[@thegamedevcave]

if youre using the full skeleton that also has a face in hand bones, the auto weight paint probably won't be ready to go right away. with those small details it's much more important to line up the bones as exact as you can but even then you'll lively have to go over all the groups on your object to check and fix up their weight painting. Automatic weights can be a great time saver but as soon as you need precise control over your rig, they tend to fall apart pretty quick.

[@MindlessNuts]

Does the armature needs to be smaller than the mesh itself? Cuz when I press "generate rig" it says "heel bone not found. Incorrect armature".

[@thegamedevcave]

it should be inside the mesh, that error seems to imply you may have deleted a bone though? it's also important if you scale the armature down in object mode to apply the scale (or just scale it down in edit mode only instead to prevent that from ever being an issue)

[@MindlessNuts]

@@thegamedevcave ah i see, true I deleted certain bone since it doesn't look necessary to my model. That explains it thx a lot

[@thegamedevcave]

@@MindlessNuts yeah sometimes you can get away with that but usually it freaks out when you remove bones because the controls it generates try to use bones it doesn't have :) glad you got it working!