Blender Foundations Conclusion So that's an introduction to the basics of rigging and skinning. It's probably the most technically difficult thing you'll have to do when working in 3D. If you don't get it, try again, but don't beat yourself up about it. It's not for everyone. Chapter 11 on character animation includes the character file with the exact rig described in this chapter. Blender also includes a fairly automated rigging solution at the moment. It is found in the Add menu under the Armature heading. The Human and Quadruped rigs are armature systems that have been designed with complex, high-level controls. Their setup and use is shown in the video automatic_rigging .mpeg in the Web Bucket. What We Missed Rigging is a huge topic, and it should be no surprise to you that we've only flirted with it here. The amount of advanced material you can learn with rigging and skinning, just in Blender alone, is staggering. On the rigging side, topics you might want to look up are "spline IK," which let's you use a Bezier curve to guide curving spinelike chains of bone; "py Constraints," which use Python scripts to generate new constraint effects on-the-fly; and of course the long list of normal constraint types that we didn't even touch. With skinning, take a look at the Mesh Deformer, which uses a simple mesh cage for smooth deformations of complex geometry, as well as Curve and Lattice deformation. Next Up ... In Chapter 10, we give our character some facial expressions using the Shape Keys system, and learn how to add their controls to our rig. 284