I've been wanting to learn how to rig a character for a while now, but i've always just thought 'oh that just too complicated for me' so i've never bothered trying. But now that changes! I've decided that the best way for me to animate my characters for my Game Cutscene & Game Demo (Final Major Project) is to rigg them.

Heres what i've learnt so far, with trial & erorr and some research:

Step One: Select the Joint Tool (Character > Joint Tool) and Ctrl+Click where you want the first join / bone, continue to Ctrl+Click to add each joint, in the arm for example Shoulder > Elbow > Hand > Finger Tip.

Step Two: Rename the joints appropriatly (to make things easier)

Step Three: Make sure that the Joints / Bones are placed inside the part of the mesh that they need to effect (The Arm) and also make sure that the bones bend how they would normally (The elbow joint would be bent more) This helps the systems calculate where to bend the mesh.

Step Four: Select Shoulder > Elbow> Hand Joints and the Character Mesh and then select Bind (Character > Bind) This creates a Skin as a child of the Mesh (to prevent tearing) and a Weight tag on the mesh (to figure out what joints effect what part of the mesh).

Step Five: Moving the Joins should now move the mesh alright, however tweaking the Weight for each joint using the Weight Tool (Character > Weight Tool)  by deselecting what you don't want each joint to effect, should help to make the animating cleaner and more releastic.

I will post more techniques for Rigging once i know some more!


[EDIT] I just read somewhere that there are things could inver kinematics (IK) which you can use to control a rig and make it better... or something. I must go learn this! *off to do some research*