Rigging/animating this human character for games (in maya)

[MolemanSD7]

So, is your question about how to rig the character? Or how to export it to the game engine? Your comment about the thumbs was a bit confusing too...as she doesn't have any hands.

Some general things to keep in mind when working with games and rigging, are that many game engines have a limit on how many joints can affect a given point. Here at work, our limit is 4. Our engine also cannot handle any geometry based deformation yet...so no blendshapes. Only joint-based deformation. And finally, many engines cannot handle joint scaling accurately. Check up on that, and if yours can't then the joints can only be rotated or translated. That is important to keep in mind while setting up the character.

As far as exporting the character goes, that is going to be unique to each engine as well. But it usually consists of creating some kind of text file that will tell the engine file locations, what to export, and ultimately define the names of the animation cycles to call once its in game. But again, you'll have to check into that on your own.

[JaredTaylor]

Thanks for the response... she doesn't have hands because she is not complete in that picture.

I'd also love to know if this model is good or bad? It has no textures. 1362 tri's including hair.

http://i39.tinypic.com/2isxg93.jpg

This is the size it might be in the actual game - it definitely wont be any larger:

http://i42.tinypic.com/2yzmmvb.jpg


We don't have a game engine, it's just me and a friend (who's a hobbyist programmer) wanting to learn more, and I have no idea how to rig this or export it in a way he can use.

We're making a side scrolling game where the character is a ninja, basically something like 'cloning clyde' if you ever heard of it. But we want it to have a 3d feel.

I looked at world of warcraft's models since mine are relatively similar and noticed a couple of things;

They don't use normal maps for one thing, and another is the bones. Is it possible/convenient for me to set them up like that? I don't quite understand it.

http://i39.tinypic.com/9pp4xz.jpg


I also have not found an adequate normal mapping tutorial :( I have zbrush (zmapper) but nothing I find either makes sense or relates to what I am doing or works. Isn't there some up-to-date tutorial that would have normal mapping for game characters in zbrush 3.1/maya 2009 that are thorough?

[MolemanSD7]

that pic from WOW looks like it was taken in-game with a 'view skeleton' option turned on in the console. It only tracks a joint's position and rotation and basic hierarchy. The long one at the bottom, in between his legs, probably reaches to an 'origin' joint or 'world' joint. It tells the game where in space the character is. In essence, his anchor. But the actual rig the animators used was quite different. Oh, and the bone shooting off his forearm is either holding a location to attach armor or weapons to, or its a place to spawn effects from.

The model's mesh may be fine for the scale you're working on, but usually you'll want more topology any place the mesh will bend. You'll just have to rig it and see if you like the results.

There are tons of basic rigging tuts out there. If you can't find any you like, try and find some books on it. If its something you could potentially want to pursue, it'd be good to learn all you can. Check out the Animator Friendly Rigging series by Jason Schleifer (Good, but expensive), or the CG Toolkit books. Or, any general maya text should have somehting for ya.

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