Possible Rigs
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TO Find possible rigs i can use for this project i will be using websites such as agora community, 11 second club and Character creator 3. As they will help me find an appropriate rig for each style of animation i plan to produce. For this section of research i will gather 2-3 possible rigs for each style of animation to find one that will be effective to use.(Agora community , n.d.) (11 Second Club, n.d.)
To find an effective rig for this project i aim to find one that includes a good quality facial rig and user friendly, that will allow me to manipulate the facial expressions of the character effectively. For each rig i will find positives and negatives to them to help me find the best one for my project.
Stylised rigs
Symmetro rig
(Agora.studio, 2021a)
Positives
This rig includes high quality controls that make it easily accessible. This will allow me to be proficient when animating this rig as I can easily access areas I need to animate.
Negatives
Some negatives to this rig is how much detail is on the rig could hinder my overall animation. as the extra detail could lead to time spent on areas that don't significantly impact the animation as a whole. MY aim with this project is to become efficient in facil animations and a lot of extra detail could hinder my goal.
VI rig
(Agora.studio, 2021)
Positives
This rig includes a high quality facial rig that has a range of controllers which would provide me to easy access animate the face in this rig. This will allow me to be proficient when working with this rig as everything is accessible.
Negatives
Some negatives to this rig is the detail such a multiple strands of hair. This could hinder time spent on the overall animation as it could lead to too much time spent on the small details when other aspects need improvement. In addition one of my main goals with this project is to become proficient in facial animation and the detail in this rig could negatively impact my goal with this project.
Max rig
(11 Second Club, n.d.)
Positives
This rig has a good range of controls that make each part of the rig easily accessible. Which will allow me to be proficient when animation with this rig. In addition, it is also a simple but effective rig allowing me to focus on the main animation with no extra details (such as stand's of hair) to worry about. This will allow me to achieve my goal of becoming proficient in facial animation.
Negatives
While this rig has good controls it lacks in some quality of life areas due to this rig being fairly old. Areas such as individual lip movement. While this is not a huge issue it could lead to some subtle movement being missed in my final animation.
Stylized rigs conclusion
Overall, Each of the stylized this have good qualities to them and would all be effective to use for an animation depending on what your goal is. Both the VI and symmetro rig have a lot of details on them especially around the face. This could hinder the amount of time i can spend on the primary movement of the animation leading to a lower quality animation and not allowing me to achieve my main goal for this project. THe rig i will use for my animations is the MAx rig, as this will allow me to achieve my goal of this project of becoming proficient facial animation. As this rig includes a good range of controls making each part of the rig accessible with limited detail which will allow me to focus on the main animation.
anthropomorphic rigs
Baqir rig
(Agora.studio, 2023)
Positives
The positives of this rig are limited as this is an overall sub-par rig due to the limited controls. A few of the good aspects include that it is optimised effectively. this allows the rig to run effectively on software and be game ready.
Negatives
This rig includes one main negative being the limited controllers on this rig.as it is missing controllers on key areas such as the face limiting the range of expressions i can make.This hinders how i can manipulate the rig to produce my animation.
Kobold rig
(Agora.studio, 2023b)
Positives
This rig had a good range of controllers all in key areas that are all accessible. This would allow me to be proficient when animating this rig as each part is easily accessible. In addition this rig doesn't include an extreme amount of detail allowing me to spend more time on the primary facial animation. This will let me to more effectively grow my skills with facial animation.
Negatives
This rig doesn't include any negatives that will directly impact me as it will provide with an effective rig to achieve my goal of this project.
Demon gargoyle rig
(Agora.studio, 2021a)
Positives
This rig has a good range of controllers that allow each part of the rig to be effectively manipulated. This will help my workflow, as it will make me proficient with this rig. In addition it gives me freedom to animate any part of the model that is necessary.
Negatives
Some negatives to this rig is the detail such as the over complicated facial rig. This could hinder time spent on the overall animation as it could lead to extra time spent on the small details when other aspects need improvement ( the main animation). In addition one of my main goals with this project is to become proficient in facial animation and the detail in this rig could negatively impact the goal pf this project.
anthropomorphic rigs conclusion
Ultimately, there is only one anthropomorphic rig that will allow me to reach my goal for this project being Kobold. as this rig includes the necessary controls on the rig to help me proficiently animate it. The main negative to the gargoyle rig is it includes to much deital, while this could be good for a longer form animation, it could lead to my time spent on details that don't hugely impact my final animation. As for the Baqir rig it doesn't include enough controllers for me to manipulate. This hinders what movement and facial expressions i can do, limiting the practice and skills i would gain in these areas if i used this rig. To summarise, THe Kobold rig is the most effective for me as it has a good balance of simplicity and detail that will aid me when i start producing my animations.
realistic rigs
Metahuman unreal engine
(Unreal engine , n.d.)
Positives
Meta human produces realistic rigs that are free to use with effective controls that allow you to manipulate the rig. in addition, to this it is also fairly easy to set up and use with many tutorials, tips and my own knowledge within unreal engine that i could use to help me.
Negatives
The main negative to metahumans is the computer hardware you need to run it effectively. As the baseline for the specs you needs in high and expensive. This makes working with metahumans slow and not efficient (even with a little bit of knowledge on them).
character ceator reallusion
(Reallusion, n.d.)
Positives
Character creator provides realistic characters rigs that work with industry standard software such as MAYA. in addition to this the hardware benchmark that is necessary to run character creator is not as high as meta human making it more accessible and effective to use.
Negatives
The two main negatives of character creator are that it doesn't produce the same accessible to use rigs as metahuman provides and it requires a license to use this limits the accessibility of this software. This could lead to me not understanding the software and spending un-needed time trying to figure out how to use it.
realistic rigs conclusion
Overall, both methods of producing realistic rigs are effective and will help me produce high quality animation. For my animations i will be using Metahuman as it is free to use with lots of tutorials i can use to help during production. I also have limited knowledge with unreal engine that will help me be proficient when using metahumans in the software. Character creator falls short as it is expensive to licence and i am not familiar with the software which could lead to a lower quality final animation.as i would have to spend time learning the software and not enhancing my final animation.
Possible rigs conclusion
TO conclude, researching into a range of rigs i could use for this project has allowed me to find 3 rigs that fit the styles of animation i plan to produce for this project. It has also taught me what to look for in an effective rig to make sure it is suitable for a project. Such as making sure it has a good range of controllers, without having too much detail that overcomplete the rig. My final choices are the max rig for stylised, Kobold rig for anthropomorphic style and metahuman for the realistic style. These proved to the most effective rigs i could find to help me achieve my goal of becoming proficient in facial animation in addition to enhancing my overall skill in general animation.
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