Yue Lao. As with Cupid, the process involved creating a skeleton and binding it to the model, but with unique challenges that required creative solutions. Let’s dive into the details of rigging Yue Lao and the issues I encountered along the way.
Rigging Yue Lao: A Similar Yet Different Journey
Much like Cupid, Yue Lao’s rigging started with the basic methods we’ve come to know. His longer arms and legs, however, presented their own set of challenges. Fortunately, the weight painting around the knees and elbows was relatively straightforward, achieving a natural look with minimal effort.
The Coat Conundrum
One of the major issues I faced was with Yue Lao’s coat. I wanted it to maintain an inverted triangular shape when his arms were lowered, but I was unsure how to rig it to achieve this effect. After scouring numerous tutorials without finding a solution, I resorted to copying the arm weights to the coat. This was a practical workaround, though not the most elegant solution.
The Facial Hair Fiasco
Rigging Yue Lao’s beard was another challenge. Initially, no matter what expression I tried to animate, the beard wouldn’t move as expected. Clearly, this wasn’t the desired outcome. I attempted to copy the facial weights to the beard, hoping it would move in tandem with the facial muscles, but this led to model deformation issues. In the end, I added separate bones for the upper and lower parts of the beard, which I’ll manually adjust during the animation phase to reflect the character’s expressions.
Fine-Tuning the Details
Lastly, there were minor details to address, such as the ankle area where the calf model would change thickness as the foot rotated. These small issues required careful adjustments to ensure that the final animation would be seamless and believable.