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Free Rigs for Blender 2.5

48

Wayne Dixon is giving us many 2.5 rigs, 9 in total. 4 of them are original characters, an unofficial 2.5 remake of ManCandy, 2 characters from Big Buck Bunny and 2 camera rigs. Check the videos for more of their actions. Licenses were included in the blends.

Update: Check out Wayne's comment below for the 2.54 API changes and how to get updates.
Wayne Dixon writes:

Hello Bart,

I have created several rigs for Blender 2.5 for the community.  There are 9 in total, 4 original character rigs, 2 camera rigs and I updated 3 old favourites to work in blender 2.5.

I have also created short rig demos for each rig - just showing what all the controls do and what not.

The blenderartists thread can all be found a here

My Free Rigs - Blender 2.5.3 and 2.5.2

Original Rigs:

These were designed to be simple model to  practice animation with, mainly body mechanics.

Pedro (Dog)

Alex (Horse)

Scarlett (Spider)

Dougie (Ball with Tail)

Updated rigs to work with Blender 2.5:

I updated these rigs so they would work with Blender 2.5 AND you could still append all your old actions to the file, and also added some new features.

ManCandy

Frankie from BBB

Buck from BBB

Camera Rigs:

These should make it easier to animate the camera in a more real world way.

Dolly Camera

Crane Camera

cheers

Wayne Dixon

48 Comments

  1. These look awesom. I'm new to Blender, and very impressed. However, one drawback was having to put those sliders in the 3D view. Can you let me know how you did it or is there a resource you can point me to? Thanks.

  2. Really cool! I just installed 2.54 beta and cannot see the rig controls in the side (after pressing "n"). Do they not work with 2.54 anymore?

  3. The Python API has changed for 2.54 so I will need to update the scripts so they work
    so I need to figure out what all the changes are
    so for now they will work with the v2.53 (I will do an update as soon as the API is stable)

    Here is the link to the Crane rig - sorry my bad

    http://www.waynedixon.com.au/CameraRigs/CameraCraneRig.2.5.3.blend

    I also have a basic ball rig that I will upload later this week or so, but I am pretty flat out at the moment

    this is the forum link if you find bugs
    http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=187051

    cheers
    wayne

  4. Thanks, they all look amazing! I think I'll have the most fun with Dougy! Would you mind if I used Dougy for any potential portfolio works? I couldn't find a CC license for him.

    Also, I noticed Dougy's tale is being deformed by a Lattice. Is there a way to maintain this functionality, but also be able to scale individual pieces of the tail?

  5. cool updates.
    also I would like to see the rig layer script working in the new beta, better yet, in the final release.
    Great idea

  6. @ Patrick - you can use the rigs for whatever you want, you can credit me if you like but there is no need
    I would like to see anything you do with them though - so if you could send me a link that would be great :)

    about his tail - there is an experimental tail stretch on it at the moment. if you want to scale the bone individually make sure you uncheck inherit scale on all the tail bones and then you can scale it how you want (this will actually scale the tail cage not the mesh, so I think it will work OK if it's not too extreme)

    PS - the script repair is for animation data, but I'm having difficulty getting the visibility controls working in 2.54 - if anyone is familiar with the API changes please contact me through the forum link

  7. Wayne, nice work! Cool to see the old BBB rigs working in 2.5 :-)

    For the record, the bunny's name is actually JC. I don't think it's referenced anywhere in the files or on the DVD... so it's understandable that you didn't know. ;-)

    In fact, this may be the first time his actual name has been uttered publicly... crazy.

  8. @Nathan - thanks for the rigs in the first place, I learnt a lot from your face rigging

    Wow so he does actually have a name - I figured it was a "Withnail and I" situation where the protagonist's name is never mentioned so therefore he doesn't have one. But now I know.

    I still haven't managed to get "JC's" wrist shapes drivers working in an acceptable way and I'm struggling with getting the mesh visibility working in 2.54 (but have all the other stuff fixed) - If anyone knows the changes in the API can you help at this thread

    http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=197373

    cheers
    Wayne Dixon

  9. Are broken rigs an inevitable and unfixable fact of life when upgrading the coding to software as complex as Blender? In other words, do the parameters of the old tools just have so little in common with those of the new tools, such that backwards-compatibility just can't really exist all that well?

    We're all going to need a personal Wayne Dixon to do the Fixin'!

  10. I really think the camera rig should be a hard coded standard in Blender. Rather than a script slave that could die at any revision.
    Thanks so much for these rigs they are great.

  11. it's a stretch to constraint and the bone has a custom shape (just a line)
    and I made it not selectable in the outliner

    but I have changed my mind about how it's necessity
    I now think it impedes the view more than it helps you know which poll belongs to what
    so I don't think future rigs will have this

    wayne

  12. Your our of bandwidth :-(
    I was messing with the 2.49 version of BBB and the rig was messed up in 2.5.
    I'll keep trying and hope I can get the updated rig.

  13. @Josh

    the IK/FK sliders live inside the side panel (still only works in 2.53 - but I'm working on the 2.54 version)
    if you can't see the feet the layer is probably turned off

    The original rig for "JC" the rabbit (Nathan just told us his real name) does not have any FK legs
    it is only IK

    I left the rigs rigged then same as the originals so all the old animation data could be re-used

    Wayne

  14. Hmm...
    I went through all the layers and didn't see the controls for the feet,
    I am using 2.54, that may be the issue.
    Screenshot showing BBB and the rig layer.
    http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/4469/69048057.png

    For the heck of it all layers minus light rig layer,
    there only one foot control that's not within the rig layer and it appears it does not control anything(I know nearly nothing of rigging, so from what I can see).
    http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/4194/everythingshownminuslig.png
    For now I'll animate mancandy for fun,
    (Thanks for telling me they live inside the panel now)
    I'll look forward to animated JC :-)

  15. @Patrick - yeah that would be great

    @all - There is a bug in the API so I can't update the script until it's fixed
    I will be able to get the rig UI script working on Windows only but I would rather wait till it works on all systems
    as I don't want to get 700 emails from angry blender heads.

    So as soon as it's fixed - I will be able to update ALL the rigs

    cheers

  16. This is terrible.
    I just put in like 6 hours of animation work blocking away then I realized mancandy's lip controls won't work(need lipsynce) ! Time to scrub the 11 second club entry.
    It works but after some animation the cease to function.
    This really made me unhappy :-(

    Any ideas on a quick fix or is it a bust ?

  17. Thanks.
    http://www.mediafire.com/?99z96c816f3e5np

    It's not a huge deal but it's a "bummer" since I really got into trying to get an animation entry in.
    (But hey I got blocking and JPSync practice :-) )
    Maybe it's because have two mancandy rigs in one scene,
    if so I'd like to transfer the actions(I've never done so but I can figure it out) to a "clean" 2.5 mancandy rig since I have the blocking then I'll library link(might fix it) instead of appending.

  18. it looks like there is no face lattice (or head lattice and heaps of other lattices)- that is what drives the lipsync and head deformation etc

    did you accidentally delete them? or maybe when you appended or something
    (if you append - append the group - if in doubt, start with the base file and rename it before you start work)

    But I would try appending the action to a new file that still has these lattices

  19. I must have deleted them somehow.
    I'll look into how to append actions since I've never done it before and will apply them to a fresh set of mancandy rigs, then hide the face control lattices so that it won't happen again.

    Well my chance of possibely getting in an entry has been saved :)

  20. Thanks so much!
    I learned something new(wow importing actions is really cool) and saved my animation.
    At the worst I have a blocked in animation demonstration your new rig,
    best case I have a totally finished animation that looks nice and polished.

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