In the tutorial was only one step left. The rig got a UI with the help of python. A premade script was provided so it was easy to change for the needs of the individual rig. It essentially reads out the bone collections and their visibility of the armature. For that the armature needed to get a new custom property. The tutorial used a random string generator. A string is a combination of letters and numbers. This string was used as a rig id in the python script. With this it could find the right rig.
I have done some programming before which helps to not feel overwhelmed it. Despite me not having worked with python specifically, my creative coding lessons helped me to not feel lost. Even without the tutorial I could kind of understand what is happening. For the tutorial itself I only needed to change the names of the bone collection to what I had named them. One thing to remember for python is, that the rows and their structure is important. You can’t just indent a line. It will cause problems. By hitting text and then register the python script is now loading automatically with the blender file.
Conclusion
I am really happy with this rig. As far as I have tested it, everything works great. I appreciate how neat and structured everything is. Rigging can be a hassle and there is no need to cause yourself more problems by working half assed. I got reminded of this again, when a friend of mine had asked me to play doctor for her rig. It had at one point worked, but she could not move the IK arms anymore. I was so confused looking through the rig, trying to understand what was happening. Nothing was named correctly beginning with the whole armature which was called Leg1. I figured out, that she created the rig directly on the deformation bones. That alone caused tons of issues. Later I realized that she used rigify which apparently is known to create such issues. I found a weird bad work around for her rig and I created a video for her. It is not recommended to do what I did, but for fun I post it here as well.
Still now something was very off with her weight painting. Or has it always been off? I don’t know, but it reminded me of how little time I had during my bachelor’s for rigging. Creating a nice clean rig with enough time to struggle on some point wasn’t in the curriculum.
So much for my rigging journeyso far. Meanwhile, enjoy my bot showing off his rig’s abilities. 😉
