Skinned Rigs: Your Pro Guide
(And what they didn’t tell you)- First of all, let’s have a look at how well YOU think Roblox has explained Skinned Rigs/Meshes.
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- I know everything related to Skinned Rigs.
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- I know how to make a Skinned Rig
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- I’m not sure about how to use Skinned Rigs
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- I’m sorry, what are they?
0 voters
Well, if you weren’t satisfied about what or how much Roblox has explained about Skinned Rigs, look no further. I’m gonna take you through all the steps, to help you make your own skinned meshes.
Basics of Rigging In Blender
- SHIFT+A, Armature, Single Bone
- Select the Mesh(es) first and while holding Shift, select the Armature (a Single bone in the video), press CTRL+P and then select Automatic Weights. The mesh and the armature should now merge as one object in the Scene.
(Select the Mesh(es), press Alt+P to separate Armature from the Meshes in case something goes wrong.)
To use animations, you will have to animate in Blender, export as an .fbx, and then import it inside Roblox’s native Animation Editor (Import FBX Animation). This applies to all kinds of Skinned Rigs explained below.
Blender Rig Exporter will not work with Deformation/Skinned rigs.
There are two main divisions of Skinned Rigs: Bone Mono, Bone Numero. There’s a Hybrid type too, but more about them later.
Bone Mono
If you are using a powerful or a popular Engine like Unity3D, UnrealEngine 5, CryEngine, etc, you're most probably gonna stick with Bone Mono rigs. All realistic looking games use this type of rig.Bone Mono is basically an rig consisting of only ONE mesh. That's why it appears as one Meshpart in Roblox Studio. (There's no "Head", "HumanoidRootPart", etc.)
You could pretty much Parent an armature to a mesh and then call it a Bone Mono rig! xD
Characteristics:
- The whole rig will appear as one MeshPart in Roblox Studio, as the parent of the Bones used.
- BodyParts cannot be differentiated in Roblox Studio. The whole mesh is one. You could try moving the bones.
- Humanoid and AnimationControllers Compatible.
- Usage of Textures recommended (Max Size of Textures is 1024x1024 if I remember correctly.)
Textures can be added/changed through the Meshpart instance.
Bone Numero
As the name suggests, this kind of rig is made of one armature and multiple Meshparts. As a Roblox Developer, I find this the most work-friendly. (Make sure to read about Hybrid Type Rigs)
Characteristics:
- Imports as multiple Meshparts in Roblox Studio.
- BodyParts can be differentiated, and given color to.
- Only AnimationController Compatible. Humanoids will not work. (more info in Hybrid Type Rig)
- Textures AND Material/Color both recommended.
Hybrid
This is the most advanced type of Deformation Rig, optimal for Roblox Development. It requires a little more work than the Mono and Numero rig types, but take my word, it is so worth it. (Roblox's Lola was made using this by the way.)However to make a Hybrid rig, you will need some skills like Weight Painting and some knowledge about Vertex Groups. It is crucial in Hybrid rigs, which polishes the movement and makes sure the bones of the armature move places they are supposed to move. Weight Painting is supposed to be used in Mono and Numero too, but in Hybrid it is especially important, because mostly the weight problems pop up here, which makes the rig look weird when moved.
Learn more about Weight Painting
To build a Hybrid rig, Select the BodyPart meshes while holding down shift, and then select the armature. Parent it as shown in the Rigging Basics section, and move the bones in Pose Mode to check if everything’s alright.
If it moves weird, you will have to weight paint your rig. Help provided in the link above.
If it’s all good, export as .fbx, import it in Roblox Studio using Rig Importer FBX. The rig should be a model with all the parts intact.
Till now, what we’ve done is the same as what you would do to work with Numero Rigs. However, this type of rig uses both Joint 6Ds and Bones, which makes it work with Humanoids. If you remove the AnimationController and then open the Animation Editor, it will cause an error. To fix it, join your BodyParts with Joint 6Ds like you would in a normal Roblox r15 or r6 rig and add a Humanoid instance to the model. Now Roblox thinks it is a native rig, which makes it compatible with Humanoids.
Characteristics:
- Different Meshparts can be colored as you like
- Can be animated in Roblox itself, where it’s deformation will also work.
- Cannot be animated in Blender (hey, you can’t get everything with one rig!)
- Humanoid and AnimationControllers Compatible.
- Textures AND Material/Color both recommended.
Final Note
I would appreciate any additions to my documentation. I will add more details and help to this post if you guys are still confused.Just thought I should note down all my observations about Skinned/Deformation Rigs, as I found out there was a lot more to them than Roblox explained.
More information is appreciated. I get a lot of DMs asking for help regarding Skinned Rigs. So here you go