Welcome back to Animated Loops.
In this lesson, we're going to turn the character
that we started designing in lesson one into a full character rig,
which we can then animate in the later lessons.
Let's get started.
We'll start with the half a character that we ended with in the first lesson,
remove any keyframes or expressions
and have him standing on the ground looking straight towards the camera.
His legs can be slightly bent on each side.
Make sure his body is in the middle of the composition.
That should be 540 for both position values.
If your composition is still a 1080 square renamed, the Ball layer to Body.
The eyes should also be in the middle of the composition.
The first thing we're going to do is add some more detail to the mouth
because we don't just want him to always be smiling.
The current mouth layer that we created in the last lesson
is going to become the matte for the detail behind it.
So we named that layer Mouth Matte.
Then let's duplicate the Body layer, and move that below the Mouth Matte
and rename its Mouth Detail.
So that to use the above layer as an Alpha Matte.
Let's make it dark red for the inside of the mouth.
Name the shape within this layer Mouth Back.
Above that, in the same layer we're going to draw a stroke for the tongue.
I bring in my color palette for this.
I don't want a fill, just a stroke.
Make it red,
forty pixels wide
and give it a round cap.
Position the points so that is at the bottom of the mouth in the middle.
I can delete my pallet now.
Now let's create a null to group all of the face parts together.
Name that Face Null.
Then parent the mouth layer and the eyes to the face null.
Now we can control all of the face elements with one null.
Now, duplicate the face null and name that Body Null.
Then parent the face null and body layer to the body null.
Then that controls the body and the face together.
The next thing we'll do is give the character a hand.
We'll do this with the Ellipse tool.
Double click that, then make the ellipse 50 pixels wide.
Just a fill. No stroke.
The same color as the body.
Name this layer Hand Left.
And moved his hand to the side of the body,
keeping it vertically aligned to the middle by holding Shift while dragging.
Now we'll draw some fingers on this hand layer with the Pen Tool.
No fill, just a stroke.
Twelve pixels wide with a round cap.
The same color as the hand.
Position the points to give the hand a short finger pointing out from the side.
Name the shape within the layer Finger one.
Duplicate that shape and reposition the points for the next finger.
Do that again for the third finger.
And one more time for the fourth finger.
We want all the fingers to spread apart, sticking straight out from the hand.
It doesn't need to be perfect because we'll be animating these fingers anyway.
But it's nice to have a clean starting point to work from.
Then duplicate a finger.
Rename it Thumb.
And position those points on top of the hand.
Now we're going to create a new leg to replace the shape layer leg
that we currently have.
We're going to do this with the Character Tool script,
which you get access to with this course.
Once you've installed this, you'll find it under window.
This is very similar to any other riggings script you might have used already.
It makes animating characters much easier by doing a lot of the work
to figure out how your limbs should bend as you are animating your character.
We will choose Leg from the Limb types.
And name this Leg Left.
Click Create.
And it creates all these different elements for the limb.
We're going to parent the hip controller to the body null.
We want to move this to the character's hip position at the top of the leg.
It should be at around minus 70 and 170.
We don't want to parent the ankle to the body.
We're just going to move that to the ankle.
While the ankle is selected
you can change the length of the limb in the Effect Controls panel.
Make it around 150.
Then select the limb layer and in the Effect Controls,
you can change the width of the leg.
Make it 30 pixels wide.
Then position the ankle correctly.
Select the limb layer again and make the color the same color as the foot.
Now we can delete the original shape layer leg.
Then we'll create an arm.
Select arm in Character Tool.
Name it Arm Left.
Click Create.
For this, we'll parent both the wrist and shoulder to the body null.
So the shoulder position to be vertically a zero
so it 's aligned to the middle of the body.
Then move this out to the edge of the body at around minus 185.
The wrist, again, should be vertically a zero,
but horizontally at around minus 305,
which is where the edge of the hand should be.
We want the arm to be a bit shorter than the leg.
So select the wrist and in Effect Controls make the length 125.
Select the arm limb layer.
Make it 30 pixels wide, the same color as the body.
Now we're going to create null controllers for the hand and foot.
Duplicate the body null.
Name this Foot Left Null.
Copy and paste the position from the ankle to foot left null.
Then parent the ankle and foot left to foot left null.
Now we have a null that controls the position of the foot
and the leg bends automatically to follow the movement.
We'll do the same for the hand.
Duplicate foot left null.
And name this Hand Left null.
Parent hand left null to body null.
Copy and paste the position from the wrist to hand left null.
Then parent the wrist and hand left to hand left null.
Now we have a null that controls the position of the hand
with the arm bending to follow it.
The next thing we need to do is mirror these limbs.
First of all, let's delete the old right leg and foot,
because I want to make sure that the new leg is an exact mirror of the left leg.
Then duplicate the body null.
And name this Body Mirror Null.
Parent that to body null.
Duplicate hand left and name that Hand Right.
Duplicate foot left and name that Foot Right.
Parent foot right and hand right to the body mirror null.
Flip the horizontal scale of body mirror null to minus 100.
I'll make an unparent hand right and foot right from anything for now.
For the limbs, first, we'll mirror the arm.
Select one of the layers for the arm limb.
In Character Tool click Duplicate limb.
Name that Arm Right.
And we get a copy of the arm with all of the same attributes.
We also want to duplicate and hand left null name this Hand Right Null.
Parent the right wrist to hand right null.
Then if you select the right shoulder and hand right null and look at the position,
you'll see they have negative horizontal positions
because they are on the left side of the body null.
If we parent them to body mirror null, which is what we want,
then the position changes to positive because the null is flipped.
If we now set the position back to a negative value,
then they'll move to the right side of the character.
This makes the arm bend in the other direction.
So select the right wrist
and change the bend direction in Effect Controls to minus 100.
And parent hand right to hand right null.
Now we have a working arm on the right.
The reason why we set this up with the mirror null
is that now both hand left null and hand right null
have the same position values as each other.
So we'll be able to just copy and paste keyframes from one side to the other.
We won't want this for every animation, such as for walk cycles.
But it's better to set the character up this way to begin with
and then you can just delete the mirror nulls
for animations when you don't need them.
Next, we'll do the same for the leg.
Select one of the leg left limb layers.
In Character Tool click duplicate limb.
Name this Leg Right.
Then you also need to duplicate foot left null,
name this Foot Right Null.
Parent the right ankle to foot right null.
Parent the right hip to body mirror null.
Set the right hip position to be negative.
For the feet, because they aren't parented to the body,
we need to do something different.
Duplicate body null.
Name this Character Null.
Duplicate character null, name this Character Mirror Null.
Make the horizontal scale of character mirror null minus 100.
Parent character mirror null, foot left null and body null to character null.
And foot right null to character mirror null.
Then set foot right null position to be negative.
Select the right ankle and set the direction to minus 100 in Effect Controls.
And parent foot right to foot right null.
Now, as with the hands,
the feet also have the same position values as each other.
And even their rotation values are the same too,
which can be very useful when we start animating them.
Now we can close Character Tool.
The last thing we'll do is just organize our layers.
I like to put all of the nulls at the top since I'm usually animating these the most.
I put character nulls first,
then body nulls,
then the face null, then the hands and feet.
We don't actually need to animate the mirror nulls
since they don't control anything useful, but we still need them to be there.
So you can just hide them and set them to shy layers
so you can completely hide them and forget they exist.
Bellow the nulls I'll put my limb controls.
I usually like to hide my limb controls so I can see my character more clearly.
And below the limbs, I'll have all the shaped layers.
When we start animating, we'll be changing the order of these.
But for now, this is okay.
Now we can test all the controls.
The character null controls the whole character.
The body null just controls the upper body but the feet stay in place.
The face null controls the face.
The hand nulls control the hands,
each with the same position values.
And the feet nulls control the feet.
And now you have a finished character rig ready to animate in the next lesson.
I'll see you there.
Thanks for watching.