In this course, we will cover the tools and techniques for setting up character rigs in 3ds Max.

Step by step, we'll construct a control rig that is robust and animator-friendly. We'll learn everything from proper bone placement and techniques for troubleshooting, to learning fun ways we can preserve volume as our mesh deforms and how to make our controls efficient and easy to comprehend. We'll also learn how to create customized quad menus and toolbars that will help speed up our workflow, so we can focus primarily on building our control rigs with the best practices.

Lesson Outline (78 lessons)

1. Introduction and Project Overview

3. Creating leg bones

5. Working with fins and adding a toe bend bone

7. Constraining the foot bones to the Reverse-Lock helpers

9. Establishing secondary foot controls

11. Locking controllers

13. Using custom parameters to drive the toe bend

15. Setting up association curves for the knee controls

17. Connecting helpers to the spine curve

19. Confining the spine bones

21. Establishing hip and chest controls

23. Choosing a suitable axis order

25. Creating a Global Control

27. Completing the head rig

29. Wrapping up the blink controls

31. Finishing our eye rig

33. Building facial controls

35. Constructing the shoulder and arm chains

37. Setting up IK/FK Blending switches

39. Mirroring the shoulders and arms

41. Constraining the arms to the IK/FK Chains

43. Rigging IK arm controls

45. Creating FK arm controls

47. Setting up the wrists

49. Starting on finger controls

51. Finishing the right fingers

53. Completing the left arm twist bones

55. Finishing the right arm's twist rig

57. Enveloping the character

59. Setting the initial weights of the spine

61. Modifying the deformations of the neck and head

63. Finishing the left eyebrow

65. Editing the deformations of the index finger

67. Fixing the weighting of the thumb

69. Wrapping up the weights of the pinky finger

71. Finalizing the weights of the left hand

73. Refining the weights of the elbow and upper arm

75. Concluding the deformations of the left leg

77. Finalizing the deformations of the head and neck and mirroring weights

2. Preparing the scene

4. Completing the leg bones

6. Setting up initial controls for the feet

8. Building the primary foot control

10. Starting on our foot bank rig

12. Setting up custom parameters for the foot bank

14. Adding knee controls

16. Creating the curve that will drive our spine bones

18. Building the bones for the spine

20. Deforming the spine curve

22. Setting up the Center of Gravity control

24. Finishing the spine rig

26. Working on the head rig

28. Creating a control for the blinks

30. Building eye controls

32. Starting on the facial controls

34. Completing the facial controls

36. Creating the left hand bones

38. Building the IK/FK Chains

40. Cleaning up the shoulder and arm bones

42. Blending Between IK/FK modes

44. Utilizing a custom parameter to control the elbow

46. Finishing the FK arms

48. Establishing shoulder controls

50. Finishing the left fingers

52. Building twist bones for the arms

54. Finishing the left arm's twist rig

56. Cleaning up the control rig

58. Blocking in the deformations of the left leg

60. Focusing on the weights of the neck and head / Correcting bone skewing

62. Refining the weights of the left eyebrow

64. Saving envelope weights

66. Correcting the weights of the pinky finger

68. Finishing the deformations of the index finger

70. Completing the thumb's weights

72. Working on the forearm's weights

74. Finishing up the left arm's deformations

76. Finishing the deformations of the upper body

78. Solidifying the neck twist