Question: Can the ART, and potentially the ART v2 (for the latter) rig and animate not just bipedal characters but also quadruped characters and potentially inanimate oddities like a turret (I’m aware that that’s not the right tool and don’t intend to rig and animate a turret based on a skeleton)? Is it better to learn the ART than animation / rigging in the traditional sense?
Everything below is simply additional information. ; tl;dr Trying to quickly learn what I need to in order to rig and animate rather basic characters. No facial expressions. Just characters that hold weapons that shoot and reload and some creatures here and there as/if necessary.
I’m a game designer working on a solo project that I’m trying to keep as low scope as possible. I’ve got amateur level experience in all fields that I believe I’ll need.
I took an animation course that started with a rigged model already made for the purposes of the tutorial and was able to apply my pre-existing knowledge to create what I consider to be appealing animations.
I built a very simple model on my own that I was happy with and spent a few days “porting” a rigging tutorial (after completing MANY rigging courses) only to get to the animation stage and realising my rig was appalling. Couldn’t even fix it. Threw it out. Tried 3 more times. Nothing.
Digression: (Like you can just answer at this point and you’ll be fine.)
That was November and I’m not gonna lie I hit rock bottom and floundered about in a depressive state while I contemplated how on earth I thought I could make a decent game without the ability to rig anything.
So now here I am fully recovered and a bit embarrassed at how easily I fell apart once I ran out of confidence.
Just to be clear as to what I think:
Morph Targets: Weapon animations (need to brush up on this one as I’m questioning it), Facial animations
In Engine: Anything that can be easily solved by scaling, rotating, or moving a mesh or part(s) of one.
Skeletal Rigging/animation: Anything that requires deformation or can’t or shouldn’t otherwise be done with the other two methods.