I have absolutely 0 experience in rigging. I have made quite a of static meshes in Maya and want to try out rigging a charecter I have created. What is the best way to go about it? What if I wanted to make a full showcase of my charecter and maybe put him in a 3rd person environment? Or if I wanted to just get the character into a static pose for a picture? What is the workflow for this type of thing in games studios? Thank you in advance!
Hello there @jumpkill720!
Great question, and no worries, we all started somewhere. Most workflows will focus on using a dedicated tool for rigging, so the best approach in your case, is to learn Maya rigging. Now, UE’s control rig is a useful feature, but it’s best used when you already have a skeleton setup, it’s not something you just work from scratch on an empty mesh. Maya will allow you to have full control of your model.
As to where to start, there are tons of tutorials and guides out there, which can be a bit overwhelming. I suggest starting with something simple, covering the usual process: joints > skinning > basic IK/FK rig.
The guide below goes step by step, using a single arm. Once you get the grasp of it, you should be able to move on to a full skeleton with no problems: