Bringing static 3D Scans to life in minutes with AccuRIG by Frank Zwick

3D Scan AccuRIG ActorCore Auto Rig

Frank Zwick – Dipl. Designer (FH)

My name is Frank Zwick, I am a 3D artist from Germany with over 30 years experience in the 3d industry.

Since 2015 I offer a 3D scanning service, specialized in full body scanning. Anyone who has been involved in character rigging knows how much know-how, time and work it takes to get good results.

To rig 3D scans of humans takes even a little more effort. Most of the time there is no exact symmetry to use, the fingers are often not separated from each other, as well as the critical areas. ( e.g. in the neck where the clothing collar merges with the skin) Hours of aligning local rotation axes combined with the tedious process of painting skinweights are a thing of the past since auto-rigging software has been around.

Unfortunately, the results were not always as good as expected, due to the reasons already mentioned, which is why I did not use auto-rigging software for my 3D scans. With AccuRig, Reallusion is launching a free auto rigging software with great features, which will attract attention in this area. With AccuRig it is now possible to transform a static 3D scan into a living 4D scan in just five simple steps, but with sufficient control over the rig. The ability to easily adjust and fine-tune the position of the body joints in an iterative process is almost always necessary for 3D scans of people.

“With AccuRig it is now possible to transform a static 3D scan into a living 4D scan in just five simple steps, but with sufficient control over the rig.”
Frank Zwick – Dipl. Designer (FH) für elektronische Medien

The same applies to the joints of the fingers. AccuRig delivers surprisingly good skinweights even under difficult conditions like in this example with non-separated fingers. In addition, the PoseOffset offers the possibility of retargeting even while the animation is playing. If the result is satisfying you can export it as FBX and pass it to other 3D applications or you can pass the character to ActorCore. There you can choose from a large library of motion capture data and transfer the motion data per click to the CharacterRig and evaluate it in the Real-time viewer from all sides.

For example, in ArchViz one often wishes for people in a certain pose to liven up the 3D scene, but of course you don’t have any suitable ready-posed 3D scans in the archive on your hard disk – with AccuRig it is now easier than ever to bring static 3D scans into the desired pose. All you need is a single 3D scan of a human in T or A pose to get started. After completing the five simple steps in AccuRig , countless poses can now be taken by the 3D character as desired. So easily one A Pose Model becomes multiple models to populate architectural visualizations.

This is just another benefit besides the actual goal of bringing the static people scan from 3D to 4D. An animated People Scan naturally attracts more attention and you get a better impression of the character, compared to a static unnatural A Pose or T Pose with which 3D characters are usually presented.

AccuRig is for me the best free auto-rigging tool I have used so far. Fast, easy to use, but enough control over the auto-rigging process to get the best out of it, and the best part is you have fun doing it.

AccuRig makes it easy for all 3D modeling artists to enter the next dimension – the 4D community will grow quickly. Please try it out for yourself and I wish you happy rigging!