Rigging a character mesh was, in the past, a difficult and time-consuming task that was rarely enjoyable. It could take days to properly rig characters and setting envelopes or mapping vertices was anything but exciting. Auto-rigging became a thing but those pesky fingers were generally left out and none of them rigged a jawbone so that meant the fingers and jawbone were rigged in separate applications taking even more time.

Since 2015, when Reallusion introduced Character Creator, we have been able to leave behind the manual rigging allowing the application to take care of the technical work. We had characterization where we could match enough bones to map out a working skeleton from an existing non-Reallusion character, but AccuRIG gave us a powerful auto-rigging tool to animate our character meshes in little time.

There are two versions of AccuRIG. A free stand-alone version that can be downloaded from the Actorcore website and CC Advanced AccuRIG that is integrated into Character Creator. Both are powerful auto rigging tools that share the same basic functionality with the Advanced CC version having more powerful tools such as Optimize or Decimate and Show/Hide mesh among other features.

What We Can Do in Both Free AccuRIG and CC Advanced AccuRIG

• Automate rigging in five steps with free Actorcore AccuRIG
  Load Character, Check Model, Body Rig, Hand Rig and Check Animation guide us through the process of setting up and rigging the mesh. CC Advanced AccuRIG has a similar user-friendly process to achieve the same result.
• Rig all types of Humanoid (Bipedal) character meshes
  This includes just about any mesh that can be considered bipedal. This opens up the possibility of imaginative characters like tree people, rock golems, living statues and whatever else our creative minds can come up with. It does not even require four limbs as we can mask missing limbs out.
• Auto-Rigging and Manual Refinement
  Not only does the free AccuRIG provide automatic rigging, but it also allows us to modify that rigging. We can check animation and if we find something wrong, we can go back and make corrections to marker (joint) placement and reskin.
• Joint Masking
  The concept is simple. It turns off bones of our choice which prevent them from accepting any motion. This allows us to freeze one bone or an entire section of bones from moving. If left active, these bones outside of the mesh can cause unwanted distortion as they will still influence some of the mesh. The bones run in chains (hierarchy) and these chains of bones can be selectively masked either in groups or single bones. This makes for a versatile tool that can rig any number of anthropomorphic characters that may not have all the limbs or fully functional limbs. Kai has a great tutorial on How to Mask Unused Body Parts… that goes into more detail over at Reallusion Courses.

Free Actorcore AccuRIG

This free auto-rigger includes:

• Ability to use Low, Mid or High Poly Mesh
  Polycount is no longer an obstacle as both versions work with many different types of meshes from low poly to high poly count. It may take a bit longer to map those high poly meshes but it maps high to low with equal precision.
• Preserves Volume
  AccuRIG preserves volume to control mesh collapse in areas where extreme movement is common.
• Twist Bones
  Twist bones allow joints like wrists to twist without collapsing. Without twist bones lower poly meshes would collapse at some point. Twist Bones cover most joints that bend more than other parts and whose normal range is extreme.
• Finger Rigging
  From 0 to five fingers either version of AccuPOSE can rig most hands and fingers (including knuckles) and provides easy to use markers to correct any occasional finger rigging errors.

Download the free Actorcore AccuRIG

Actorcore Free AccuRIG Quick Tutorial

CC Advanced AccuRIG

The more advanced AccuRIG in Character Creator has all the features of ActorCore Free AccuRIG, the easy rigging steps, marker placement, volume protection, and twist bones. Being part of Character Creator, CC Advanced AccuRIG has access to the the advanced features of Character Creator like InstaLOD Polygon Reduction, Mesh Editing, Bone Adjustment, Automatic Skin Weighting for clothing, Proportion, Spring Bones and many more advance, pro level features such as those below.

Select Hard or Soft Rigged Mesh

In CC Advanced AccuRIG we can select which parts of a character are soft or hard rigged. Soft is any mesh that has to move with the body during animation like clothing. After Advanced AccuRIG is finished, all other meshes become accessories attached to the character instead of skinned as cloth to the character.

Adjust Bones and Proportion using X, Y, Z Values

These more valuable tools not available in the free version. We can adjust the bones and bone proportions after skinning. This can be done to correct posture or limb penetration into the body. We can also lengthen bones after skinning to make limbs longer but keep in mind the mesh that is skinned to that bone or bone chain will move with it. This is very useful in the right situations.

Show/Hide Mesh for Accurate Editing with Mid-Point

As referenced in the above Rigging Multiple Mesh Characters section and tutorial, we can use the Scene Manager to select meshes that are to be accessories and hide them. This allows us to skin only the soft meshes like the body and clothing ignoring the hidden meshes which will become accessories. This eliminates the need to remove accessories before skinning the character body and clothing. We can then select Midpoint Placement in the AccuRIG menu if not already selected. This allows for a more accurate placement of markers/bones in the mesh.

Ready for Physics, Skin weight, Proportion Editing in Character Creator

Characters auto-rigged with the Advanced CC version are prepped for physics, automatic skin weighting and manual skin weight editing. As mentioned earlier, we can also edit the proportion of bones and skinned mesh after we’ve finished rigging if without having to jump back into AccuRIG again.

Optimize or Decimate with RLBone

There are a lot of options out there for character meshes but unfortunately, not all of them work well in the iClone ecosystem. This eliminates a lot of useful iClone pipeline tools. Equally unfortunate is the fact that a lot of these third party meshes carry a high polycount that might not work as efficiently as possible within iClone or its pipeline. The good news is the features of Advanced CC AccuRIG and Character Creator can make these third party characters iClone ready converting them to more accurate RL Bone skeletons with skinning and compatible with all aspects of the iClone ecosystem while preserving the facial bones of the original character.

With the character being RLBone compatible we can use the Optimize and Decimate feature to easily make clones of the characters at 7K and 800KB each. There is also a custom option to chose which optimization style and level serves you best.

If you are like most animators I know, you can never have enough characters. Leverage your existing library of third party characters and bring new life into old assets with CC Advanced AccuRIG and Character Creator.

CC Advanced AccuRIG Quick Tutorial

Try the Character Creator Free Trial today!

Which AccuRIG?

That all depends mainly on your needs and your budget. Both versions of AccuRIG can perform basic auto-rigging to get your character animation ready. The Advanced CC AccuRIG in Character Creator comes with many professional features that can greatly enhance your characters. We’ve covered some of them here but there are many more.

A big factor to consider is Facial Rigging. Free AccuRIG DOES NOT support or create facial bones. If this is required, then CC Advanced AccuRIG inside Character Creator is needed and can create facial bones including mouth and eyes.

While Actorcore AccuRIG is free there is a free trial available for Character Creator so you can try out both versions to see which best fits your needs. If you are budget constrained like so many of us are then the free version can certainly get you into the iClone ecosystem where you can start learning how to work with the tools.

Summary

I find old fashioned manual rigging to be a real creative buzzkill and a tedious process in many cases. It was nothing to take several days to a week to skin a character only to have it come back downline for either technical or creative revisions. Those pesky fingers could get to be a real pain depending on the character or creature. Bone envelopes could be the worst to deal with at times.

When Reallusion released Character Creator I immediately started creating characters again both with the default CC meshes and my own meshes from ZBrush and other tools. It was so nice to not have to even consider rigging other than the few minutes it usually takes to rig a decent mesh in Character Creator. I was far from alone as many other creators from newbies to veterans jumped on the Character Creator bandwagon over the years.

With the introduction of AccuRIG, both the free Actorcore and Advanced CC version, the idea of custom characters is not out of reach anymore. Almost anyone can rig a bipedal, anthropomorphic character with AccuRIG.

Why wait? Download the free Actorcore AccuRIG and give the Character Creator free trial a go to see what you’ve been missing if you are still manual rigging or have never rigged a character mesh before.

Besides… it’s fun seeing your characters come to life!

Tips

• CC Advanced – Use Orthogonal View for Marker Placement
  This allows for a more refined placement by keeping the viewport in the proper perspective for placing the joint markers.
• Use both front and side views when placing joint markers
  This allows for proper placement by viewing the joints from the front and side making the appropriate adjustments. Remember to Skin Bones again anytime you move or edit the placement of a bone.
• CC Advanced – Frame Left or Right Hand when placing joint markers
  This not crucial but rather an example of saving time to easy jump to each hand when placing the markers. It is so essential to have the marker placement right to avoid twisted joints which, while not often, can happen on models not in a good A or T pose.
• CC Advanced – Remember to press the Bind Skin button after making joint edits
  THIS IS A MUST, or your edits will be lost. If you move a bone or bones in CC Advanced, you must press the Bind Skin button before proceeding for the changes to be re-skinned. It doesn’t matter how many bones you move or edits you make as long as you remember to bind the skin again. This will soon become another rote function with enough experience.
• In Free Actorcore AccuRIG we choose joint markers to activate the Mask feature. In Advanced CC AccuRIG we choose the bone to active the Mask feature.

MD McCallum – WarLord

Digital Artist MD “Mike” McCallum, aka WarLord, is a longtime iClone user. Having authored free tutorials for iClone in its early years and selected to write the iClone Beginners Guide from Packt Publishing in 2011, he was fortunate enough to meet and exchange tricks and tips with users from all over the world and loves to share this information with other users. He has authored hundreds of articles on iClone and digital art in general while reviewing some of the most popular software and hardware in the world. He has been published in many of the leading 3D online and print magazines while staying true to his biggest passion, 3D animation. For more information click here.

WarLord’s Worshop

Related Posts

• Rig Anything with Your Imagination!
• Rigging Any 3D Model with Character Creator’s AccuRIG
• Skinning a Statue Versus Rigging