Starting with Bones

In the previous chapter, we became familiar with the building blocks of rigs and how bones work together to form a rig, and we installed Blender.

In this chapter, we will start with adding objects to the empty scene and learn how to select objects. We will then move on to manipulate the viewport and navigate the 3D space around our work. We will then learn how to add an armature, which is also known as the container for bones (the rig). After that, we will learn how to edit this armature to add more bones and form a chain. Finally, we will see how to use different modes, such as EDIT and POSE, to perform more complex actions on selected objects, such as rotating bones in POSE mode.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Adding objects to the scene
• Placing our first bones
• Using Pose Mode

By the end of this chapter, you will be able to add objects to a scene. You will have a good understanding of transformations for objects...

Adding objects to the scene

We can’t do much with an empty scene, so let’s fix that by adding an object to the scene.

1. An object can be anything from mesh and bone to particles and curves. We will be adding an armature object for now. This information should stick with you, and you should have no problem with adding a plethora of objects from the Add object dropdown:

Figure 2.1 – Add menu for adding objects to the scene

Important note

Keyboard shortcuts are context-based depending on where your mouse is within Blender. Placing your mouse inside the 3D viewport and pressing Shift + A will let you add objects. That’s very different from, say, pressing Shift + A inside the Shader Editor, which would let you add shader nodes. So, be mindful of where your mouse is.

Time for us to begin, starting with the basics and working our way up. Read carefully as this can get very overwhelming for new Blender users.

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Placing our first bones

We started this chapter by using the Add object menu to add an armature. With our armature object in the scene, we can go ahead and start adding bones. Make sure you are in Edit Mode for this and in Front Orthographic view. Then, go ahead and follow these steps:

1. Have the tail selected and input the following: E | Z, then move the mouse up and notice a new bone appearing out from our first bone. Pressing the LMB will confirm this action with any translation we have made. Pressing the right mouse button (RMB) will confirm the extrude but cancel any transforms we have made.
2. The E key in this case is for Extrude. The Z key was to select the Z axis as we just want the bone to be extruded straight up. If you want to extrude along any other axis, then press the corresponding key out of X, Y, and Z. You can hold Shift and then press a key to select the inverse axis (pressing Shift + Z will select X and Y but exclude Z).

   Repeat this for a total of three bones...

Using Pose Mode

These bones aren’t of much use if we can’t bend them to our will. Enter pose mode. As the name might suggest, this mode allows us to pose bones. We need to enter Pose mode, select a bone, and rotate it. You should already have a rough idea of how to do this, but here are step-by-step instructions:

1. Press Tab or use the dropdown to enter Pose mode.
2. Left-click on any bone and take note of the outline.
3. Press R to rotate the selected bone, using your mouse to rotate:

Figure 2.10 – Rotating bone (FK)

Take note of how rotating a bone will affect the bones above it but not below it. Bending the bones one by one is known as Forward Kinematics (FK). We will be able to compare it to IK later.

Just like how we can limit transforms to an axis by pressing G to grab and pressing Z to limit to the Z axis, we can do this in pose mode too!

More on transforms

Using a single press of an axis while transforming...

Summary

That’s a wrap for this chapter! We started this chapter by learning how to add objects by placing your mouse in the 3D viewport, pressing Shift + A to bring up the Add object menu, and choosing Armature. After that, we learned how to select objects in our viewport by using mouse controls and how to deselect objects (or select all) with a shortcut key. Then, we moved on to learn how our view can be changed and about the different view parameters, such as panning, zooming, and focusing on objects to orbit them. After learning about how to change our view, we saw how we can place bones in our viewport by entering Edit mode, either with the dropdown or using Tab, to add bones to an armature object. Finally, we ended the chapter by looking at pose mode and how it can be used to adjust bones, using the same transform controls as normal object mode, G R, and S.

The next chapter will cover weight painting, telling parts of the mesh to follow specified bones, all with the...