Blender Animation & Rigging: Bring Your Creations To Life from Udemy

What's inside

Learning objectives

Understand the basic and important principles of rigging and animating
Start with a basic character rig, then more complex rigging and tools
Rig characters with basic and automated advanced rigs
Create simple & expressive animations

Learn principles and how to create actions for your characters like run cycles and attack animations.
Create character animations quickly and easily that are ready for game engines
We’ll also show you how to export and have these working in game engines!

Understand the basic and important principles of rigging and animating
Start with a basic character rig, then more complex rigging and tools
Rig characters with basic and automated advanced rigs
Create simple & expressive animations
Learn principles and how to create actions for your characters like run cycles and attack animations.
Create character animations quickly and easily that are ready for game engines
We’ll also show you how to export and have these working in game engines!

Syllabus

Introduction & Setup

Introduction to the course

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begin learning about animation through understanding of keyframes

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We introduce the ways that you can get help, support and contribute to the community.

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A look at the timeline window and how we can automatically record our transforms

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A look at how we can animate almost anything within Blender

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We Learn how to render out our animations

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Learning how we can edit our animations more closely with the graph editor

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Understanding that the types of interpolation of the keyframes can be changed and how that effects our animations

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Learning about the different types of handles and again how we can effect the animations

Rigging Basics

Section Intro: Rigging Basics

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A simple introduction to what is meant by parenting in rigging

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developing our understanding of animation techniques looking at follow thorugh

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We take a look at how bones and armatures work

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We show how to link bones to a mesh which is called skinning.

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creating a simple animation using bones

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Starting to work towards rigging a person we work on a leg

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We’ll animate the leg using Forward Kinematics.

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We’ll learn about Inverse Kinematics by rigging the leg once again

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Learning about how to use IK to animate a leg

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Showing the difference between IK and FK arm rigs

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This time we see the usefulness of FK when animating the arms

Basic Human Rig

Section Intro: Basic Human Rig

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We create a very basic character rig

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We add functionality to our very basic rig

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we use our knowledge of weight painting to attach our character to the rig

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using our rig to create simple poses to get used to working with character rigs and develop a basic understanding of posing

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further development of our understanding of basic poses

Rigify

Section Intro: Rigify

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Blender 4 Updates

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Learning about the rigify metarig and placing it into position

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Creating the complex rigify rig and parenting it to our character

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How to make changes once we see that things arent working and have it update to our new rig

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basic weight painting of the new rig to our character

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getting used to the complex rigify rig by working on a very simple run cycle

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completing the basic simplistic run cycle

Animation Principles

Section Intro: Animation Principles

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Creating our character benny the bean

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learning about how we can set up actions for differnt animations our characters might do

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a simple look left and look right action

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a fun and silly shocked animation

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developing our previous shocked animation into a small scene

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learning more about the principles of animation with follow through and overlapping action

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Learning about the anticipation princple with a jump animation

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developing our skills with a long jump animation

Character Animaton

Section Intro: Character Animation

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Creating a very simple idle animation for our character

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developing our skills further with a looking around idle animation

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completing the looking around idle animation

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learning how to make characters hold objects such as weapons

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learning how to use hte pose library to record different animation poses for reuse

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now adding the sword to an idle animation

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completing the holding sword idle animation

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creating a thrusting sword attack

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continuing the thrusting sword attack

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completing the thrusting sword attack

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Producing another attack this time on your own

Exporting

Section Intro

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In this lecture we go through the actions preparing them for export

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Now we learn the correct way to export the different actions as FBX files, so they can be read by game engines

Importing into Unity

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I show how we can bring in our other actions and set them up correctly in Unity

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In this video i go through how i went about checking the actions for solutions to the problems that occur during export

Final Thoughts

Good to know

Know what's good

, what to watch for

, and possible dealbreakers

Teaches rigging and animation principles applicable to game engines, which is essential for creating interactive characters and environments

Starts with basic character rigging and progresses to more complex rigging and tools, which allows learners to gradually build their skills

Covers the creation of simple and expressive animations, which is a core skill for bringing characters and stories to life

Includes instruction on exporting animations and having them work in game engines, which streamlines the development workflow

Requires a basic understanding of the Blender interface, which may exclude absolute beginners who have never used the software before

Uses Blender 4, so learners may need to upgrade if they are using older versions of the software, which may require a purchase

Activities

Be better prepared before your course. Deepen your understanding during and after it. Supplement your coursework and achieve mastery of the topics covered in Blender Animation & Rigging: Bring Your Creations To Life with these activities:

Review Blender Interface Basics

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Familiarize yourself with the Blender interface to ensure a smoother learning experience during the course.

Browse courses on Blender

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Open Blender and explore the different panels and menus.
Practice navigating the 3D viewport and manipulating objects.
Review basic modeling tools and techniques.

Read 'Mastering Blender' by Oliver Villar

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Deepen your understanding of Blender's capabilities and explore advanced techniques relevant to rigging and animation.

View Putting Knowledge to Work on Amazon

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Obtain a copy of 'Mastering Blender'.
Focus on chapters related to rigging, animation, and the Blender interface.
Experiment with the techniques described in the book within Blender.

Read 'The Animator's Survival Kit' by Richard Williams

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Solidify your understanding of animation principles and improve the quality of your animations.

View Adventures in Animation: How I Learned Who I... on Amazon

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Obtain a copy of 'The Animator's Survival Kit'.
Read the chapters on timing, spacing, and squash and stretch.
Apply the principles learned in the book to your animations in Blender.

Four other activities

Expand to see all activities and additional details

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Practice Rigging with Peers

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Reinforce your rigging skills by practicing with other students and exchanging feedback.

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Find one or more fellow students to practice with.
Choose a simple model to rig together.
Take turns rigging different parts of the model and providing feedback.

Rig and Animate a Simple Game Character

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Apply your rigging and animation skills to create a game-ready character with basic animations.

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Choose or create a simple character model.
Rig the character using the techniques learned in the course.
Create a set of basic animations for the character, such as idle, walk, and run.
Export the character and animations to a game engine like Unity or Unreal Engine.

Create a Short Animation Reel

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Showcase your animation skills by creating a short reel featuring your best animations from the course.

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Select your best animations from the course.
Edit the animations together into a cohesive reel.
Add music and sound effects to enhance the reel.
Share your reel online and get feedback from others.

Follow Advanced Rigging Tutorials

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Expand your rigging knowledge by following advanced tutorials on topics like facial rigging or complex character setups.

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Search for advanced rigging tutorials on YouTube or other online platforms.
Choose a tutorial that covers a topic you're interested in, such as facial rigging or quadruped rigging.
Follow the tutorial step-by-step and apply the techniques to your own models.

Career center

Learners who complete Blender Animation & Rigging: Bring Your Creations To Life will develop knowledge and skills that may be useful to these careers:

Hobbyist Animator

A hobbyist animator creates animation projects for personal enjoyment and development. This course is ideally suited for a hobbyist animator, providing the skills in rigging and animation that are necessary for creating character-based animations. The course includes practical exercises in rigging characters, creating animation actions, and exporting for game engines. This provides a comprehensive approach to learning animation with Blender. A hobbyist animator will enjoy that the course teaches animation principles and how to use tools to effectively create their own animation projects. The practical skills learned in the course will help a hobbyist animator bring their ideas to life.

See salaries and explore the career path for Hobbyist Animator

Indie Game Developer

An indie game developer often wears many hats, including game design, programming, and animation. This course is exceptionally useful for an indie game developer because it provides practical skills in rigging and animating characters, directly addressing a critical need in game development. The course teaches how to create animations that are ready for game engines, which is essential for independent game creators who must manage all aspects of game production themselves. The course also includes keyframe animation, animation principles, as well as how to create actions like run cycles and attack animations. Because an indie game developer has to take on several roles, this course's focus on practical skills is useful in helping them to create a finished product.

See salaries and explore the career path for Indie Game Developer

Game Animator

A game animator specializes in bringing characters and objects to life within video games. This course is directly applicable to this career because it focuses on rigging and animating characters specifically for game engines. The course curriculum includes creating character animations ready for export, a major part of a game animator's work, and the course goes into best practices for exporting to a game engine like Unity, which is useful for a game animator. Game animators need to understand animation principles, and this course covers that too. Given the focus on creating actions like run cycles and attack animations, this course is ideally suited for anyone looking to become a game animator.

See salaries and explore the career path for Game Animator

Character Animator

A character animator is responsible for creating the movement and behavior of characters in various media, such as video games, films, and television shows. This course is highly relevant for aspiring character animators because it teaches the fundamentals of rigging and animating characters using Blender, a popular software in the industry. Learners will gain hands-on experience creating expressive animations, run cycles, and attack animations. The course also covers how to export animations for game engines, a crucial skill for character animators in the gaming industry, making the course especially useful for those looking to animate for games. The course specifically covers techniques like forward and inverse kinematics, providing a strong grasp of character rigging, a key skill for character animation.

See salaries and explore the career path for Character Animator

Technical Animator

A technical animator bridges the gap between art and programming, developing the systems and tools needed for animation to function within a game or other interactive environment. This course helps a technical animator by teaching the technical aspects of rigging, such as creating basic and advanced rigs using Blender's Rigify tool. This course provides hands-on experience with weight painting and creating animation actions. These technical skills developed in the course are highly relevant for technical animators. This course gives the technical animator a practical starting point on how to implement the animated models, and how to think about the underlying technical aspects of rigging and animation.

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Freelance Animator

A freelance animator works on animation projects on a contract basis. This course is highly relevant for a freelance animator, because it teaches the skills to create character rigs and animations. A freelance animator will find the course useful, because it gives hands-on experience with Blender, a software often used in freelance work. The course also covers how to create animations that can be used in game engines, which is a common requirement for freelance animators. This course is useful for any freelance animator that wishes to add rigging to their repertoire, making them a valuable candidate for hire. The course's focus on efficient workflows is always helpful for freelance work.

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Virtual Reality Content Creator

A virtual reality content creator develops immersive experiences for virtual reality platforms. This course provides a virtual reality content creator with the skills to create convincing character animations that can be used in virtual reality. The skills in this course are essential to creating animations within virtual reality experiences, which often involve moving characters. This course focuses on getting character animation into game engines, a crucial step in creating high-quality VR content. The course teaches rigging, animation, and the creation of actions, which are important for virtual reality experiences. The course’s character focus is perfect for a VR content creator that wants to develop character-driven content.

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Augmented Reality Developer

An augmented reality developer creates interactive experiences that overlay digital content onto the real world. This course can help an augmented reality developer, who will be able to use skills learned in this course to create realistic character animations. The skills of rigging and animation the course imparts can be useful for the development of augmented reality applications that feature dynamic characters. The course's focus on exporting animations for game engines is very helpful for creating content for augmented reality, which often has components that are rendered via game engines. This course provides a fundamental skill set that is applicable to creating engaging augmented reality experiences for the user.

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3D Generalist

A 3D generalist is a versatile role that involves multiple aspects of 3D production, including modeling, texturing, rigging, and animation. This course provides 3D generalists with essential skills in rigging and animation, two critical components of 3D content creation. The course teaches basic and complex rigging techniques, character animation, and exporting for game engines. A 3D generalist would find the course content helpful because it directly addresses areas they need to be proficient in. By learning to rig characters for animation, this course makes a candidate more versatile and well-rounded in their skillset. The course material emphasizes character animation, giving the 3D generalist a set of skills that can be applied to many different types of 3D animation.

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Animation Director

An animation director oversees the animation process, providing creative direction and guidance. This course will help an animation director build a strong understanding of the animation pipeline, from rigging to export. While an animation director may not be directly creating the animations themselves, it is still useful to have hands-on experience with the software and techniques they oversee, as provided by this course. This course allows an animation director to better grasp the technical and artistic needs of their team, which improves their capability to guide and mentor them. The course gives the animation director a foundation in the principles of animation, which they can apply to their leadership of the animation team.

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Motion Graphics Artist

A motion graphics artist creates animated graphics for a wide variety of media, such as commercials, promotional content, and presentations. Although this course focuses on character animation, the principles of rigging and animation, as taught in the course, are transferable to motion graphics. A motion graphics artist could find the course helpful as it covers keyframe animation, interpolation, and the graph editor, which are crucial for all forms of animation, not just character animation. Understanding these tools and techniques helps build a foundation that will be beneficial to a motion graphics artist in applying animation ideas to a broader context. The course can be especially useful as its focus on exporting animations to game engines teaches important workflows.

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Visual Effects Artist

A visual effects artist creates special effects and animations for film and television. Although this course is focused on character animation for games, the skills learned in this course can also be applied in visual effects. A visual effects artist may find this course useful to learn the fundamentals of rigging and animation using Blender, a versatile tool that can be used for various visual effects. The course's coverage of how to create actions, such as run cycles and attacks, is useful in developing skills that could be applied to more complex visual effects. The course also imparts principles of animation and how to use tools for character rigging, which can be used by a visual effects artist.

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Previsualization Artist

A previsualization artist creates preliminary animations to plan out shots and scenes in film and games. This course can help a previsualization artist understand character rigging and animation. While the role does not require the same level of polish as animation for a finished product, this course's lessons in animation principles, and how to create character actions will still be useful. By learning how to create simple rigs and animations, this individual will be better equipped to use these techniques to create fast and effective visualizations. The course's focus on game engines is directly applicable to previsualization in game development.

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Simulation Artist

A simulation artist creates realistic simulations of natural phenomena, such as cloth, liquids, or crowds. This role may find this course helpful, as some of the principles of character animation can be applied to simulation. Though the course focuses on character animation, it gives a useful foundation in rigging for simulations involving characters. This course can be useful for a simulation artist as it imparts key knowledge of Blender, which is used in the creation of simulations. The course also covers principles of animation, which can help a simulation artist create more lifelike and plausible animations. By learning to rig characters, this individual can also better understand the process of animating simulations that involve characters.

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Instructional Designer

An instructional designer creates learning materials and experiences. This career may find this course helpful to add animated graphics and visualizations to learning materials. The course gives an instructional designer practical skills in animation, so that they can effectively communicate concepts visually. Having an understanding of Blender would be a highly useful skill for an instructional designer that incorporates animation. This course covers key aspects of animation, starting with keyframes, and progressing to complex rigs. An instructional designer may use these skills to create engaging content.

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Reading list

We've selected two books that we think will supplement your learning. Use these to develop background knowledge, enrich your coursework, and gain a deeper understanding of the topics covered in Blender Animation & Rigging: Bring Your Creations To Life.

ADVENTURES IN ANIMATION

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Classic guide to animation principles and techniques. It provides a solid foundation for understanding the fundamentals of animation, which are essential for creating believable and engaging animations in Blender. This book is more valuable as additional reading than it is as a current reference. It is commonly used as a textbook at academic institutions.

Adventures in Animation: How I Learned Who I...

Hardcover

Putting Knowledge to Work

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Provides a comprehensive guide to Blender, covering a wide range of topics from modeling to animation. It's particularly useful for understanding the underlying principles and advanced techniques used in rigging and animation. While not strictly necessary, it serves as an excellent reference for those seeking a deeper understanding of Blender's capabilities. It is commonly used by both hobbyists and professionals.

Putting Knowledge to Work

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Putting Knowledge to Work

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Blender Animation & Rigging

Bring Your Creations To Life

What's inside

Learning objectives

Syllabus

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Activities

Career center

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