After learning how to rig a character from a preset, what's next?

How would we rig a biped character with four arms instead of two?


Creating a 'Biped' preset will allow you to see how a character is built.


In every rig, there should be one and only one 'Base Node'; it is the master ctrls that moves the whole rig.


Attachments will be explained separately as each attachment does something else.


We need to add 2 more arms, so how do we do that?

  1. In 'Inventory' go to the 'Nodes' tab and double-click on 'CA_Arm'.
  2. Name the new node something like: 'L_Arm_B' (the prefix 'L_' is crucial).
  3. Just like the existing Arm node connections, establish connections between the 'M_Spine' and 'Base' nodes and the new node.
    Base.Output -> L_Arm_B.IK_Tip_Input and M_Spine.Tip_Output -> L_Arm_B.Root_Input.
  4. Only switch the new node to 'Template' mode and position its guides.
  5. Then right-click on the new 'L_Arm_B' node and select 'Duplicate And Mirror Node'.
    This creates a new duplicate node, keeps its connections, mirrors its guides, and renames its prefix.
  6. You can now 'build' all the nodes and start skinning.


This can be done at any point, for example, if a character model you rigged changed and now has four arms instead of two, you simply update the model using 'Model Updater', which helps preserve the skinning, then add the arms as explained above, and finally modify the skinning to include the 2 new arms.



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