tips for make your models friendly for rigging

there is something very important that you always  have to keep in mind  if you want be  a good modeler, at least a modeler for production proposes  , you have to make able for production everything you do , specially  when you are not the only person in the production pipeline , so i´ll give some tips to make your model  available for production

1- topology is everything

 a common mistake in beginners is try to make their models  look good  without care about topology, you have to keep in mind that the secret for great topology is anatomy knowledge , the best way to learn that is drawing , bellow  i´ll leave you some link when you can learn more  about topology

http://www.thundercloud-studio.com/index.php?page=content/tutorial/ModelingTutorial/headModeling

http://www.pinterest.com/kebrus/human-3d-topology/

2- name everything

is important give name to all the parts of your model , this going to help to the rigger to easily see in the object list  what he want to select



3-some  hierarchy


this  happen when model are made  for  a lot of parts , specially mechanic models  or character with complex cloths  , you can create some groups with  hierarchy this is going to be very helpful and is going to  help you to organize  of a instinctive way  the parts of your model. please  DON'T GO  crazy  with these, if  your are not sure about how is going to interact the parts of your model , just leave this job to the rigger

4- reset  all your attributes

this is very important! when you finish  your model  reset the translate , rotate and scale attributes of all objects, rigger needs this  cleaner as it can be



5- the correct pose


this is a point a bit polemic , because  different  riggers prefer different kind of "T" pose , but basically  there are 2 poses, the 1st one is with the arms to 90° in a very   rigid pose, with a soft flexion in the elbow´s area , in  the other one  the arms are between  45° and 60° in a more relaxed pose , if you can ask to the rigger about what pose he prefers

feets always have to be pointing to the front and the knees always parallels to the  tip of the foot  , about the eyes and mouth depends of the rigger , pixar models are made with closed eyes , but usually open eyes it´s okay