Copyright 2011 Michiel Tieleman
thelowlander.wordpress.com
thelowlander.org
tieleman.m@gmail.com

About:
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MTI_littlefella is a fully rigged and animation ready character for blender 2.49b.
His features:
Excellent posability.
Clear and color coded controls and widgets
FK/IK switching
Hinge switching
Full facial rig
Not really a feature but something I added because I find it handy:
	fully unwrapped, should you want to use that.
	multiple material ID setup for quick changing of colors/appearance
	of the character.
Requires blender 2.49b

Licensing and using MTI_littlefella in your work:
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I.	Using the MTI_littlefella rig, mesh and/or character design for commercial purposes:
	The MTI_littlefella rig, mesh and/or character design may not be used royalty free 
	for commercial purposes. This includes the original or deratives of the armature, 
	the widgets and the character mesh. In short, all parts of the MTI_littlefella's file.
	If you want to use the MTI_littlefella mesh/character/armature in commercial works, 
	contact me for pricing and terms. (tieleman.m@gmail.com)

	You may notice this is a lot stricter than for my previous characters. Sorry, I have my reasons...
	If you want to use the MTI_littlefella rig for commercial purposes, do not hesitate to contact me.
	If I charge anything, it won't be much. I'm an open source guy after all.

II.	Using the MTI_littlefella rig, mesh and/or character design for noncommercial purposes:
	The MTI_littlefella rig may be used royalty free for noncommercial purposes. 
	This includes the original or deratives of the armature, the widgets and the character mesh.
	Acceptable use of the MTI_littlefella mesh/character includes school projects, demo reels, 
	animation practice and contests.
	You do not need to credit me when using the MTI_littlefella rig and/or mesh in your own projects. 
	But you may do so if you like to. As a courtesy I would like to know when you use the 
	MTI_littlefella rig in your own projects. Not a legal requirement, just for my own curiosity.

III.	Redistribution of this file.
	You may freely redistribute this file or derivatives of this file.
	However, all text under "Licensing and using MTI_littlefella in your work" must be 
	included and unmodified. Any derivatives of the MTI_littlefella rig, mesh and character are 
	subject to the licensing terms outlined in this document.

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INSTRUCTIONS:
	
Body rig & controls:
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The rig should be pretty self explanatory.
There are 4 colors, yellow for center, blue for left, green for right, red for the sliders.
There are 4 sets of controls, spread over 4 bone layers:
The 1st layer has the IK controls. 
The 2nd layer has the FK controls.
The 3rd layer has the finger controls.
The 4th layer has the facial controls.
The 5th layer has the sliders and slider frame.

Various useful controls (like the head, shoulders, waist, hip and root bones) are on more than 1 bone layer.
The last three layers havea few bones that either deform or help other bones function, 
but are not needed for animation. Leave those alone.

For a more precise description of the rig's controls, read the MTI_littlefella_manual, included in the zip file.	

Using the MTI_littlefella rig as a library file:
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Start up blender, with a clean new scene. Delete the default cube if you want to.
Go to "File>Append or Link. Or press shift F1.
Locate the MTI_littlefella library file. select it, then select groups, 
and MTI_littlefella-group. 
MAKE SURE YOU HAVE LINK ACTIVE INSTEAD OF APPEND! Otherwise you'll make a local copy.
press space and choose Add>group>MTI_littlefella-group. Now you have an empty which 
displays as the entire rig (so mesh, rig, helper objects etc). If you add a proxy by 
pressing ctrl+alt+p, you get a list of items you might want to use for a proxy.
Choose the MTI_littlefella-rig. This will create another empty with the posable rig 
in it.

More about grouping, and the use of proxies can be found here:
http://freefactory.org/posts/linked-lib-animation-madness	
http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-243/proxy-objects/
thanks to bassam for these links.


Using the MTI_littlefella-rig with your own mesh:
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	When adjusting the rig to fit your character, make sure you have all bone layers 
	with bones in them visible. When bones overlap, move them together, 
	so the underlaying mechanism will still work when the editing is done.
	For instance, do a lasso select at the ankle will select more than one bone, 
	and you will have to move all selected tips/roots together.
	When you are done, recalculate the values for bones that have constraints that rely on them.
	Like the distance value for the IK controls for the spine.
	You may have to reset/redo the roll for some of the bones, such as the shin bones, 
	and the MCH_shoulder bones. You will probably want to redo the roll for the fingers (Ctrl+R)
	You may want to redesign the widgets as well.

	The MTI_littlefella rig does not use envelopes, it uses vertex groups.
	There are several ways to make those, either have the armature
	modifier create named groups when you parent the object to the
	armature, or make them by hand, and/or weight paint them, or convert
	envelopes to vertex groups. You may end up using a variety
	of techniques. I tend to manually create vertex groups, as it gives me more control.
	But rigging is no one-solution-fits-all thing.
	
	Visit http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BSoD/Introduction_to_Character_Animation
	for a good start on character rigging.
	
	And do not forget to visit blender.org for that funny little
	open source program too :P

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