Copyright 2007 Michiel Tieleman (FreakyDude)
tieleman.m.googlepages.com
tieleman.m@gmail.com

About:
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Little_fellaX is a fully rigged and animation ready character for blender.
His features:
A makeshift full IK setup (whatever the hell that means).
An FK/IK switch panel
A panel with facial shapes controllers.
A set of facial shapes for lipsyncing named after the same set that 
papagayo uses, for ease of translating papagayo phonem sheets.
spiffy visual control bones for easy posing.
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.
An UV set to give him another custom texture.
An extra UV set specifically for "clan" like logo's. For use in a game
engine or machinima or something.

Requires blender 2.45 or later.

Big thanks to JpBouza, the creator of blenrig, for advice, 
to Migero and Calvin for their hints/tips/suggestions and tutorials.
Jason Pierce for his ludwig rig, great for learning.
Bassam for the mancandy rig, great learning resource, and for some 
insight on how links and groups work.
Thanks to Michael Williamson for testing and some pointers.
Also thanks to Tim from blendernation for pointing out 
some "workflow bugs".
Other people that share their rigs.



Licensing and using Little_fella in your work:
-----------------------------------------------

I.	 Using the little_fella rig.
	 The Little_fella rig may be used royalty free for commercial
	 and noncommercial purposes. This includes the armature and
	 the visual bone helper objects, such as the hands, feet, smily head,
	 waist/torso/shoulder/heel controls, the FK/IK switch frame and
	 the facial control bones stored in bone layer 2.
	 You do not need to credit me, but you may do so if you desire.
	 As a courtesy I would like to know when you use the Little_fella rig
	 in your own projects. Not a legal requirement, just for my own 
	 curiosity.
	
II.	 Using the Little_fella Mesh and character design.
	 The Little_fella mesh or derivatives of the Little_fella mesh
	 may only be used for noncommercial purposes. This includes all 
	 parts of the mesh, and all shape keys. Acceptable use of the
	 Little_fella mesh/character includes school projects, demo reels,
	 animation practice and contests, (for example, 11 Second Club and)
	 
	 You do not need to credit me when using the Little_fella mesh in
	 your own projects. But you may do so if you like to.
	
	 If you want to use the Little_fella mesh/character in commercial
	 works, contact me for pricing and terms. (tieleman.m@gmail.com)
	
III. Redistribution of this file.
	 You may freely redistribute this file or derivatives of this file.
	 However, all text under "Licensing and using Little_fella in 
	 your work" must be included and unmodified. Any derivatives of
	 the Little_fella mesh, character and armature are subject to the
	 licensing terms outlined in this document.
	
	
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INSTRUCTIONS:
	
Body rig & controls:
--------------------
The body rig is called Little_fella_rig, and can be found on layer 1.
The mesh is called Little_fella, and can be found on layer1.
The FK/IK switch panel can, guess what, also be found on layer1.
Bone layers:
	the first one holds the main controller bones. These are usefull for
	animation.
	the second bone layer holds the facial setup.
	the third has neck and head bones. And forearm bones and fk hand bones.
	For those who rather use FK instead of IK.
	the fourth and fifth ones have a few bones that either deform or
	help other bones function, but are not needed for animation. Leave those alone.

The visual wire objects that you see in the rig are what drive 
the main parts.
For the hands, the torso and the head you can toggle IK/FK using
the FK/IK switch panel.
Hands move hands, head moves head, shoulder moves the shoulder, 
torso moves torso, COG moves COG, heels rotate heels
and makes the foot tilt, feet makes the feet move.
there are additional pivot points at the feet for where the toes and ball
of the foot are. Use these to rotate directly or set the 3Dcursor to them
and rotate the main foot bone around them.

The facial setup in bone layer2:
The frame makes the facial setup move to another location if you need it.
The jaw moves the mouth to an open or losed position.
The mouth's edges make the mouth smile, look sad, make the mouth wide or 
narrow.
The upperlip makes the upperlip go up or down.
The eyelids make the eyelids move up or down.
The nose_crinkle controls make the nose crinkle.
The brows make the brows move up/down/front/back. If you rotate them they
will make the brows turn angry or sad.
The brow X makes a frown.
Pretty self explainatory.


Lipsync:
--------
I have added shapes that use the same name setup as papagayos default
phonem set for easy lipsyncing.
How to use it:
	- get papagayo at lostmarble.com/papagayo/
	- load your audio in papagayo and do the lipsync.
	- adjust the phonems layout papagayo creates for your audio untill
	  you are happy with it. This means that the sound looks in sync with papagayo's
	  preview of 2D mouthshapes.
	- save out the phonemsheet (.pgo) and load it in blenders text window
	- in the action editor, align the shapes as the phonemsheet says they
	  should be aligned.


Using the UVlogo option:
------------------------
Or how to get your own logo on his chest,back and shoulders.
First you need to export the UVlogo map. That is, if I don't provide a template 
in the download, haven't decided yet.
Select the little_fella object. Press F to go to face select mode. split a window
or change another window to UV mode. Make sure you have UVlogo as the active UV set,
since little fella comes with another set that covers the entire body as well.
in the UV window, choose UV>scripts>save UV from face layout.
Save your UV layout, open them in your image editor of choice, and overlay your logo
on the areas that are covered. Make sure the background is transparent. 
This is to make sure that the rest of the body doesn't get any image assigned to it.
It is scaled down at the top left of the UV, so that area has to be transparent.
Save your image as .png 24 for example.

Back to blender: in the material options, for the sleeves and the shirt material index, 
go to the texture panel and load the texture in the first slot. All the settings for
the texture are allready set.


Using the Little_fella rig as a library file:
---------------------------------------------
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 little_fella library file. select it, then select groups, 
and little_fellaX. You don't need to link the boneshape group.
MAKE SURE YOU HAVE LINK ACTIVE INSTEAD OF APPEND! Otherwise you'll make a local
copy.
press space and choose Add>group>little_fellaX. 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 little_fella_rig. This will make 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 Little_fella rig with your own mesh:
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	Adjust the mesh to fit your character in edit mode.
	There are no constraints that should have a problem with it,
	not that I am aware of. So edit away. Keep in mind that some bones 
	like the forearms, spine03, head and shoulders target other bones,
	so if you start to move these bones in weird places, weird things may
	happen when you leave editmode. There are 5 active bone layers you should manipulate
	at the same time to keep all the constraints relative to one another. Keep that in mind
	The foot part was made after calvins leg tutorial:
	http://calvin.sdlfk.org/calvin/Footrig2/index.html
	Little_fella 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 fill in the name of the
	armature, or make them by hand, and/or weight paint them, or convert
	envelopes to vertex groups. You will probably end up using a variety
	of techniques. 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