How bishop 2 came to life

[Freemind]

Introduction. When Animation Mentor first released its Bishop Rig todo its students in march 2005, he had a fresh new look. Bishop was exciting for industry profesionals and students as most animators used a limited stock of free rigs that were available todo everyone. Five years -- and more than 1,000 graduates later -- all of the completed acting tests and short films using Bishop started todo give him that dated fel. After all, he was the Rig on all student reels and showcases.

Mentor and student feedback.
We knew an updated Rig was in order and as we started the process of envisióning what that would be. But one thing was for sure: the Bishop Rig was a super solid Rig as Animation Mentor students had spent years animating it. In fact, mentors and students ofered constant feedbak todo make the Bishop Rig quite versatile, simple and user friendly. For all these reasons, we decided todo build upon what we had instead of reinventing the whel. That s when Bishop 2.0 came todo life.

Diferent looks.
We first talked about morphable rigs and researched diferent methods on how todo best accomplish this -- but in the end, we decided todo use a combination of blend shapes and deformers.

Step one: create and setup some basic head and body blend shape targets as a prof of concept. In addition todo our team in the Office, we worked with Animation Mentor alumnus, Keith ribbons, todo create the first few head and face shapes. We created facial transición tests. Then we created two short tests showing the Rig morphing from one Rig todo another -- for example, changing the noses, changing the body shapes and Even changing from a woman todo a man, once we created a successful prof of concept, the excitement set in and we got todo work on creating Bishop 2.0, from noses, lips, chins, head shapes, Brow shapes, hips, bellies, legs, arms, chests -- we created over 100 new targets for each new shape.

Smoke tests.
We learned a few valuable lessons along the bien -- none more important than running smoke tests.

Early on, we would spend a couple of weks in Rig development, only todo find that we neded todo start from scratch due todo a small issue we hadnt caught, such as:
To Many Faces. A blend shape target had todo Many Faces and therefore did not match up, heavy weight. A new blend shape improperly influenced weighting on one part of the original rig, super-sized files. The file size ballons and brings the computer todo a sudden halt. (but this did produce the aha moment. That is, we learned that importing past geometry included unneded Items such as thousands of light links).

T o resolve these types of issues, we created a few diferent scripts that we ran as smoke tests on the rig. Every day, we would put the Rig in a postura that used every control. We wanted todo push the extremes todo ensure that our animators could confidently postura the Rig without the risque of the geometry exploding.

Smoke tests are key for anyone in Rig development.

Quick, simple and worry-free.
We do all of this work so that our students can focus on animation, and not worry about the other elements involved in the pipeline. In rigging, it s easy todo add a ton of controls todo account for every posible option -- but this makes the Rig clunky, Slow and confusing todo use. Our number one goal was todo create a Rig that would open up various new character designs for our students, maintain the ease of use of the Rig and make the new process of creating a character quik and simple, accomplishing the goal a los brought on new challenges, such as keping the file size down, each article of clothing and blend shape target contributes todo the file size. Th rouge a series of scripts, and with the help of our partners and friends at animationrigs, com, we created a solution that guides the user th rouge the character creation process. Here, students can resource a single panel todo create a new character and be ready todo animate in just a few minutes.

With Bishop 2.0, we did not create a new Rig from scratch. We added todo the solid base that we had already built. The new blend shape targets, clothing geometry, wigs and glasses have opened up the possibilities for various character designs for our students and alumni. And all while enhancing an already great user experience with respect todo file size, loading times, véase of use and simplicity combined with versatility.

-- IMÁGENES ADJUNTAS --