[RobMitchell]

At work we've been looking into character rigging from using models made in Rhino. It's new to us so I've been searching around on Google on this subject but not found anything too helpful.

Basically wondering if anyone knows of a website, or has any of their own information, about going from a model made in Rhino to becoming rigged for animation. IE, what programs are needed and what sort of preparation is needed in Rhino before the rigging takes place. Or even if it's possible. :p

I've checked various Rhino forums but no one seems to be discussing it.

Any help would be great. Thanks!

[polynurb]

hmm .. not that i am into animation or characterdesign .. but i'd say you need an animation package that supports nurbs seamlessly. To my knowledge these would be Houdini and Maya.
So i suppose that once you get the surfaces into the application, keeping the exact CVs, you can start animating the way you would do with any shape you generated within the package itself.

[Maximus3D]

You wanna rig nurbs models inside Rhino ? or 3d models of rhinos ? i assume it's the first alternative.
I'm not aware of any form of rigging tools for Rhino3D, but what you need for rigging is a clean good mestopology with nice edgeflows or else your gonna have some serious meshdeformation problems.

Are you btw talking about mechanical or organic rigging ? mechanical rigs i think you can do in SolidWorks, most other 3d packages support that type of rigging, even Blender. Organic rigs of such things like humans require slightly more sophisticated tools such as what Maya, Cinema4D, 3dsmax, Lightwave and such apps offers.

/ Max

[polynurb]

I'm not aware of any form of rigging tools for Rhino3D

in fact Bongo 2.0 for rhino is in WIP....

http://en.wiki.mcneel.com/default.aspx/ ... tatus.html

it features IK... but as it is in beta i would not recommend it for professional use yet...

[RobMitchell]

You wanna rig nurbs models inside Rhino ? or 3d models of rhinos ? i assume it's the first alternative.

Haha. I thought hard about the wording of my post, but couldn't get past the fact it sounded like I wanted to model a rhino. :p

Thinking of rigging inside Rhino, as you guessed. Well, not even within Rhino, but just using models generated from there. Not too sure about mechanical or organic rigging. Like I say it's all new to us at this point.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far though, going to look more into it!

[Maximus3D]

Hehe you never know.. some day you might wanna rig all the rhino's you modeled during the years.

To rig the raw output meshes you get from Rhino in mechanical rigs where the meshes do not deform then you can do that in just about any 3d app now. And i guess you never really model any organic stuff like humans in Rhino, i feel sorry for the one who has to do that
However as i wrote above, a clean nice smooth topology is a must for deforming meshes. Even if it's cables and hoses on a piece of machinery that's getting deformed by bones or a clothsim. You could retopologize your models in many apps, from 3D-Coat to Modo and 3dsmax and Maya, Silo also supports that and i'm sure LW does too.

The options are many but it all depends on what you're gonna do and how you wanna do it, you can pick the simple route or the complex route. Both should give you similar results at the end of the day.

/ Max

[RobMitchell]

Haha. When you see the rhino stampede render, you'll know what I've been up to.

Thanks for the really helpful info you've given me on this subject. Much appreciated! Going to read more into your suggestions then report back to my boss.

[PA3K]

Hello Rob,

i will suggest to use T-splines for Rhino to make models for future rigging in other applications. It is great plug-in for organic modeling, and You can also convert Your mesh models to tspline and nurbs. Look at http://www.tsplines.com/ . This is not commercial , but i really like this plug-in.

Patrik

[Polyxo]

Hi Rob,
as meshes inside of Rhino are traditionally only Display helper for Nurbs-Geometry the implemented Mesher does not
respect any rules which apply for SubD modeling or even for animation.
This is no different in all other Mechanical-Design packages I know. If you really want to animate Rhino-Geometry
you should buy Moi only for remeshing. Its obj-Exporter creates pretty decent Quad-Meshes from Nurbs-Input.

Hth, Holger