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Enhancing Character Animation with Rigify in Blender

Rigify is a powerful add-on that simplifies the process of setting up control rigs for character animation in Blender. While there are numerous tutorials on Rigify, attaching and animating eyes often receive less attention. In this guide, we will delve into the intricacies of connecting and animating character eyes using Rigify, enhancing your animation workflow.

Setting Up the Rig with Rigify

  1. Enable Rigify add-on in Blender settings.
  2. Create the main Human Meta-Rig using Shift-A.
  3. Customize the face and generate the control rig setup.
  4. Hide the metarig as it is no longer required.
  5. Access the deformation bones by selecting the rig and activating layer 30.

Configuring the Eye Bones

  • DEF-eye_master: Moves other eye bones with head movement.
  • DEF-eye: Enables rotation of each eyeball independently.
  • DEF-eye_iris: Controls the iris size.

Attaching Eyes to the Rig

  1. Add a basic eye by inserting a UV Sphere.
  2. Align the sphere to the eye bone pivot point using snapping.
  3. Parent the sphere to the eye bone to establish the connection.
  4. Test the setup by moving the main eye control.

Animating with Shape Keys

  1. Create a simple Shape Key on the eye sphere for animation.
  2. Add a driver to the Shape Key to link it to the DEF-eye_iris bone.
  3. Configure the driver settings to control the Shape Key using bone scale.
  4. Test the animation by scaling the eye control circle.

By following these steps, you can effectively set up and animate character eyes using Rigify in Blender. Mastering this process enhances your character animation capabilities and adds depth to your creations.

If you found this guide helpful and want more insights or have specific queries, feel free to like, subscribe, and leave a comment for future content.

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