Rigging with Armatures
In this Task we were shown how to apply bones to certain parts of meshes instead of using automatic weights, which would usually be used for a more human character or animal. Applying certain meshes to different bones allows it to move more like a robot. once we applied our bones, we changed the appearance of the bone to an empty, this makes the bones much easier to see and control when animating. Once the robot was fully rigged, we applied a bone IK constraint, this allowed us to move the arms just by pulling a certain point. This is because the Inverse Kinematics bone constraint acts as a chain of bones instead of individual bones, making easier to move the robot arms because without it, you would have to adjust every single bone.
Weight Painting
Sometimes when you apply bones to a mesh using Automatic weights, the mesh can join to parts of meshes that it shouldn’t be joined to for example the finger bone being joined a mesh on the neck. In this exercise, we were given a model that had a really messed up rig and things weren’t moving how they were supposed to be moving. To resolve this, we weight painted. Essentially we just went into 1 bone at a time and looked at what meshes were applied. If there was a bone with the wrong mesh applied we should simply paint over it with an eraser function. The same only reverse if there is no mesh joined to a certain bone, you could simply paint what mesh is supposed to be affected. You can also change the strength of the ‘paint’ depending on how much a bone would influence a certain mesh.
This was my result after weight painting.
When I was rigging my bird model, I noticed that some of the mesh wasn’t moving with the bones/rig. I understood that it was due to mesh not being joined to the bones properly so, I weight painted it to resolve it.
Fully rigged Bird
I wanted my bird to have a very stiff appearance because it was a rubber toy, so I just added a tilt rig with limit rotation constraints applied.
I changed the appearance of the bones I needed to use to empty’s and hid the rest.
Fully Rigged Hands
The thought of rigging hands was a little daunting at first, although I did look back at previous videos and work from semester 1 to help me a little. I was able to fully rig them and add a copy rotation constraint to all of the finger bones. 
I changed the appearance of the bones I needed to use and hid the rest of them. I changed the colour of each finger within the bone groups and labelled each finger. I did this to make it easier for me and other group members to animate.
