Riggy help

How to work in Riggy, from the first file to the export: what to put into the art, how to write a request the model gets right, and what the mouse does on the canvas. Each page is short enough to read in one sitting.

• Getting started with Riggy in three steps

  Drop in layered art, say what should move, fix the rest by hand. The three steps from a PSD to an animation your game engine plays.

• Preparing art for Riggy: PSD layers and PNGs

  How to lay out a PSD or a set of PNGs so that every moving piece arrives as its own part, in the right place and in the right drawing order.

• How to write a request the model gets right

  Twelve habits that make a request land on the first try: one animation at a time, parts by name, motion in plain words, and what must stay still.

• The rig: bones, parts, the tree and versions

  What a rig is made of and how to change it without the model: move a part to another bone, read the numbers, roll back to an earlier version.

• Motion: animations, moments and the player

  How to play an animation, land on one of its moments and reshape the pose there with the mouse — and why the Rig and Motion switch matters.

• Bend: tails, ropes and soft parts that flex

  A long or soft part should bend, not rotate as a stiff plate. How to ask for it, how many bones it takes, and how to refine the result by hand.

• Controls: mouse, touch and keyboard on the canvas

  Every gesture on the canvas in one list: select, move, rotate, resize, pan and zoom, with the keys that go with them — for desktop and for phone.