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.
Bones and parts
A rig is a tree of bones with art attached. A part is one piece of art, and it rides on a bone: move or rotate the bone, and its part and every bone below it follow. That is the whole idea — the shoulder carries the arm, the arm carries the hand.
The root bone sits at the origin and does not move: the rest of the rig is measured from it. The panel on the right shows the tree, with the parts listed under their bones.
Changing what follows what
- Drag a bone onto another bone in the tree to make it a child of that bone.
- Drag a part onto a bone to hang the art on that bone.
- Nothing jumps on the canvas: the bone or the part keeps its place, only its parent changes.
- The root cannot be moved, and a bone cannot be dropped onto itself or onto its own child.
On a phone the tree is for reading: dragging in it works with a mouse only.
Selecting and moving on the canvas
Click the art to select a part and its bone; the same selection lights up in the tree. By default the art and its bone move together — drag either. The box under the tree shows the numbers of the selection in the rest pose, not in the frame being played.
Versions and undo
Every change — a turn of the model, an import, a drag with the mouse — is a new version of the rig. History lists them, and any earlier one can be brought back. Ctrl / ⌘ + Z takes back the last one.