Rigging the Avatar

This doc goes over rigging your custom Avatar for Roblox using Blender.

Tutorial

Next up we need to add the skeleton, or rig, to the avatar so it can be moved correctly.

Naming Conventions

You will need to make sure the rig uses the exact same structure and naming conventions as the rig in the template, so it's best to use that rather than create your own from scratch.

This will allow the avatar to use the Roblox Avatar animations without issue.

Roblox Avatar Rig...

Rigging the Body

• Unhide the Rig in the Outliner.

• Select the Rig, and go into 'Edit Mode'.

• Select the ends of the bones on the rig and position them where they need to be.

  • Use the Position tool or 'G' to modify the bone positions.

  • Use the X-Axis Mirror tool at the top right of the main viewport to position bones symmetrically.

Use the X-Axis Mirror tool...

• Use the 'Snap / Face' to snap bones to the face bones.

Use 'Snap / Face' to position bones to polygons...

• Use 'Snap / Volume' tools to snap bones within the volume such as the legs and arms.

Use 'Snap / Volume' to position bones to the center of the mesh...

• Continue moving the bones in order to align the rig to your avatar.

Example Body rig positioning...

Rigging the Head

If you want the head to be recognised as an Animatable Head in Roblox (for face tracking and emotes within Roblox) you will need to include the Bones under the 'DynamicHead' bone :

Animatable Head Bones...

Face Bone Positions

The following guide images give a summary of bone locations based on the RoundMale template. You should find all these bones in the template file.

'DynamicHead' is a critical bone that all facial bones are children of. You will need to map this in order for roblox to register the FaceControls. This is covered in the Mappingsection of the Facial Animationdoc.

Note the RoundMale template does not use the following bones.

• LeftEye / RightEye (use LeftEyeRoot / RightEyeRoot instead)

• UpperTeeth (use UpperTeethRoot instead)

• LowerTeeth (use LowerTeethRoot instead)

• Tongue (use TongueRoot, TongueBase, and TongueTip instead)

Centred Bones...

Front Bones...

Eye and Eyelid Bones...

With this positioning in mind, I moved the face bones to the following locations

Face Rigging positioning...

Face Considerations

When animating the head you can use both position and rotation for bones, meaning that blinking eyes can be done by rotating, rather than moving, the eyelid bone. Consider this for where you place your face bone positions.

Scale may be used but this is untested.

Custom Bones

It is possible to add your own bones to the rig included in the template as long as you don't break the order or naming conventions of the default rig.

Custom bones will not be animated by default avatar however, so if you add fingers or other bones to the rig you will need to create custom animations that utilise them.

• Select a bone you would like to add bones to such as the hand or foot bone.

• Use 'E' to extrude a bone from that bone.

  • Use Snap / Volume to position the bone within the mesh center.

• Continue adding bones to the model to complete the fingers.

• Delete bones as needed to refine.

  • When you press 'Delete' select either the following :

    • Bones - Delete the bone, but keeps them connected.

    • Dissolve - Removes the bone completely.

Example Custom Bones...

• Name them as you see fit.

  • If you keep to a standard, you will be able to use your own animations across different avatars.