An Argentinian BlenderArtists.org user known as cesio has made a very cool script to make things more intuitive in Blender rigs.
In this thread he presents the simple and efficient idea: the script allows you to move your character by selecting the affected mesh area. Basically is like the shape of the bone gets a custom form of the vertex group affected by it, making it seamless to the animator.
What makes it extremely cool is that the animator have a very intuitive way to move the character, without lots of controllers. It makes 3D animation be a lot more like the stop motion proccess.
Take a quick look on how it works:
You can download this .blend file with the script. It is still in development, so you'd better check the forum regularly for updates.
Because it's a script, it is pretty slower than regular rigs. I believe this approach is interesting enough to be implemented in the main Blender code.
With this, GreasePencil and other animation goodies being developed for Blender, this great app starts to be one of the best available for animators. =D
i love it! i'd be interested to see if a tutorial emerges on how to set up a rig to work with the script :)
thank you cesio!
great script by cesio! for a reason that i didnt know the script dont work for me :( well, meaby the version is not compatible... anyway looks very good and promising to implement in future versions of blender!
thanks for sharing Virgilio!