00:00So we will now create our first custom property to finish the rig of the neck and the head.
00:07In the previous video, we have created a bone that will hold those custom properties.
00:13So why are we using a bone instead of the armature or whatever other thing, since we
00:18know that we can add a custom property to anything.
00:22To demonstrate it, I have opened the demo file that is available in the course.
00:29And the thing is that whenever you add the custom property to a bone, and this is very
00:34important, you have to set it to the bone, the custom properties keyframe, whenever you
00:40will add a keyframe to set the property, will be held in the same action as the current animation.
00:50So in this case, I have this kind of cinematic animation, which is using one action.
00:57And in this action, I will be able to find all the keyframe of the custom property.
01:03If I create a run cycle, creating a new action, those keyframes for the custom properties will
01:11be in the action run cycle.
01:14So they are going to be editable.
01:17So we can find those custom properties in this bone.
01:20And when I go in the very last stack of the bone properties, I can find all the custom
01:28properties I have created.
01:31On the final rig, I've been using a bone with a custom shape P to make it more obvious.
01:38Since we haven't seen custom shapes yet, I wanted to show it to you with this regular display.
01:45Now if I expand my action editor, you can see that I have all my custom properties keyframed
01:52in this action.
01:54Big warning on the second thing is that you can add custom properties in edit mode, but
02:00you have to add them in pause mode.
02:03This will give you access to another property tab that we can't really see here.
02:10But if you add them in edit mode, you won't be able to access them while animating.
02:16So I'm in pause mode with my properties bone selected.
02:20I've been in the custom properties and I've added a neck follow property.
02:25Once it's set, I will right click on it and copy the data path to add access to this value.
02:32I will then select my constraint bone, and on the copy rotation constraint, I will add
02:39a new driver.
02:41So I will set it to average value.
02:44I will use a single property here.
02:49Then we have to select our rig, so just on the right, and just past the value.
02:56And our driver is set, so you can see that it's way easier than before.
03:02Now I can test it.
03:04When I select my bone with the properties, if I use the slider here, you can see my character
03:11reacting.
03:12Also, we can find those custom properties in the rig UI using the bone layer manager.
03:20So this is very, very handy whenever you are animating to have those properties in the
03:25basic 3D view.
03:28So we can now repeat the full process to create the head follow mechanism.
03:33Select the joint between the neck and the head.
03:36Extrude the first bone, which will be our MCH bone.
03:41We can then duplicate and scale down this bone, that will be our intermediary bone.
03:49Then parent the big bone, the first one, to the neck, and the second one to our control
03:56torso.
03:57Then in pause mode, we'll add constraint from the MCH bone to the MCH intermediary bone.
04:04I press in control, shift to C, and we'll add a location, a rotation, and a scale.
04:10For the sake of organization, I'm moving the order of the constraint.
04:16The constraint order is important, but in this case, those different constraints doesn't
04:22override or influence each other, so it doesn't matter.
04:26Then you can rapidly test the mechanism going into pause mode.
04:30Rotate the head or the torso and reduce the influence.
04:34Then we'll select our properties bone, add a new custom property onto the bone that we'll
04:41call head follow.
04:43As usual, we'll right-click on the value and copy the data path.
04:49And as we are lazy, we'll select our previously created driver, right-click, and copy the driver.
04:55Then we will pass the driver on the new influence.
05:00So if I now trigger the neck follow custom properties, it will influence the rotation.
05:06And now if I edit the driver, I can go to the path and pass the path as we have copied the
05:13head follow path.
05:15And now it works.
05:16It's using the head follow.
05:17Being able to copy and pass driver will be a time saver for sure.
05:23Since we have a custom property bone to drive those bones, we can move those into the MCH
05:29layer since we won't have to access them.
05:33This will result in a cleaner organization for the rig.
05:37So I'm just double checking that everything works properly.
05:41We can now rename the head and the neck, adding the control prefix.
05:48And then we will create a new layer for the control tweak of the torso so that we can separate
05:55the main controller and the secondary controllers.
05:59It's super important to organize your rig along the way because it can get pretty complex rapidly
06:05and you will get lost.
06:08So before we jump to the next video, I will just revise the neck deformation by editing
06:15the chest and neck vertex root.
06:17To make my life easier, I will enable the edit mode and the mesh display mode on the
06:24armature modifier so that I can see my character deformed.
06:28I will then select the whole neck using the control plus shortcut or you can use the L shortcut
06:36and press shift H.
06:39In the vertex group stack, I will select the depth chest and I will add some influence to
06:46the base of the neck.
06:47So I will assign a one value for the weight on those edge loops.
06:54And for the neck, I will remove the influence of the neck on the base.
06:59And here I will reduce on this edge loop to 0.5 the influence of the chest and 0.5 the influence
07:08of the neck so that I get a nice fall off.
07:24And I will then move back to you.
07:39And here I will move back to you.
07:43That was great.
07:44That was great.
07:45I will be teaching you to assist you.
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