Creating Armatures

This chapter focuses on the fundamentals of adding bones, editing them and creating armatures or ‘Rigs’ for the purpose of controlling or animating our character later on.

Armatures are the foundation for animating characters in Blender. They are also known as "rigs" or "skeletons". Armatures consist of interconnected bones that form a hierarchy, allowing you to control the movement and deformation of character models.

Adding an Armature

Go to Add menu or press Shift+A to add an armature with a single bone.

Armatures have 3 modes: Edit, Pose, and Object mode. Edit mode is where the armature can be modified. Pose mode is where creating the actual animation happens. Object mode is the default state of the armature.

Toggle across these modes via top left corner or using the hotkeys: Tab (Edit mode) and Ctrl+Tab (Pose mode)

Editing Bones

Bones have 3 parts: head (base/pivot), tail (narrow end), body (main part). You can select and move head/tail individually or select body to move/rotate/scale as a whole.

Subdivide bones via right-click context menu to create chains.

Extrude new bones from existing ones by selecting head/tail and pressing ‘E’.

Unparent connected bones with Alt+P to disconnect or clear parent relationship.

Change bone display type in Armature tab > Viewport Display > Bone Display.

Pose Mode

Transforms in Pose mode record Location, Rotation, Scale for individual bones

Insert keyframes via right-click > Insert Keyframe or hit ‘I’ to lock the position, rotation, or scale of a bone or armature in time.