Ludwig: Character and Rig v1.0

Ludwig is a fully rigged and animation ready character for Blender. His features include IK/FK arms, stretch and squash head and spine, and a lip sync ready face controlled by a custom UI. Ludwig was created to provide the Blender community with a high-quality humanoid rig and to promote Blender as a character animation tool.

Requires Blender 2.40 or later.

Big thanks to Nathan Dunlap (LGM) for extensively testing Ludwig, and for his advice and suggestions.

Download: ludwig.blend (245 KB)
(Firefox users: If you are having difficulties downloading the file, right click on the link and choose "Save Link As...")

Sample Animations

"I Said Dance" elYsiun Animation Challenge #28 Winner (2.1 MB) - Nathan Dunlap
Lip Sync Test (843 KB) - Nathan Dunlap
Cannonball! (580 KB, DivX 6.0) - Jason Pierce
Crazy Dance (202 KB, DivX 6.0) - Jason Pierce
Creepy Valentine (2 MB, DivX 6.0) - Jason Pierce (This animation does not use the Ludwig character, but it does use the Ludwig rig)

Instructions

Body Rig & Controls

The body rig is named "ludwigArmature" and is found on layer 1. It deforms both Ludwig's mesh, and a low poly maquette. The low poly mesh is on layer 3 (this layer is hidden by default). The low poly mesh is useful for blocking out animations on slow computers. It does not support finger or facial movement. Ludwig's mesh is on layer 2 (visible by default). It does support finger and facial motion.

All unhidden bones control something, so play around with them to see what they do.

Here are some of the more important bones: (A "G" in parenthesis means that you should move the bone, an "R" means you should rotate it. "G/R" means that the bone will do interesting things if you both move and rotate it)

Body:

Pelvis - Independent control of the pelvic area (G/R)
IK_Spine - IK handle for the spine (G/R)
Shoulders - Convenient way to rotate both of the shoulder/clavicle bones at the same time (R)
Torso - Parent of entire upper body. (G/R)
Root - Parent of all bones. (G/R)
UpperBody - Parent of everything from the shoulders up. Also functions as an IK handle for the spine IK chain. (G/R)

Head:

Head - Allows direct control over rotation of head. Also serves as a handle for the neck IK chain. (G/R)
HeadStretchControl - Get a little more emotion with squash and stretch in the head (G)

Arms:

IK_Arm.R/L - IK handle for arm IK chain. Also controls rotation of the hand (G/R)
FingerThumb.R/L - FingerPinky.R/L: controls the fingers. Rotate on the global Z axis to control finger spread. Rotate on the global Y axis to control the curl. Finger animation can also be controlled by directly keying the finger bones in an FK manner. (R)
To switch from IK to FK in the arms: Set the influence of the IK constraint on the Forearm bone to 0. Then set the influence of the Copy Rotation constraint of the Hand bone to 0.

Legs:

Foot_Root.R/L - Controls the Leg (G/R)
Ball_Heel_Rotation.R/L - Make the foot roll from ball to heel (R)
Toes.R/L - FK toe control (R)

Face Rig & Controls

All facial controls are located in a seperate armature named "FaceControl". An armature was used for this purpose (as opposed to a collection of empties and/or meshes) so that alt-G can be used to reset the face pose. To use a facial control, simply move it around. None of the facial controls respond to rotation.

Ludwig has the following face controls:

Eyes:

EyesDirection - Controls which way the eyes are looking.
EyeOpen.R/L - Opens and closes the eyes.
Squint.R/L - Makes ludwig squint.
BrowPosition.R/L - Raises and lowers the eyebrows.
BrowEmotion.R/L - Rotates the eyebrows.
BrowWrinkle - Lowers the middle of brow, making the nose scrunched.
EyeTarget - This control is not part of the FaceControl armature. The eyes follow this control. It can be used in conjunction with the EyesDirection control. EyeTarget is parented to the head. If you need it to move freely, simply unparent it.

Mouth:

MouthOpen - Controls the jaw's rotation.
JawForward - slides the jaw forward and back.
MouthSmile.R/L - Lifts/lowers the corners of the mouth. Can be used for frowns as well as smiles.
MouthPucker - Puckers the lips.
UpperLip - Curls upper lip in and out.
LowerLip - Curls lower lip in and out.
Tongue - Controls the tongue.

Misc.:

Sneer.R/L - Lifts the lips and cheeks to create a sneering expression.

Tips & Tricks:

Squash & Stretch:

Ludwig features a stretch and squash head as well as a stretchy spine. Although there are no limits on how far these controls can be pushed, they are meant to be subtle effects. Stretching or squashing too far can lead to unwanted results.

IK/FK Switching:

Ludwig's arms can be animated using both forward and inverse kinematic techniques. By default he uses IK. To switch to FK, first select the Forearm bone (Forearm.L or Forearm.R, for left and right arms respectively). In the object buttons (F7), locate the Constraints Panel. There will only be one constraint. It is named "LeftArmIK" (or RightArmIK). Find the influence slider, and drag it to 0. If you need both IK and FK, the influence slider can be keyed.

Next select hand bone (Hand.L or Hand.R). Find the Copy Rotation constraint (named "LeftHandRot" or "RightHandRot") and set its influence to 0 (once again, if you will be switching between IK and FK during your animation, the slider can be keyed).

If you won't be using IK for the arms at all, it may be helpful to hide the IK_Arm bones.

The legs can also be animated with forward kinematics, but not conveniently as the arms. The IK Solver constraints for the legs is located in the Shin.L and Shin.R bones.

Using the Ludwig Rig With Your Own Meshes:

Using the Ludwig Rig with another mesh is by no means trivial, but it is much faster than creating a custom armature from scratch. Here are some tips to keep in mind:

The quickest way to skin a new character to the Ludwig body armature is to use the pre-existing envelopes. If you design your character within the envelopes, skinning will be a snap.
If your character's proportions differ from Ludwig's, you can modify the armature in edit mode. When doing this, be careful when modifying any bones which have an action constraint. This includes all the fingers, the feet, and most bones in the face.
Preparing your character for facial expressions will be most time consuming task. Ludwig uses a combination of shape keys and an armature to control his facial movements. The face armature can be found on Layer 11 (is it named "ludwig_Face"). This armature does not use envelopes by default. If you choose to use this armature, your best bet is to manually setup vertex groups.
To use the FaceControl armature and face maquette, you do not necessarily need to setup your character the same way that Ludwig is setup. For example, you could have your character's face be controlled entirely by shape keys.

Licensing and Using Ludwig in your own work

Using the Ludwig Rig

The Ludwig rig may be used royalty free for both commercial and noncommercial purposes. This includes all armatures and the face maquette. You do not need to credit me, but you may if you so desire. As a courtesy, I would like to be informed when you use the Ludwig rig in your own projects (this is not a legal requirement, it is simply to satisfy my own curiosity).

Using the Ludwig Mesh and Character Design

The Ludwig mesh or derivatives of the Ludwig mesh may only be used for noncommercial purposes. This includes all parts of the mesh (body, mouth, eyes, etc.) and all shape keys. Acceptable use of Ludwig character includes school projects, demo reels, animation practice and contests (for example, 10 Second Club and elYsiun/BlenderArtists.org animation challenges).

You do not need to credit me when using the Ludwig mesh in your own projects, but you may do so if you wish.

If you would like to use the Ludwig mesh in commercial works, contact me for pricing and terms at:

Redistribution of Ludwig

You may freely redistribute the Ludwig source file or derivatives of the Ludwig source file. However, this licensing agreement must included with any distributions of Ludwig. You may not modify this license in any way. Any derivatives of the Ludwig mesh and armature are subject to the licensing terms outlined in this document.

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Copyright 2006 Jason Pierce