Rigging and posing limbs
If your limbs need additional or alternative shapes in them (that you've designed or been supplied with) the Rig & Pose button can copy artwork into a limb so that it will 'stick' as the limb moves and stretches. This button also has a second, independent function to set limb properties based on three circle layers, which speeds up the pipeline from static design to fully rigged character. Used in tandem, they add a powerful and efficient workflow to the character rigging process.
Only vector artwork can be rigged. We recommend designing limbs in Adobe Illustrator, and then either importing them into After Effects and using the Layer>Create>Create Shapes from Vector Layer command, or using a third party import tool such as Overlord. For modifying artwork once it has been rigged, we recommend Penpal.
To pose the sizes, colours and lengths of the limb as well as the position of the controllers, you'll need to select three, separate layers - typically each with a circular shape and single color. Limber will use the size, color and position of these layers as a reference to set the relevant properties of the limb.
To rig artwork to a limb, you will need to select one or two shape layers that contain your artwork. Each of these layers will be transferred to either the Upper or Lower part of the limb. You will also need to either pose the limb to reference layers as described above or select an existing limb (otherwise Limber would not know where to place your artwork).
These functions work with taper limbs, and most custom limbs that are based on them, eg those that contain an Upper Group and a Lower Group. Default bones cannot be rigged in this way, although there is a Riggable Bone in the limb library.
If you are posing the limb at the same time as rigging, your artwork should be between your ellipse reference layers. If you are posing using an existing limb, your artwork should be placed in a way that makes sense to the eye, relative to that limb.
Ideally, select your layers in the following order:
Hip / Shoulder reference layer
Knee / Elbow reference layer
Ankle / Wrist reference layer
Thigh / Bicep Upper Art layer
Calf / Forearm Lower Art layer
If you also select an existing limber layer (either before or after the other layers), Limber will intelligently apply the functions to that limb. If you don't select any limber layers, it will generate a new limb based on the pose reference layers and apply the functions to this new limb. If you are only posing, or only rigging artwork, you should still select layers in this order - just miss out the ones you don't need.
The Rig & Pose Options panel gives you a chance to check how your selected layers will be used, and change them if necessary:
If you named your layers appropriately, you can quickly see if they've been assigned correctly. Re-assign them in the dropdowns if necessary, check that the correct limb is being used (if any), click OK and let the magic happen ✨.
Limber adds new groups to your limb layer and copies your art in to them. These groups will scale correctly when you use controls that change the limb's length, eg: Anti-pop, Clockwise and so on. They also scale when you alter the Upper and Lower Length properties, so it's best to make sure your limbs are at a normal, correct length when you rig artwork. If you subsequently change their length, that artwork will get stretched or compressed.