How to rig a character with Duik Bassel in After Effects?

Be it the Simpsons, Bugs Bunny, or Elsa from Frozen, don't we all love animated characters? 

Character animation videos are now used as one of the most popular video marketing strategies. Animated characters tend to stand out and attract attention, and therefore, it is only natural to use character animation videos for marketing. 

But have you ever wondered how character animations are made?

Creating an amazing animated character is not an easy task. To produce beautiful and smooth character animation, a character animation creator will need a combination of several factors. They will need a combination of excellent character design, movement comprehension, precise keyframing, appropriate tools, and flawless rigging.

In this blog, I will tell you how you can use Duik Bassel in After Effects. After reading this, you can also rig and animate characters like a master. Because rigging is such an important part of character animation, you won't have any trouble animating the character if your rigging is flawless.

So let's work on some character rigging. 

Rigging in Duik Bassel

Duik Bassel, a free character animation tool, is one of the most significant rigging tools for After Effects. Duik Bassel has a lot of tools that make animating characters in After Effects a lot simpler.

Firstly, to start with the rigging, you need to create a character with proper joints and limbs. Imagine your character is a human being. 

Now, you have to make the character's joints accordingly. There should be a perfect joint between his hand and wrist which helps in smooth rotation of it.

The above image is a perfect example of how characters should be made and how each joint should be made. Making these types of characters will help you in smooth character animation.

Now that we have the character, let's begin by rigging each and every body part of the character.

Hands

• After importing the layers, adjust the anchor point of the layers in the middle of the circle which has been formed at each joint.
• Now go to the Duik Bassel window> select the rigging option from the top right panel> select the arm structure provided there.
  
  
• After selecting the arm structure, you will get structure in your composition. Now you need to fix that structure according to the layers which you have imported. 
  
• Next, you need to parent and link the layers with the structures accordingly. 
  
• Now again, you need to go to Duik Bassel window> Links and constraints> Select auto rig and ik.
  
• This will create a controller for the structure you have made and paired earlier.
  
• By selecting the controller button, you can give movement to the character's hands the way you want them to move.

Legs

• Import the layers and adjust the anchor point of the layers in the middle of the circle which has been formed at each joint.
• Now go to the Duik Bassel window> select the rigging option from the top right panel> select the leg structure provided there.
• After selecting the leg structure, you will get structure in your composition. Now you need to fix that structure according to the layers which you have imported.
  
• Now you need to parent and link the layers with the structures accordingly. 
  
• Now again, you need to go to duik bassel window> Links and constraints> Select auto rig and ik
• This will create a controller for the structure you have made and paired earlier.
• By selecting the controller button, you can give movement to the character's legs the way you want them to move.

• Import the layers and adjust the anchor point of the layers.
• Now go to the duik bassel window> select the rigging option from the top right panel> select the spine structure provided there.
  
• After selecting the leg structure, you will get structure in your composition. Now you need to fix that structure according to the layers which you have imported.
  
• Now you need to parent and link the layers with the structures accordingly. 
• Now by selecting all the structures formed, you need to go to duik bassel window> Links and constraints> Select auto rig and ik
• Now by selecting the controller button, you can give movement to the character's body.
  

This way, the character is fully rigged with the help of Duik Bassel. There are some controls that you can change accordingly, like the Icon setting and Anchor setting. 

You can select the right and left sides of the legs and hands. An important setting is the Ik setting which will allow you to handle your parts in the most convenient way.

Rigging the whole body

Apart from this, you can also have a rig for the whole body at once. You don't need to select different body parts if you want to have the whole body rigged. Below are the steps for the same:

• Import the layers and adjust the anchor point of the layers.
• Now go to the duik bassel window> select the rigging option from the top right panel> select the hominoid structure provided there.
• After selecting the hominoid structure, you will get the whole body structure at once.
• Now you need to fix the structure according to the layers which you have imported.
• Parent the layers with the structures.
• Now by selecting all the structures formed, you need to go to duik bassel window> Links and constraints> Select auto rig and ik
• It will give you a controller for each and everybody part separately, which allows you to have proper control over the movement of the character.

So Duik Bassel allows you to rig a character very easily, and you can also rig the character's body parts separately and at once.

Wrapping up

As businesses and brands are making efforts to stand out, character animation videos are one of the best ways to do so. One of the best things about character animation is that it can be used in many types of videos, including explainer videos. After reading this blog, I hope you will be able to get started with character animation using duik bassel. 

Do you need a hand in making character animation, 2D animated videos, explainer videos, or motion graphic videos? We are at your service. Contact us!

                                                                                                                                Editor: Amrutha