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Hey, guys.

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In this video, I'd like to go over some of the basics

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of how you can actually customize your meta rig,

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since, as I explained in the previous video,

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the core of the workflow of creating rigs using Cloud Rig

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is to make tweaks to your meta rig

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and then regenerate the rig over and over again

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until your generated rig has exactly the features

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that you want.

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So let's start by adding the Cloud Basic Human meta rig

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again, just like last time.

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And then I'm going to hit Control-Alt-R to generate this.

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And just like before, you have your generated rig here.

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And something I want to get out of the way early on

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is what you can rename in the outliner and what you can't.

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So you can feel free to rename your meta rig, your rig,

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and your widgets collection, which were created for you.

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So for example, I could rename this to Bob's meta rig,

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and then the rig could just be Bob.

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And this could be Bob's widgets.

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And if you regenerate now, everything's

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going to continue functioning fine.

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However, if you go inside the widgets collection

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and try to rename one of these widgets, for example,

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if this were Bob's cube, that is just

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going to become widget cube again.

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That is to say, Bob's cube is going to stick around,

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and the new widget cube is going to be created.

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So just leave the widgets alone, but you can feel free

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to rename these things.

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So next up, let's change the character's proportions.

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So I'm just going to Shift-T to switch back to my meta rig,

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and then enter edit mode.

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And here, you can feel free to move around the bones

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to the proportions of your character.

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Although I don't currently have a character here,

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because I don't want to go into super specific details

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on bone placements in this video.

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But the main idea that I want to show you

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is that you can, of course, feel free to grab

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any joint of this rig and just move it around

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to fit your character's proportions.

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And then, for example, here, we will be giving Bob

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a very short forearm.

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And so if we generate this rig and then

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hop on the form layer, just so we see what's going on,

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and maybe enable the stretch layer as well,

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you can see that there is now a very short forearm

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and a very long upper arm.

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And it was as easy as Shift-T, edit mode, move the bone around,

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Ctrl-Alt-R, and there you go.

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I want this symmetrical editing enabled,

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so it happened on both sides.

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So the next perhaps useful thing to know

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is in case you are rigging a very small or a very large

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character, you might be tempted to just try

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to scale the bones up or down in edit mode, which you can do.

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But unfortunately, the way Blender scales bones,

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it doesn't scale the bendy bone display width along with it

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when you do this.

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So let me undo that.

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And what I like to do instead is to simply scale the object

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in object mode like this.

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And you'll notice just doing this will not work.

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So if I generate this rig, my rig

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is still going to be the same size.

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However, notice if you press the N key

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and then go to Item and Transforms,

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this rig, of course, now has a scale

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because we just scaled it up.

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And the generation process does not take this scale

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into account, just as it does not take any posing that you

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have on the rig into account.

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So if I rotate the bones in some crazy way,

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it's still going to generate the same rig as it did before.

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So what you want to do instead is to apply this scale

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by pressing Control-A and then choosing Scale.

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And now notice the scale numbers are 111, which is what you want.

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So now when you generate, the generated rig

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ends up at the same scale as the metarig.

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The same thing applies to posing the rig.

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In case you don't like editing the rig in edit mode

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and you would rather edit it in pose mode, you can do so.

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And then you just want to run the apply pose as rest pose

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operator.

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And if you generate the rig from here,

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then it will have the pose that you created on the metarig.

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One more note before we get into the interesting part

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is that any changes that you make to the generated rig

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will be lost on regeneration.

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So for example, if you wanted to move this bone or add

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some constraints to it, these changes

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will be lost when you regenerate the rig.

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And the reason for that is because this is not

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the intended workflow for Rigify.

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The whole point of Rigify is that you

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don't have to worry about these hundreds of bones and constraints

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that are created for you.

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Although minor tweaks like this can, of course, be done.

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And I will show you how in a later video.

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I just don't want you to be surprised when

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you try to add constraints or move bones

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around in the generated rig.

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And then you regenerate and find that your changes have been lost.

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There are, however, three exceptions to this

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that I can think of.

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One is the armature display type.

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So if I change this to archithedral,

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that is going to stay archithedral.

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The other is the active action.

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So if I bring up a doe sheet here

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and I insert a keyframe of this arm right here,

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and I regenerate, then the action and the keyframe

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are going to be preserved.

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And finally, if you're using the selection sets add-on,

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and you have some selection sets on your armature,

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then those are also going to be preserved from one generation

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to the next, like so.

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But other than those three things,

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any changes you make in the rig will be lost when you regenerate.

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So be careful.

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All right, congratulations.

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You've managed to bear with me through all of this boring stuff.

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Now I am going to show you how you can actually

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customize the behavior of the generated rig.

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This, I think, is the most exciting part

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about Rigify and Cloud Rig, not the fact

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that it can give you a quick rig that

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tries to fit every purpose, but rather it gives you

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the tools to create a rig that fits exactly just the purposes

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that you need, which means that you

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don't end up with a lot of useless controls

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that none of your animators are actually using.

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So to find out how exactly the metric knows what kind of rig

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to generate for you, enter Pose Mode,

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and select the left upper arm bone, for example,

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and then go to the Bone tab in the Properties Editor.

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Let me make some space.

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And then notice this Rigify Type panel right here,

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and the fact that this bone has a rig type of Cloud underscore

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Limb assigned to it.

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And then underneath that, there are a bunch of settings.

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So for example, let's try messing with some

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of these settings, like changing the stretch segments from 2

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let's say 5.

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And let's try disabling the IK pole.

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Now if we generate a rig again, you can already

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see that the right side still has the IK pole,

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but the left side now works by rotating the upper arm IK

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control.

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Again, things get a bit easier to see if I press Shift M

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and enable the stretch in the From layer

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so you can see better what's going on.

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So now I can rotate this to change the angle of the elbow.

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And as you can see here, also the stretch bones

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are now a lot more numerous.

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So there is five segments or four stretch controls

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between each major segment, which is probably a bit more

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than you could ever need.

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But hey, if you need that many, the option is there.

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Until then, I will just go back here,

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change the stretch segments back to 2, and generate again.

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And now we are back to having a reasonable amount

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of bendy segments.

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So that's what messing with rig parameters can get you.

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But now let's check out what I meant earlier

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when I was talking about the rig type or rigify type, which

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in this case is Cloud Limb.

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So Cloud Rig comes with the list of rig types,

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which you can find by clicking on this and then

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entering Cloud underscore.

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And Cloud Limb is one of the more complex types.

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So if we wanted to do something simpler for this arm,

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you could, for example, choose Cloud FK chain.

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Now you see there is a lot fewer options

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because this is a much simpler rig type.

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So you can see if you generate this,

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the resulting rig has no IK controls at all for the left arm.

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So in the following videos, I'm going

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to go through each of these Cloud rig types

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and explain what they do and what they do differently

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from each other.

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Although something important to know,

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if you are watching this video a year or two after it's

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released, what you can do to get up-to-date information

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on these things is just right mouse button

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on any Cloud Rig parameter.

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And you can click on Online Manual.

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And that should open a browser with the relevant page

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on the Cloud Rig Wiki.

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And if this Wiki is ever out of date,

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then you can feel free to poke me

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because I promised myself that I would always

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keep it up-to-date.

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Of course, as I'm making this video,

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it is completely out of date.

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But I promise when you're watching it,

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it's going to be totally up-to-date.

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All right, I think this video is getting long enough.

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I hope that gives you some general idea of how Cloud Rig

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works and what the rig types and rig parameters can do.

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And in the following videos, I will

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go into more detail on individual rig types

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and every single parameter and how exactly it works

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and what it does.

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So I'll see you in the next ones.