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Game Development vocabulary · Physics & Animation

Rig

Meaning in game development, with examples

/rɪɡ/nounCommon term

In game development, rig means: The hidden skeleton of bones and controls inside a 3D model that animators move to pose and animate it, like the strings of a puppet.

In Turkish: rig, iskelet ve kontrol düzeni

How it is used

Built by riggers or technical artists. Also a verb: to rig a character. Skinning connects the model's surface to the bones. Problems in the rig show up as twisted elbows or stretched shoulders in animation.

Example sentences

  1. The character rig needs extra bones for the cape and the hair.

  2. Can you rig the new monster before the animators start on Monday?

Common collocations

  • character rig
  • rig a character
  • facial rig
  • skinning
  • rigger
  • keyframeA frame in an animation where the animator sets an important pose or value; the software then fills in the movement between keyframes automatically.
  • ragdollA physics setup in which a character's body becomes a set of connected parts that fall and react to forces realistically, usually when the character dies or is knocked down.
  • assetAny piece of content used in a game, such as a 3D model, texture, sound effect, animation or music track, usually stored as a file and imported into the engine.
  • polycountThe number of polygons, usually triangles, that make up a 3D model or a whole scene. Fewer polygons are faster to draw but show less detail.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Physics & Animation

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