I rotated the hip joint (that tiny bone I created in Modeler) outward to test the thigh area of the character. The first observation is that the crotch area of the model is lost when the legs are deformed.

This was corrected by adding a child bone to the first bone (or Centre of gravity) and rotating it downwards.

The final issue that needed to be resolved in the character was also related to the hip joint deformation. Above the leg, the side of the torso was being pushed inwards, in a similar fashion to how the chest and arms had deformed.

To fix this issue, the hip bone (the bone connecting the base of the spine with the hip joint) was selected and had a child bone added, rotated upwards and rested. This proved the ideal solution for holding the torso in place.

The legs performed without any real need for additional bones, however did require a subtle adjustment in Modeler to spread them apart a little more to prevent the inner thighs from influencing each other.

When the model was bought back into Layout, simply deactivating the leg bones allowed the bones to be rotated to fit the newly adjusted geometry, then by resting them in their new positions, the character was finished.

Rigging with bones can be done without weightmaps or complex rigging solutions, and while a little work may be required to insert the odd additional control bone, often there will not be a need for many.

This tutorial shows just one way it was approached successfully, and hopefully inspires you to try some of these techniques in your own workflow.

Join me again in the next tutorial where I will repeat the same character rig using weightmaps that I created back in Modeler. This tutorial will show you just how easy and quickly we can apply the weightmaps to our model without the need for extra bones.

Until then...