Rigging

Rigging adds bones to your models so that you can make them move with the Animator.

In the VoxEdit Animator, you can create a node hierarchy to control the movement of the different parts of your entity.

You need to prepare your asset before rigging it. First, you need to break the asset down into smaller parts and then articulate them in the Animator Module.

In the above examples, you can see the whole entity versus a broken down entity. In order to simulate the movements of the animal, you need to break it down into smaller sections such as Head/Neck/Torso/Pelvis/Tail01/Tail02/Tail03/ FrontLeg01/FrontLeg02/FrontFoot/BackLeg01/ BackLeg02/BackLeg03/BackFoot.

In this way, a one-piece asset becomes 14 smaller assets. These smaller parts are then imported to the Animator Module for rigging.

If you find rigging a bit hard but want to give life to your designs, check the Templates page for some predesigned rigs you can use as a base.

Nodes

Nodes are points that allow you to rotate and move models (VXMs) in a 3D area.

Nodes can be grouped to establish hierarchies, and are useful for creating relationships between different parts of your asset.

For example in a human character, the shoulder node is the parent of the arm node, the arm node is the parent node of the hand, and the hand is the parent node of the fingers.

In this way, if you move or rotate the shoulder node, all the child nodes will follow its movement.

This is the same for anything you want to animate, so if you want to create an electric switch, a door, or a vehicle, the same node-based system still applies.

Not all rigged assets need to be animated though.

An animated asset becomes an entity that can have different behaviours in the game.

However, a non-animated rigged asset can be used to create more complex structures, such as a tree and its branches, or a traffic light.

Node Names

Make sure that every node has a unique name, otherwise, it will cause problems with your animations in the Marketplace and the Game maker. The following example has duplicated node names, which causes differences in animation between VoxEdit )on the left) and the Marketplace preview (on the right).

Number of Nodes

In order for each player to fully enjoy the game, it is important to ensure that all assets are optimized.

The number of faces and the number of nodes must be reduced as much as possible.

In the next example, one shelf has each item as a separate node, and the second has all the items on each shelf as one node.

The second image is better optimised for performance, and this kind of reduction in nodes should be attempted where ever possible.

Space Between Elements

If you want to separate some similar elements, but not too much, the best idea is not necessarily to use a lot of nodes.

In this example, there are too many nodes, with each milk bottle using a separate node. ❌

Because the milk packs are on a shelf the players won’t be able to notice the back, so we only need to separate the front.

This version is much better because we have fewer faces. This is achieved by creating one node and filling in the spaces between the packs with a darker colour. This means only three individual nodes for the extra bottles are needed at the front. ✔️

It's also useful to reduce the overall item count where possible.

In the below image you can see a shelf where some items have been removed while still achieving a similar result, however, it requires fewer nodes which will have a positive impact on performance.