babys first blender script WIP - most of an ik/fk setup for a 3 bone limb! i started setting it up manually for the leg but decided it was too tedious adding all the constraints and drivers and started coding :D

there's probably more efficient ways to do a lot of this but it's a start :)

i can't just have a super nice leg and nothing interesting for the rest of the body now

- but since it seems like the default workflow is to have bones as control objects it might be annoying to have to do it individually
- i haven't found a way to mass edit bones which would make the above way easier (except via code but it would be nice to be able to do it from the properties panel)

- back to bones: it's really nice checking/unchecking "deform" on each individual bone instead of making your own system or manually selecting the correct joints every time you bind the mesh. or manually adding/removing the correct joints from the skin every time

"i'm just gonna add a quick simple IK so i can test the poses better when weight painting later" -> "oh i wonder how you do a foot roll setup in blender" -> "might as well experiment with an ik/fk switch while i'm at it"
this is not gonna be a quick or simple rig is it...

- it's REALLY ANNOYING that doing a print() in a script in the Text Editor doesn't log to the Python Console. it feels so unnecessary to have the system console as a whole separate window :(

- dipping my toes into scripting and i'd forgotten how it felt to not know anything. it seems mostly intuitive and comparable in difficulty to maya cmds so far
- WHY doesn't blender remember the selection order. so many of my my lazy helper scripts in maya rely on selection order of 2-4 objects

- i was going insane trying to get good orientations for my legs (not completely straight along any axis) until i realized i can rotate stuff in pose mode and apply that to the rest pose for perfectly planar limbs
- it feels odd to apply the ik to the middle bone

- i REALLY wish i could have "both" bones and joints though. my corrective joints look more clunky as bones :(
- the edit mode/pose mode was annoying but is growing on me. it's nice to have completely clean transform channels in pose mode and makes it less weird to use bones as control objects

thoughts on rigging in blender so far:
- bones instead of joints was initially annoying but i kind of get it. in a lot of situations they do kind of make more sense and feel more intuitive
- bones leading to no leaf joints is nice. feels a little cleaner :D
(1/?)

wanted to learn more about Unreals control rig system so Naturally the first step is spending weeks learning blender (don't wanna pay for maya) because i Have To make my own character and despite my initial goal i apparently can't help myself so now i'm learning to rig in blender instead

ok fine i'm finally creating a social media presence because i want to yell into the void about stuff i'm learning