How a ZBrush Artist Speeds Up Rigging and Posing with Character Creator AccuRIG

Introduction

Hi, I’m Kevin Beckers, also known as Tycane3D. I’ve been working in 3D for many years, starting my professional career in 2007 with a company in Amsterdam. There, I focused on product visualization for clients like Miele and Philips, interior archviz, and even some exciting projects for the Dutch Air Force.

During this time, I developed my character creation skills, and in 2018, I transitioned to a full-time freelance character artist role. Since then, I’ve collaborated with many companies, including Wooga, Colorbleed, and Axis. Working with Axis, I had the pleasure of bringing Randy Bishop’s characters to life in 3D for their “A Christmas Carol” movie. It’s a shame that they are no longer around.

Posing a Character is Never Easy

For me, character creation is the most enjoyable part of working in 3D. I’ve done professional work in product visualization and interior archviz, but nothing compares to creating unique or quirky characters.

One challenging aspect of character creation is the posing stage. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with posing, the methods can be frustrating. If you’ve modeled your character in an A or T pose, your options are limited: you can either invest significant time in rigging or use more direct tools like ZBrush’s transpose features. For me, using the transpose tools feels tedious and slow, making it harder to experiment with different poses since each adjustment takes considerable effort.

Rigging & Posing With Character Creator

For simpler characters, posing isn’t too difficult. But when dealing with multiple layers, it can become a real challenge. Fortunately, Character Creator 4 (CC4) simplifies the process considerably. CC4 allows you to build entire characters and includes a powerful auto-rigger that handles details like fingers, along with a GoZ bridge for seamless integration. Within minutes, your character can be fully rigged, enabling forward and inverse kinematics for intuitive posing. This setup makes posing not only faster but also encourages creativity and experimentation.

To use CC4 with ZBrush, start by installing CC4 and enabling the GoZ option. Before diving in, I recommend downloading Reallusion’s free plugin, ZBrush Pose Tools, which is handy even if you’re not using CC4. Available on their website, this plugin offers a few helpful features, like rescaling your model to accurate humanoid proportions. Simply choose a preset length or input a custom value, and it will adjust your model’s scale in ZBrush. This ensures that when you import it into other 3D software, the model will have consistent sizing.

ZBrush Pose Tools

The plugin also allows you to easily store multiple poses within a single ZBrush file. Simply click “record new pose,” give it a name, and it will create a layer on each of your subtools labeled with that name. Afterward, you can select “edit current pose,” set those layers to “record,” and any adjustments you make to your model will be saved to that layer. Once you’re satisfied with the pose, hit “save,” and it will stop recording on all layers. This makes it simple to create new poses, with each one stored in its own layer for easy access.

Once the pose layer is set to recording mode, I hide any parts of the character I don’t want rigged. For this particular character, I avoid rigging flowy cloth parts, as I plan to pose them manually or use Maya’s nCloth for simulation. After that, I hit GoZ, which opens CC4. I leave the settings as they are in the pop-up panel, and just like that, your model is transferred into CC4, ready for further adjustments.

Auto-Rig Your Character in Minutes With AccuRIG

To rig your model, find “Accurig” in the sidebar on the right, which opens the AccuRIG panel. Simply hit “Create guides“, and after a few seconds, it will generate guides based on your model. Sometimes, they need a bit of adjustment, so make sure the guides are in the right spots.

You’ll see a helpful thumbnail at the top right showing the ideal positions, so try to match those. Once you’re satisfied with the guide placement, hit “build skeleton“, and it will build the actual rig, including finger bones. You can adjust these if they’re slightly off, and when you’re happy with them, click on “bind skin”. That’s it – your model is now rigged.

From here, you can use Character Creator’s extensive motion library to add animation or select a pose. There’s even a collection of “gestures” for the hands, so you don’t have to manually adjust each finger. Alternatively, you can press “N” on your keyboard to enter posing mode, where you have full control over the rig and can manually pose your model using FK or IK.

Once you’re happy with the pose, simply hit the GoZ button, make sure “relink” is set on all objects, select “send current pose”, and send it all back to ZBrush. It should update your model there, and with PoseTools still in recording mode, everything will be neatly placed into the pose layer. You can also export the model as an OBJ instead of using GoZ (which can be useful, as GoZ can be quirky at times) and manually load the models if needed. With my pose in ZBrush, I can further tweak and refine the model using the regular ZBrush tools. And that’s how I use AccuRIG for posing with Character Creator 4.

Conclusion

The speed at which you can get your character rigged and start posing using a proper rig in AccuRIG has been incredibly helpful. It not only makes the process easier but also allows me to feel more creative, experiment freely, and have more fun. The added bonus of PoseTools, which lets me easily store multiple poses and rescale my characters, has made the character creation process that much easier. Find out more in my full walk-through of the character creation, and try it for yourself!

Kevin Beckers, Senior Character Artist