[R>Artist 3D] Paid Commissioning Character Rigs for Blender + Unreal

[UniversalConquistador]

Project:
Unannounced character-focused sci-fi squad shooter that I am tinkering on in my free time. It's gotten to the point where a number of core systems work (and I have solidified plans for the rest of the systems), some character models are nearing completion, and narrative content is coming together.
The project may or may not ever see the light of day, but I'm paying you regardless.

The setting is dangerous-but-not-grimdark sci-fi, and the tone is serious and emotional.
The project is planned to cover a pretty fair range of content tags, including (but not limited to) futa protagonist, aliens + monsters, robots, wholesome consensual moments, un-wholesome non-consensual moments, dom/sub scenes, ovipos/pregnancy (if I can get the code working), very mild NTR hints, combat, etc.

Developer:
I'm a professional software developer, working on this project in my free time (and as inspiration strikes).

Looking for:
An experienced Blender rigger who can set up my character models to look and work great in Blender and Unreal.
Please have at least one NSFW rig in your portfolio.

Employment Type:
Paid per-deliverable. This means per-body type rig.

Work commitment:
I have two body types that already need rigging, with a third almost there, and a few more still to come.

Preferred method of contact:
Here on F95, then we can connect on Discord once we are ready to get to work.

Job Description:
I'm seeking someone who can take my existing Blender character models and create rigs for them that work well in Blender and export cleanly to Unreal.

• The rigs need to be better than what I cobbled together myself - i.e., better than a standard rigify rig with some genital bones on top. This shouldn't be that tricky if you know what you are doing.
• Facial expressions are important, but genital deformations are where your expertise really comes into play. I'd like to support as large of insertions as is possible for you to rig, and belly inflation as well.
• The rigs need to export cleanly to Unreal. By default, generated Rigify rigs don't work well because their deformation bones are mixed into the hierarchy with the other bones. I have some hacky ideas here but I'd love to hear some actual solutions. (EDIT: I was able to put together a little script that fixes this issue for Rigify/CloudRig)
• Unreal can handle non-uniform scaling of bones and blend shapes, but I'd like to avoid blend shapes where possible.

Additional comments:

 

[kinrean]

i use blender and unreal, in blender there is add-on you can buy that help you rig alot better then rigify for unreal . have you try that?
there is a few add-on, the one that i use is auto rig pro, it have unreal pose and bone setting , to link the retraget more easy in unreal.

auto rig pro only have breast bone setting for porn but for dick can use tail bone setting for it. but the harder or problem will be vaginal

 

[Krampus Kreations]

I have been working in Blender for a few years now. Recently starting learning UE and the workflow from Blender to UE (with DAZ characters). After reading your post, I have about a 1000 questions, but lets start at the beginning. I would like to help. You have two body types that need rigging. But once they are rigged, when the bodies are posed, getting the joint deformations to look correct is very difficult and time consuming. I think that is why most people start with DAZ models, import to Blender, and then send to UE. With DAZ you can make almost any character you wish with correct joint deformations, additonal HD joint deformations (if you wish), and even though they don't advertise it there are many additonal morphs and add-ons for the adult sexual sitautions, including futa (almost anything you can imagine).

Using DAZ characters also provides a single skeleton(rig) that can share poses and animations. One single skeleton with a standard set of joint control morphs means you can produce at scale, multiple characters sharing rigs and morphs. From what I've seen, that is how many UE game devs are approaching this. There are quite a few common obstacles but most of them have workarounds.

I'd like to offer what I know. Let me know what questions you might have...

 

[UniversalConquistador]

Thanks for your insight Krampus Kreations.

I don't think DAZ fits the requirements for my project though. I'm going for a specific stylized look (with the models I have already had modeled), and the alien body types don't map 1:1 onto a human skeleton. (e.g. four arms, tail, etc.)

 

[Krampus Kreations]

Gotcha, sounds like an ambitious project. Best of luck!

 

[UniversalConquistador]

Bump - still looking for a Blender rigger!

 

[Shved]

This is exactly what I do. I can demonstrate on discord. My discord: shved3d

 

[Simha999]

Are you also looking for Blender Animator by any chance!
I know Rigging also TBH not a pro rigger used Auto Rig Pro for some projects before. LMK If we can make this out!

 

[UniversalConquistador]

Are you also looking for Blender Animator by any chance!
I know Rigging also TBH not a pro rigger used Auto Rig Pro for some projects before. LMK If we can make this out!

I will definitely be looking for animators at some point, but I need rigs first

 

[UniversalConquistador]

bump - still holding onto hope for a rigger!

 

[OsamiWorks]

Im a "generalist" but rigging is my strongest skill with it being my most studied and my second strongest being sculpting just because of how many hours practiced. I'll only accept paid work and im not interested in revenue share or partnering up with another dev. I dont know how to modify the UE skeleton and never intended on trying since it would make it hard for me as an animator, I understand that might be a deal breaker. I do rig with exporting to UE in mind and have some experience in Unreal and Unity.

• Facial expressions are important, but genital deformations are where your expertise really comes into play. I'd like to support as large of insertions as is possible for you to rig, and belly inflation as well.

A few different bits of knowledge tie into this outside of rigging, topology is important here. Im not very strong with texturing and wouldnt want to do the UV editingto fix the texture stretching but I think handling this with shapekeys and out of engine would be better than trying to do it dynamically in some way in engine.

• The rxgs need to export cleanly to Unreal. By default, generated Rigify rigs don't work well because their deformation bones are mixed into the hierarchy with the other bones. I have some hacky ideas here but I'd love to hear some actual solutions. (EDIT: I was able to put together a little script that fixes this issue for Rigify/CloudRig)

I dont think this is true but in general with game engines you should only export the def anyway since pretty much nothing else is useful outside of sockets for props. You do need to mark all the bones that are deforming bones in blender, and if they are all marked you better have good naming practice to fix it. Its saved me a few times on this.

• Unreal can handle non-uniform scaling of bones and blend shapes, but I'd like to avoid blend shapes where possible.

lol so making sure things are modeled too scale before its rigged is important, and applying transforms is something you learn early. Sometimes you do something hackey like scaling down a model with its rig but it definitely causes issues when you need to do other things like join it to something else or attach stuff to that. I avoid shapekeys/blendshapes for faces because I prefer the flexibility from creating and using pose assets. Its a bit more work to setup than shapekeys but it makes animating feel much better for the control imo.


Most riggers dont have a real portfolio (me included lol), dm me if you want to talk more about your comm since i do have stuff I can send. I hope ive said enough on this for you to reach out!

 

[kinrean]

Im a "generalist" but rigging is my strongest skill with it being my most studied and my second strongest being sculpting just because of how many hours practiced. I'll only accept paid work and im not interested in revenue share or partnering up with another dev. I dont know how to modify the UE skeleton and never intended on trying since it would make it hard for me as an animator, I understand that might be a deal breaker. I do rig with exporting to UE in mind and have some experience in Unreal and Unity.

Most riggers dont have a real portfolio (me included lol), dm me if you want to talk more about your comm since i do have stuff I can send. I hope ive said enough on this for you to reach out!

i agree with most rigger don't really have portfolio .

but i think the problem is that he need it to be unreal bone so he can retarget easy in unreal. and it hard to show as many thing have to be prove.

 

[OsamiWorks]

i agree with most rigger don't really have portfolio .

but i think the problem is that he need it to be unreal bone so he can retarget easy in unreal. and it hard to show as many thing have to be prove.

the main benefit with using the UE skeleton is that you can purchase and use the assets for it.

 

[UniversalConquistador]

Thanks for your insight OsamiWorks. I'm a generalist as well, but my rough rigs are really only good enough to be a placeholder and their limitations are quickly becoming apparent, which is why I'm looking for someone with rigging experience.

but i think the problem is that he need it to be unreal bone so he can retarget easy in unreal.

the main benefit with using the UE skeleton is that you can purchase and use the assets for it.

This isn't actually an issue - I retargeted the stock UE4 mannequin movement animations onto my jank rigify skeleton trivially. Setting up the retargeting took less than an hour to dial in, and now I'm able to instantly batch retarget using Unreal's great built-in retargeting. I'm not concerned in the slightest about retargeting. Yes a second pair of arms will need to be animated (or retargeted) - I took that effort into consideration when deciding to have a four-armed design.

Most riggers dont have a real portfolio

Maybe 'portfolio' is too formal, but I would like to commission someone who can show that they have done most of what I'm looking for in the past, even if it's just a screenshot of a blender file, or a credit in an existing project that I can take a look at. I feel like that shouldn't be unheard of...

 

[OsamiWorks]

Its not and I have poc. Its just a heads up since I know what riggers are like. I just happen to fit what youre looking for and I'm available to work on it if its reasonable