/3/ - 3DCG

Could AI make rigging obsolete? I'm tweaking right now and obsessed with this idea of creating an alternative animation system that doesn't require rigging. Basically you would just have your sculped or retopo'd character, click a button, and IK/FK handles for animation would appear. But instead of bones and weight painting, which are essentially just constraints, the animation is purely done by deforming the mesh. kind of like fluid animations or blend shapes on steroids. the AI would then automatically constrain the deformation like weight painting would on a rigged character. I understand that this would result in worse performance than rig based animation and also cause problems with UV mapping, but just try to think of the benefits and how things could be 10 years from now. Pic related, my first attempt.