Rigging Philosophies: Joint naming conventions

This a new post to kick-start a new section of my blog. I was recently asked what were some of my "beliefs" when it comes to rigging. Basically how I think rigs should be made and how they should function. This will be a nice way to really start analyzing why I do things the way I do them. So let's get started.

When it comes to naming joints, some might think that naming them anatomically would be an ideal naming convention. Keeps things organized and you know exactly what that bone's function is. So why is this a problem? By default, Maya likes to organize deformers in the component editor alphabetically. This can be a problem when you start having clavicles, shoulders, and elbows. They can be misplaced within the component editor and make it difficult to see point weights side by side. Yes, you can filter out the zero'd channels but what happens when you give points a full weight of 1? going back and searching for it's neighboring deformers can become a pain! So here is my simple solution: Use numbers!

Let's use an arm for an example, starting from the clavicle: Instead of starting out with bind_L_clavicle01 lets go with bind_L_Arm001. From there we start getting our arm, starting from 001, 002, 003, and so on. With this naming convention, you know that it's on the left side arm, and that it's going to have geometry bound to it. Best part about this, in the component editor, all of your arm joints are side by side, making it incredibly easier to read and sort through.

So you might be asking yourself "This is great and all, but what about fingers?" I simply start with the thumb carpals and begin naming them like so: bind_L_D1_001, bind_L_D1_002, and so forth. With this naming convention, I know that it is a digit on the left side, and D1 means that it is the thumb. Now this does require a bit of mind training as you always start from the thumb and fan out from there. Once again, this is great because now all my fingers are all clumped together and easy to find.

I have found this naming convention to help me be a more efficient weight painter as well as making it easily readable for someone down the line. Now I only use this convention for deformers and joints in general. For controls I use a more anatomical approach as it makes more sense for an animator. Controls are also the representation for that area of the body and should be named as such, where as a deformer is part of the underlying framework of a rig.