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By coincidence, we've got a huge Zelda-centric update for you! Not only did Centrixe the Dodo give us a hundred models from the brand new Echoes of Wisdom, but we also got a little something from almost every 3D Zelda game thanks to the effort of MasterPengo and others. It's not all Zelda, though! Other highlights include Sonic X Shadow Generations, BattleTanx, and the Thousand-Year Door remake. Be sure to check out the dozen new custom models as well! There's plenty of low-poly goodness this time.
For this month's model tip, I want to explain a little about rigging. In order to move parts of a character model, models use a special type of object known as a "joint" or "bone". The collection of a model's bones are referred to as its "skeleton", "armature", or "rig". For bones to work, they must have two things: values that specify how much influence they have over each vertex in the model ("weights"), and a reference position ("bind position").
If the weights are missing or all set to 0%, the bones will do nothing. If a vertex point's weights don't sum up to 100%, the bones will have too little or too much influence on that point. Meanwhile, the bind position is important for preventing your model from distorting. If a bone's position, rotation, or scale don't match the bind position, the model will distort in a way that matches what the bind pose says the bone should be. This can cause the model to twist, be misaligned, or even contort into horrible mangled messes. Always be aware of what your model's bind position is.
That's the basics! That was a lot of information, I know, but it should give you enough to start researching it yourself if you want to know more. Oh, and one last thing: .OBJ files will never have bones. The format simply cannot support it.
Enjoy!