what is rigged?

[innocent28]

sometimes when I downloaded genital parts I see the word rigged penis/vagina along with the ones without rigged. what does rigged mean?

[Logos101]

If a dummy like myself understands the term correctly, it's a term used to describe how some 3d models allow animators to do more complex things and provide more realism.

 

Edit:  grammar adjustment

Edited April 5, 2025 by Logos101

[cooldood555]

"Rigged" generally means it's set up to work for animations. Basically the "rig" is what tells the animation where the body parts are, but if the part isn't "rigged" it can't be identified. So, for TS4 (this isn't in the TS4 forum but you tagged it for TS4) if you download an unrigged penis, it won't work with WW animations. But FWIW I don't know of any parts for TS4 that aren't rigged other than cmar's old stuff; some may simply not be marked as "rigged" because it's assumed they will be. [When TS4 was new, there were no rigs for genitals or boobs, and even WW's changed a bit after it came out to add rigged tongues and stuff IIRC... been a long time tbh lol, but my point is you'll mostly see older stuff note whether it's rigged or not because now it's standard]

[ghastley]

Rigged means that it is set up for skeleton-based animation. Virtual bones can be added to the skeleton to move parts that need to move, and the skin is weighted to the appropriate bones. When the bones move, then the skin follows. Rig and skeleton often get used interchangeably.

 

The other major method of animation is morphs, where two extremes of positions for the skin vertices are defined, and the animation varies the position between them. This is mostly used for facial expressions. 

 

Mouth animation usually combines the two, moving the jaw via the skeleton, and the lips with morphs.