Artist control workflow

The following workflow is useful when artists want to encapsulate their existing objects with an asset so that it can be easily sent down a pipeline while ensuring artists in other departments can’t make changes to areas they are not responsible for.

For example, consider a rigger working on a character model who needs to pass the asset down to an animator. The rigger would like to give the animator access to the character’s controls but not to the character’s joints themselves.

The following workflow shows how the rigger can give the animator limited access.

1. The rigger imports the character geometry, rigs the geometry with joints and creates controls as usual.
2. The rigger creates an asset for the character including shapes, shaders, and related hierarchy. The rigger also includes the character’s controls in this asset.
3. The rigger publishes the character controls to the asset and any other attributes/nodes other artists need control over.
4. The rigger locks the asset and sets it to Black Box mode.
5. The rigger sends the file down the pipeline to the animator.

   Now if the animator requires a change in the asset’s rigging structure, he cannot make the change himself (potentially causing problems elsewhere in the pipeline). Instead, the animator must inform the rigger to make the changes.