I know it’s a minor thing but this keeps bugging me, I’ve never heard of this word in any other context ever, and many tutorials about rigging characters talk about “rigs” made up of bones… so why are we calling it an armature? It’s an armature meant to be understood differently from a rig?
1 Like
Great question, I’ve always assumed armature/skeleton to be the same thing, here’s a quote from an animation Wiki page;
“When sculpting the human figure, the armature is analogous to the major skeleton and has essentially the same purpose: to hold the body erect.”
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armature_(sculpture)#Animation
and another from a Skeleton animation Wiki page;
“A rig is generally composed of both forward kinematics and inverse kinematics parts that may interact with each other. Skeletal animation is referring to the forward kinematics part of the rig, where a complete set of bones configurations identifies a unique pose.”
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeletal_animation
and finally, a quote from Blender’s manual;
“An “armature” is a type of object used for rigging. A rig is the controls and strings that move a marionette (puppet). Armature object borrows many ideas from real-world skeletons.”
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/rigging/armatures/introduction.html?highlight=armature
2 Likes
Very useful info. Bookmarked and added to my rapidly expanding notes 
Thanks, Rob
1 Like