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41.5 Layout (LightWave.exe) - 5 |
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Layout, ANIMATING And, I've finally gotten to animating. I think that most people don't ever succeed with 3D sculpture programs because they too often start out with animating, then never get to modeling. Animating is the simple part, if you've done all your homework beforehand. If you've instantly jumped 41 chapters and think you're going to do fine here, start at the beginning. Most books that you pick up will leap into animation, first. I don't believe in doing that, obviously. Only if your model is ready to animate is it time to start animating. If you've properly set up your model then it now has skelegons that are ready to work. If you've properly followed my tutorials, you've now created weight maps for you're object so the proper polygons will move when you move the bones. You've properly set up child/parent relationships for bones. You've set all pivot rotations and set the rest position for each bone... and, you've created a schematic view so it'll be easy to get at each bone. Layout, BEGINNING WALK CYCLE So, everything's ready to animate. From the 'Schematic View', I select the 'Deinon_LeftHeel' bone. I ensure that the Deinon object is not hidden, make sure  is turned off (some people like keeping it turned on, but if you ever forget its turned on, boy what a mess!).The first thing I'm going to do is set up the frame zero pose. Although his two legs are together, his left leg is in the process of being lifted and brought forward so I have to raise that foot and tip the toe downward. I press 't' to select the  tool and drag upward on the left heel's green arrow, lifting the leg.I click  and agree to create it on frame zero. Two forces are now in effect... What's controlling the foot is what is called 'FK' or 'Forward Kinematics'. My pulling the heel up has moved the entire foot up. That part of the movement is done via 'FK'.FK basically just means that you moved a bone, it had a weight map associated with it, and the foot, and all toes, moved because of that weight map. However, via the very same bone movement, the shin and ankle bones moved because of 'IK' or 'Inverse Kinematics'. They moved because the heel's goal moved, which is attached to the heel bone as a child object. The ankle bone moved so it could continue pointing at that goal, thus moving the 'Deinon_LeftShin' and 'Deinon_LeftAnkle' bones. 
Still with the 'Deinon_LeftHeel' bone selected I select  by pressing 'y'.I rotate the green pitch gadget to the left to drop the toe, then click and agree to create it on frame zero, again.
In this case I could have done both the , and then I could have clicked because until you move the time slider, or choose another item (bone, object, light), it won't forget the changes you did to that bone.At this point, I bump the number and save the scene. Whenever you're doing animation, and particularly if you're just beginning, you should bump and save every other movement you do. Next comes true animation. No more moving the camera to simulate movement, no more waiting forever until the model is ready. It's time... Layout, DEINON'S FIRST STEP I move the time slider to frame 4. 
In the schematic view I select 'Deinon_LeftHeel', hold SHIFT down and keep it down as I also select 'Deinon_RightHeel' and 'Deinon_Root' (all should be white in the schematic). 
I press 't' to select the tool. I drag the blue arrow to the left 500 mm (half-way between the two guide lines). The placement doesn't have to be precise as I'm guessing, anyway.
Next, I rotate 'Deinon_LeftThigh' clockwise a little and do a .
I select 'Deinon_RightThigh' and rotate that bone's pitch counter-clockwise from 0 degrees to 26.10 degrees. 
In order to rotate his right foot, I'll need to rotate both the heel bone, and the first toe bones of each toe ('Deinon_RightToe01_1', 'Deinon_RightToe02_1' and 'Deinon_RightToe01_1'). On the left is the 'Before' picture of frame zero, and to the right is the 'After' picture at frame 4. 
His big toenail goes through the floor, but in the real world that nail would probably go into the earth. I can always make small adjustments later. I press 'd' to bring up 'Display Options' and make sure 'Show Motion Paths' is turned on. If it's turned on, a purple line will show the paths an item passes through from frame to frame. I've turned off 'Show IK Chains' as those cyan indicators are only useful to show that IK chains have been properly set up and terminated. 
I move 'Deinon_LeftHeel' to the left one meter so his feet are properly placed. 
The purple motion path line shows that the heel, first, raised up at frame zero (to begin the initial position of the foot), then the foot moved forward, dropping downward til it rested on the ground at the 1 meter mark. I select 'Deinon_Root', choose the tool and rotate it counter-clockwise so he drops his head as he steps.
I move to the top view and rotate the blue gadget so his body will swing sideways as he walks, following his leg. 
If I look at the rotate gadgets, I see that I've modified the root bone's pitch and heading. 
I select 'Deinon_Tailbone', choose the tool and in the 'Right' view I drag the blue arrow down a bit so he, also, drops his tail when he steps.
in the 'Top' view I drag the green arrow to the right and the red arrow toward the body a bit, which, because of the IK chains, causes the tail to curve. Be careful not to overdo. Remember that most movements made during walking are very subtle. 
I'm now going to grab the five frames so you can see what they look like. I don't want the 'handles' showing (such as the green, red and blue arrows which show when you have the 'Move' tool selected). I press 'd' to bring up the 'Display Options' requester and turn off  As you can see, although I've decided to lead with his left leg rather than his right leg, the sequence is extremely similar to what I did by hand with Cel Animation. 
If I 'Scrub' the time slider to the right and left, I can see watch Deinon take his first step. So, except for his arms, that's animation up to frame 4... Layout, DEINON BRINGS RIGHT FOOT EVEN WITH LEFT I move the 'Timeline Slider' to frame 8. Frame 8 is very similar to frame zero. The only difference between frame 8 and 0 is frame 8 has the right foot off the ground whereas frame 0 has the left foot off the ground. I will manually create every keyframe (rather than fiddling with keyframes in the 'Graph Editor'. I'll be showing more what the 'Graph Editor' can do in upcoming chapters). I again select 'Deinon_Root', choose the tool by pressing 'y', and type 0 into the pitch and heading gadgets, pressing return. This resets the root bone back to zero rotation coordinates like it was in frame zero.I choose the tool by pressing 't' and drag the blue arrow another half-meter til it matches up with the next meter grid line.
I select 'Deinon_RightHeel', choosing the tool by pressing 'y', and reset the rotation on the heel to zero.I reset 'Deinon_RightToe01_1', 'Deinon_RightToe02_1' and 'Deinon_RightToe01_1' rotation to 0,0,0 on Heading, Pitch and Bank angles. I raise the right heel the same amount I lifted the left heel in frame zero by copying the Y value of 'Deinon_LeftHeel' from frame zero and pasting it into the Y value of 'Deinon_RightHeel' at frame 8. Layout, DEINON BRINGS RIGHT FOOT FORWARD I move the 'Timeline Slider' to frame 12. Frame 12 is very similar to frame 4. The only difference between frame 12 and 4 is frame 12 has the right foot forward and the left foot backward whereas frame 4 has the left foot forward and the right foot backward. I look at the 'Deinon_LeftThigh' rotation angles on frame 4, placing them into 'Deinon_RightThigh' rotation at frame 12. Layout, DEINON COMPLETES ONE WALK CYCLE Frame 16 equals frame zero. Layout, ADDING SUBTLE MOVEMENTS I add more subtle movements. | ||
