Animation: a funky walk :)

[AdamT]

That's looking very good! I really don't have any suggestions. The shoulder rotation is pretty exagerated, but I think it works for the character.

What's/where's the Trace plugin you mentioned?

[sanciok]

Trace Animation Track plugin is expanded version of the Trace expression. With Trace, you can trace the target object in both World/Object coodinates. You can also limit the tracing in each position/scale/rotation track. You can switch the target object throughout time using the Timeline.
By Toshio Fuji

I found it at Maxon's website, in the plugin Cafe'. It's for XL 7 and will not work on R8!

[randyrives]

Much better. I really like it now :applause:

[That Adrian Guy]

pretty nice, can you try a run cycle?

[Srek]

I found it at Maxon's website, in the plugin Cafe'. It's for XL 7 and will not work on R8!

Hi,
you can achieve this without any plugin. Xpresso is up to the task.
Try using the target Xpression that is included in R8 (if you can't find it download it here:
Target (http://www.bonkers.de/r8/xp/target.xma)
You can use the condition node to switch between targets.
Regards
Srek

[sanciok]

Thanks for the C&C guys!
That Adrian Guy: I'll try later, as i did this test as a presentation for a 3D course i'm going to do!

[That Adrian Guy]

oh yeah, as far as crits...


--Keep an eye on that left leg, it slips a bit.
--You may want to model pectoral (chest) muscles... the crease you have might be confused for one cause by incorrect rigging.


---That's all I can really say at this point...!

[video567]

sanciok

i would like to know your technique. i have a little character i modeled i would like to animate and your info may come in handy. thanks for your time

[sanciok]

Firts of all, i'm still using r 7.303
The first thing u need to do is to set bones into your Character.
Each bone must have a restriction tag that refer to a vertex Weigth map, but i think u should know this!
NEVER scale a bone with the scale tool!!!!!!
If u want to set up an iK chain u have to put everything into the proper hierarchy, so the Hip bone should be the ROOT of the whole skeleton, and it will need an Anchor Tag.
In my own ik chain i'm using both iK tag and expression.
the leg hierarchy appers to be like this: root leg bone, LEG bone, Shin Bone, toe bone and foot Null, fingers bone and fingers Null.
Each bone of the leg has it's own IK Tag with his restriction, exept the root leg bone thet has an Anchor tag and a protection tag. The null objects are very useful as they give u more control of your leg and will be assigned to an ik expresion. each Null must be placed on the pivot of the child bone.

You have then to place targets for the IK expression, so one for the fingers, one for the foot one for the heel and one for the knee. each target must be placed in the SAME position of the referring null or bone.
here is an example:

-----Root leg bone- (anchor tag) (protection Tag)
|
--------leg bone- (ik tag) (ik expression to knee target)
|
-----------Shin bone- (ik tag)
|
--------------toe bone- (ik tag) (ik expression to toe target)
|
-----------------foot Null- (ik expression to foot target)
|
-----------------Fingers bone- (IK tag)
|
----------------------fingers null- (ik expression to fingers target)


so: the fingers target refers to the fingers null, the foot target to the foot null, the toe target to the foot bone. The knee target worked a bit different for me, i placed it referring to the shin bone, but assigned to the leg bone.
I used another target for the hip, controlled by the TRACE plugin, so when moving the hip target the whole figure follow it.

this worked for me, but i think it's a matter of the kind of skeleton u're building, so i think it's just a matter to Know-how, and the experiment the better solution.

My advice is to experiment with bones not attached to a geometry, and understand how to do a good rig.
Arms and body are animated direct kinematics.

When animating, i used 30 FPS, and keyframed every 10 frames for the legs and 20 frames for arms body and head, so a two step cycle is 40 frames. Remember that when u're moving one leg, the other one must be moved too, for exemple, if u do something like a "step foward" with left leg, the knee target must be moved ahead an a bit low, and the toe target a bit up and ahead.... ok... :) this is not very explaining... :) hope u understand what i mean...
Ah... if the skinning of the geometry doesn't look nice, try to work with the bone strenght, and remember, before to attach bones always assign all the restriction tags (referring to vertex weight maps!) !!

Hope to be helpful!!!

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