constraints

[JoshM]

Originally posted by iso
i am just wondering how to go about setting up a scene in which a character picks something up. In Animation Master you simply used constraints and keyframe them, but I haven't been able to figure out how to do this in C4D. Forgive if this is an easy question, but at the moment I only have an hour or two to spend on the computer a week, so the learning curve has become a lot steeper.

One more question: Can a person rig up non-linear poses with C4D?

Thanks

There are many techniques which you go about this. One being just traditional Forward Kinematics (FK) i.e rotate index finger into position, keyframe, rotate middle finger into position, keyframe, etc. Another way to go about this would be to setup several poses using Pose Mixer i.e one slider for the Index to curl, another slider to control a complete grabbing pose with the entire hand, etc. Personally I rather go setting up poses through Pose Mixer, but you might prefer FK.

As to your second question, this is definately possible. MoMix is meant for this type of task. If you need to know how to use this feature, just let me know.

-Josh-

[AdamT]

I think the first question is asking how you would transfer the influence of the object being picked up, rather than how to open/close the hand. In other words, how can you make the object follow the hand without keyframing every move and then have the object placed on ground so it's movement is no longer affected by the movement of the hand?

One answer is to keyframe the enabling/disabling of an expresso expression. For example, Srek has an expression to make an object stick to a point on a deformed mesh. You could have the expression off, then keframe it on as the hand grasps the object, then keyframe it off when the object is released.

[H. Ikeda]

I know Animation Master and so could probably understand iso's first question. I think AdamT is right and action of picking up something is to relate objects in different hierarchies. Constraints can do this effectively in Animation Master. This is also a problem of local and global positions in c4d. So if relation between objects (or points) with XPresso has been made under global matrix, we can easily relate something picked up with a hand.

Cheers,

[iso]

I think the first question is asking how you would transfer the influence of the object being picked up, rather than how to open/close the hand. In other words, how can you make the object follow the hand without keyframing every move and then have the object placed on ground so it's movement is no longer affected by the movement of the hand?

that is what I meant.

As for the pose question. I meant having non-linear morph poses, ex. facial poses

thanks

[AdamT]

There are several ways to do nonlinear morphs in Cinema, depending upon whether you have Mocca. Mocca has both Posemixer and P2P. PoseMixer allows you to morph not only face targets but pretty much anything--bones, heirarchies, etc. P2P is a straight pose-to-pose tool that also provides thumbnails for each target. PoseMixer and P2P can be combined, too.

[bobzilla]

Definetly check out PoseMixer. Once you set it up (which really isn't that bad) just manipulation everything with sliders is a breeze.

[iso]

Sounds good. I can't wait until I have a little more time to sit down and figure things out. Are the manuals that are downloadable the best place for up to dat tutorials, or is there any new sites that offer a lot of learning material?

Thanks

[bobzilla]

Maxon always seems to be a little thin on tutorials. If you the PDF downloads, I think, are the same as the printed mauals. Also, if you go to Maxon's main site, click on support, tutorials, then you'll see a Quick Strat for R8 link, click that. They're not in depth by any means, bu they goive you an idea.

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