CGTalk - constrainting a gun

krolichka

10-22-2007, 03:54 PM

hi,

i wonder how you do your constraints if you have for example a gun. Lets say the gun is in a holster on the characters leg, i parent constraint the holster to the rightupleg joint, then parentconstraint the gun to the holster. Then i want the character to walk and suddenly reach for the gun. How would you go about doing this, would you put the hand in place near the gun, just when he grabs it and then snap the constraint and put the value to 100, and then go one frame back and put it to 0..or..would you put the character in a Tpose and then put the gun in his hand and then snap the constraint? If i let the gun be in the holster and put his hand next to the gun and snap it, when i then bring the arm into a shotposition i recognize that the gun is slightly rotated. But then its to late to correct the rotation? isnt it?
Hope you understand what i am trying to say :)

Krolichka

kiko

10-23-2007, 11:27 PM

don't understand what you're saying, but will try to help anyway ;-P
To make sure the gun is in the correct position on the palm of the hand, in T pose place the gun so that it looks nice. Then drag a null from the asset browser on top of the hand and snap both trans and rotation to match that of the gun.
Now parent this null to the wrist effector (or the hand bone). This will be the null you'll be constraining to when you create the parent constraint, that way whenever turn on the constraint, it will assume the rot and pos that looked good while in Tpose.
Do a similar setup for the holster.

If you want to switch the constraints from holster to hand and back, the way I do it is by scheduling the constraints in the story tool. Insert the character take in Story tool, then just drag the constraints from the Scene Browser into an empty area of the story tool, that will create a constraint track where you can drag the gun2hand constraint and alternate with the gun2holster constraint. You can even overlap the clips and blend them, on and off as many times as you fancy.
When you're happy, plot the whole scene to your take.
It works like a charm.

CGTalk Moderation

10-23-2007, 11:27 PM

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.