creating a simple flocking bird animation

[Nicool]

I'm maya, you would put clip (a flight cycle) as a particle and give a path to the partcles flow :cool:

[visualasylum]

Thanks for that info, but this doesn't help me get anywhere now.
And besides I knew that already.

G

[BrandonD]

Just set the animation tracks for the wings to loop or cycle (Parameter Out of Range types) in Trackview.

[visualasylum]

thanks mate, let me ask you this, how would you go about doing several sequence, lets say, normal flapping, then glide sequence, then back to flapping?

CAn you use block of sequences and chain them? Is that possible?

Thanks again.

G

[yoni-cohen]

make few animation versions, say 3 birds with each having it's own animation cycle, animate the particles using eaither speed by icon or find target.

use a find target to switch between instances of the bird with different animations.

[visualasylum]

What? Is that possible? Using what particle engine? Can you please give me some more leads on this please.
Very cool approach, never thought of that.
Thanks again.
G

[Chris Thomas]

here's how I did it a while back

animate your bird flap
apply loop out of range to it
then apply an ease curve controller to each animated element
copy/paste the ease curve controller to each animated item
now you have a master animation controller for the flap

next

copy the bird rig as many times as you need
and put each one on a path
then animate each birds ease curve by hand to produce nice looking animation (glides, flaps etc)

the ease curve controller expects a 1.0 increase per frame
so if you increase the curve value by .5 each frame, the bird will flap more slowly. increase it by 0 and the bird will glide

Now, the next stage for this is to intagrate it with pflow, to allow the particles to controll their own animation. This is something I'm gonna do when I get some spare time :)

[CGTalk Moderation]

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.