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View Full Version : Picking up objects, throwing, etc.

Ralph Garner
08-04-2003, 10:24 PM
Okay, before I dive into MB 4 or 5, I'd like to ask how it's being used to animate scenes involving props: picking up a coffee cup, for instance or perhaps throwing a baseball.

There's been tons of exciting, inviting info on how to make a character dance, fight, walk, etc., but I can't seem to find much on how I'd approach this particular issue.

Lightwave 7.5 is my app of choice. Thanks for your info.


Ralph!
sensai2nd
08-05-2003, 12:20 AM
. . . by creating a "relationship" between the two objects (can't rememer the actual relationship term). Check out 3DBuzz's VideoTrainingManuals, they go over this exact procedure . . .

Peace.
rebo
08-05-2003, 03:18 AM
The latest 3dworld has a nice article of interacting with a sword. The basic idea is to use a parent child constraint.
LFGabel
08-05-2003, 09:56 AM
Ralph,

Rebo has it right, though I'll expand on it a bit more.

The way you do it is with weighting a parent-child constraint. However, constraints override keyframing (at least they do in MB4). So, if you want to have a character pickup something and throw it I suggest hard-parenting the object to a 'holder' null and use a parent-child constraint on the holder null. Then you can keyframe the object as well.

I hope this is addressed in MB5... making constraints additive to their keyframed positions seems like it should work easily enough.
Ralph Garner
08-05-2003, 12:50 PM
Thanks very much for the quick feedback - I'll check out those resources today!

Ralph!
Rabid pitbull
08-05-2003, 02:57 PM
ifgabel

what do you mean by weighting a parent child constraint? Will this allow for dynamic paenting? Say you wanted to have two characters play catch with a ball.

could someone tell me which vtm explains this? I am on a dial up so need to plan for these downloads.:thumbsdow

thanks all
LFGabel
08-05-2003, 05:32 PM
Yes. Dynamic parenting can be acheived when you key the weight of a constraint.

In the Buzz VTMs, I believe #3 is all about constraints. If you can, you would be well served to download the whole issue.
Rabid pitbull
08-05-2003, 06:00 PM
ok i played around with the parent contraint some, and now i get what the weight function is. For some reason it wasnt keyframeing the movement of the cubes though. I will try to download the #3 vtm, but on a good day I am connected at 45kbps that translates to a download strream of about 3kbps....:thumbsdow :thumbsdow this all translates to about 10M an hour if only downloading, and hopefully i dont get disconnected.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR I hate dial up!!!
Fuzatron
08-05-2003, 06:12 PM
You might want to order the CDs. They are free last I heard. They don't even accept money, but you can donate some blank CDs if you want.
LFGabel
08-05-2003, 06:20 PM
Rabid,

If an object is constrained, it overrides the keyframed animation. Reread my reply to Ralph (above) for a workaround.
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