STAGE ONE |
Creating a sneaky-looking walk cycle
Launch
Blender
and adjust the panels until you haveAction, NLA and IPO Curve Editors, a 3D Viewport,buttons and timeline windows onscreen. Split and join panels by hovering the mouse over their edges andright-clicking. Move the edges by clicking and dragging. Dragdown the top menu bar, select Edit Methods and, under ‘Autokeyframe’, select Available, drag the bar up and hit [Ctrl]+[U].
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Load Proog: choose File > Open or [F1] and browseto where you extracted the files from the CD. Select‘stage_2.blend’ and hit [Enter]. If you want to keepyou current layout, deselect ‘Load UI’ at the bottom of the fileselection window, otherwise you will get the same UI layoutsaved with the file. Note: the full-size screenshots are on theCD, so don’t worry about reading the tiny annotations above!
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Pose the torso in the same way as you posed the footin Step 3: select control bones, rotate and/or movethem until you like the contact pose. The cage-like‘bodybase’ control can be used to move and rotate the entiretorso; the rest of the spine (body, back, neck and head) canbe rotated independently (‘body’ can also be translated, butwe’ll just rotate it). If you rotate, key ‘Rot’; if you move, key ‘Loc’.
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Pose the arms and shoulders by rotating and keyingrotations so that the right arm is forward and theleft is backward. Rotate the palm, thumb and fingerbones. The fingers and thumbs are each controlled by onebone: rotating it rotates the finger, scaling causes the fingerto curl. Key each digit’s rotation and scale. ([Shift]-selectmultiple bones and key them together to save time).
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EXPERT TIP
Setting up contact points
We’ll create the walk cycle in oneplace using pose-to-pose techniques.Imagine that you’re animating acharacter walking on a treadmill,with each planted foot rolling back,when planning the poses. You canplan the cycle between any of thekey poses, but the simplest way is tostart from the contact positionswhere the front foot just begins totouch the ground, then do thepassing position (where the backfoot passes the front). Finally, do thedown position and the up position.These last two give a sense ofgravity and force to the walk cycle.
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For the first contact position, drag the Frame Markerto frame one, then go to the Side View in the 3DViewport. Select and move Proog’s left foot half astep forward and a touch inwards. Don’t lift it on the Z-Axis!Rotate it so his toes are pointing up and turned out. (Pronateby rotating on the Y-Axis.) Press the [I] key and select ‘LocRot’to set a keyframe.
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Here’s a little trick: select the left foot, press thedown arrow on the 3D Viewport header (Copy Pose),then the small upwards icon with the pink arrow(Paste Mirrored Pose). The right foot is now in the mirroredposition of the left foot, so move the right foot backwards,zero its X and Y rotation, then key it with the [I] key.
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EXPERT TIP
Using manipulators
Use manipulators for positioning,rotating and scaling. These can beturned on and off with the hand iconin the 3D Viewport, and the buttonsto choose translate, scale or rotatecan be [Shift]-clicked to select morethan one at a time. The drop-downmenu with the options Global,Local, Normal and View selects thealignment of the manipulator axis.Generally, Normal is the most usefulfor posing bones, since it aligns withthe axis of each bone. You can alsouse hotkeys to constrain motion inthe 3D Viewport by pressing the axisletter after initiating a transform.
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EXPERT TIP
The layers provided
Proog’s armature has 16 visibilitylayers that help minimise the clutterin the 3D Viewport, Action Editor andNLA Editor. The first layer containshis body and leg bones; the secondhas his left arm FK controls; thethird, his left arm IK controls; and thethe fourth, his left palm and fingercontrols. The fifth, sixth and seventhlayers control his right arm and handin the same way. The stride bone ison layer eight, and the facial controlsare on layer nine. Layer 11 has clothfix-up controls. Other layers containbones that you shouldn’t animateand are supposed to be hidden.
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3D WORLD
3D WORLD
August 2006
TUTORIALS |Animating better walk cycles
TDW80.t_blender 056
TDW80.t_blender 056
6/6/06 12:58:43
6/6/06 12:58:43
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