Mirroring Joints
Since many characters are symmetrical with two arms and two legs, you can build one side, then select Skeleton gt Mirror Joint to mirror joints and their IK handles across an axis. First, you select the joint to be mirrored, then you set up the mirror plane os either XY, Y2, or XZ in the tool options. The joint, its children joints, and kinematic controls are mirrored and connected back to the parent. Local rotation axes oriented olong the bone Local rotation axes oriented olong the bone when...
Drqwing Skeletons
The Joint tool is used to draw skeletons. Each click adds o new joint to the scene. Bones are drawn between each joint to help you visualize the hierarchy. As you draw, you can click on the Up arrow to go to a joint higher up in the hierarchy. As you continue drawing, the new joints branch off from this joint. When a joirft branches off, it appears as if you can work with the two bones independently. When you select the bones connected to the branching joint, you select a single joint which...
character sets
On o typical character you will hove many ottributeion many different nodes thotneed to be keyed, ft Chorocter s t allows you to collect those ottrbutes in one place ond build up a haracter definition. When this character is highlighted in the gt op-up Character Menu, that Character set is active whetheror not it is selected. This feature makes it possible to easily set ind edit keys for that character since it is always active. Chorocter sets are also necessary to animate using non-linear...
fl Typical Character
The character's mechanics must be convincing to on audience and the skin and clothing must also move and bend properly. Mayo includes a number of tools that help you manage the ports that make up a typical character. This process of preparing chorocter controls is called rigging and is used to let the animator focus on the process of animating. R fully rigged chorocter can be quite complex as it brings together skeleton joints, surfaces, deformers, expressions. Set Driven Key, constraints, IK,...
Kinematics
To make your characters move, you need to create body mechanics that are accurate to real life and have simple controls. In a typical human body, it is the rotation of joints that best describes the motion of limbs. In Mayo, you can use joint rotation, but this doesn't always offer the best control as you animate. For example, you may want to move a hand while keeping a shoulder in place or move a shoulder while keeping a hond in place. This requires control which is difficult to achieve with...
Nonlinear Animation
To moke o walk cycle, the start ond end poses must match in order to create motion that con be cycled. In the Trox editor, the end frome of one cycle ond the start frame of the next cycle will be merged. Throughout a walk cycle, one foot must stay planted on the ground ond the pelvis must move up and down with the motion. The expression on on extro group node con keep the pelvis centered while the original pelvis joint lets you offset the pelvis os needed. The mixing of different walk cycles is...
Motion Capture
Using the sketches, o detoilcd model is built with on oworeness of how it will be bound to the skeleton loter. The surfaces ore bound to the skeleton ond joint rotations tested. Oeformers ore used to enhonce the final look. In support of the story, the chorocter is designed using sketches, storyboords. ond in soae coses, cloy models These visuol oids give the JC ortist o cleor understanding of the chorocter ond the chorocter s ronge of otion ond emotion. Using sketches or the model os o guide,...
Joint Orientation
The orientation of a joint is impor-tont for the animation of the skeleton. When you first draw a skeleton, by default, the joints are oriented to point at the next joint in the chain and align with the bone. You can also choose to align with the world space grid. As you edit joints, the orientation may be altered from your original settings. To view joint orientations, select the joints and click on Display gt Component Display gt Local Rotation Axes. You can also go into Component selection...
Forward Kinematics
The use of joint rotations to pose a character is called forward kinematics, when o joint is rotated, all the joints lower in the hierarchy follow. This demonstrates a typical hierarchical relationship that reflects the nature of joint skeletons. Rotating joints one at a time can involve a great deal of selection and animation. It is a good idea in a situation such as the bending of a finger, to use o control attribute on a higher level node to control the rotation of all the joints using...
Walk Cycles
Walk cycles offer o great example of the steps you must take when animating characters. First, you need to set up o skeleton that is capable of staying planted to the ground. You must then odd higher level controls that will help you animate the body. Extra Hierarchy nodes con also be set up to give you added control. When you set up a character's walk cycle, you can combine the appropriate rigging with animation techniques such os constraints, hierarchies, and non-linear animation.
Blend Shape Setup
The Blend Shape deformer lets you use several target shapes to help reshape a neutral face model. Once blend shape has been applied, you get a series of sliders for each of the targets. Setting keys on those sliders animate the face. To make this approach work, you can use duplicated versions of the neutral face to sculpt the targets. This will help ensure the hierarchies match and the surface topology is the same. Once the Blend Shape has been applied, you c in either delete the targets or...
Connecting Joints
If you build parts of a skeleton separately, you can select Skeleton gt Connect Joint to add the new limb to the overall skeleton, fln example would be connecting arm or leg joints t gt a spine. With the Connect option, With the Parent option, the root the first joint's chain moves of the first joint choin is added os to the second and the two o child to the second and a bone joint nodes become one. is drown between them.
Head Models
Before animating a head, you must choose a technique for modeling it. Shown here are several head topologies using different geometry types. The most important aspect of each model is its ability to mimic the muscle movements used to create facial expressions. Rfter that you must consider how you will texture the model and how fast it will be to work with. Here is o simple diogrom of the facial muscles that help define the mechanics of the foce. Understanding this structure will help you create...
Refining the Motion
To add complexity to your walk cycles and give them more character, you can animate body parts other than the feet. The swing of the arms, the rotation of the pelvis, and the shifting of weight to the planted foot all contribute to a more dynamic walk. If you are animating with non-linear animation, create sub-characters sets for the feet and the arms. This makes it easier to create overlapping action as the arms move with their own purpose. When you create clips, you con focus on the...
Adding Controls
To add high-level controls, you can set up nodes and attributes that give you automatic motion. This automation makes a character easier to animate, but may limit your range of motion down the line. Constrain the pelvis joint to o locotor. Group the locotor to itself so thot its new pivot is between the feet. Use an Average utility node or expressions to keep the group positioned and oriented in the middle of the feet. This centers the pelvis between the feet and lets you turn corners while the...
Constraints
Constraints allow you to control a character using other objects such as locators. Constraints let you control parts of a character such as the position of IK handles with a point constraint or the rotation of joints with an orient constraint. The advantage of constraints is that they are flexible. If an arm or leg cannot reach its constraint, it pulls away from the constraint gently rather than being abruptly stopped. When you see this pulling, you can quickly adjust other constraints to...
I
Pn IK handle runs from o start joint to the end effector. The rotation of oil the joints in between is affected by the movement of the IK hondle. This is the fastest method for positioning the end joint. If you move the start joint and the IK hondle has been either keyed, constroined, or has sticky turned on, the end of the chain will remain fixed. This is useful when you want to grob something or plont the feet while walking. If you move the start joint and the IK hondle has been either keyed,...
Rigid Binding
Rigid binding involves the creation of joint clusters that are made up of control points. Each cluster is associated with only one joint on the skeleton. You can apply the Rigid Bind option to a surface by selecting the surface and skeleton then choosing Skin gt Bind Skin gt Rigid Bind. If you wont to move control points from one cluster to another, you con use the Relationship Editor. You can also pick a joint, then select Deform gt Edit Membership Tool. This will display the points associated...
Animated Constraint Weights
In some cases you might want to start with inverse kinematics for more general control over a chain, then switch to forward kinematics for direct control over the joints. By creating a Character set that includes attributes for the rotation and translation of the joints, you can use the IK handles for posing ond the joints for setting keys. The chorocter's pelvis, orms, ond legs ore constroined to locotors. The orm locotors ore porented to the shoulder so they mo e with the body, while the leg...
Binding Techniques
To bind geometry to a skeleton is to associate points from the geometry with joints on the skeleton. This results in skin clusters that are mode up of control points. You can add and subtract points from these sets and you can set their weight to affect how they will deform. You con also add secondary deformers to handle bending and bulging. When you first bind a surface, the skeleton's Bind Pose is recorded. To continue binding after the skeleton joints have been rotated or moved, your...
Maya Reverse Control Animation
when a character walks, one foot remains planted on the ground as the other moves up then down where it becomes planted so that the first foot can move step forward . The foot first touches the ground with its heel, then the foot rolls to the ball and then pushes off using the toe. This heel-to-toe motion is important to a walk cycle and can be set up using o reverse foot setup. This foot is a joint hierarchy that is set up in the opposite direction to the leg joints. The leg's IK handle and...
fl Typical Character Animation Workflow
The development ond animation of a 3D character involves a number of steps. Once you hove a design, you must begin to build the character's model, lay down skeleton joints, and rig the skeleton so that it is capable of on appropriate range of motion. Character controls can also be set up to assist the animation process. while it is possible to work in a linear fashion, starting with modeling and ending with rendering, most productions require some form of concurrent work to be done, fin...
A Typical Walk Cycle
Designing a walk cycle for use with non-linear animation involves two walking steps where the first and last pose of the cycle are the same. The key poses in the cycle are when both feet are planted, and when one foot is above the other. If you were to animate a run, both feet would be raised in the air ratherXhan planted on the ground. The walk would eventually be turned into a clip and cycled in the Trax Editor. You con control the roll of the foot by rotating the joints on the reverse foot....
Character Resolution
fl fully rigged 3D chorocter includes many bound surfoces and deformers that can slow down the interactive manipulation and playback of the scene. Therefore, a low-resolution character that has surfaces porented to HSe skeleton makes it possible to work interactively while animating, then switch to the fully rigged character for rendering. fl low-resolution version of a character also makes it possible to begin animating before the entire character is fully developed. as you onimote, you cortan...
Rotate Plane Solver
This is the first joint that is influenced by the IK hondle. Every joint from this one to the end effector will be affected by the IK solver. Joints in the choin thot hove zero degrees of freedom will not be effected. The end effector is the end of the joint choin thot is cefined by the IK hondle position. By moving the IK handle, you offect the rototion of all the joints in the choin. The rotate plane solver includes a plane that is defined using the IK handle vector as one axis and the Pole...