Animating The Inanimate, Part Three
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Now, let's say I have a script that calls for a three-second sequence where Al needs to "look around frantically." That particular lack of specificity notwithstanding, I can glean from the script that Al needs to have a pretty wide range of movement, and after noodling on it a bit, I've decided that I can get what I need out of Al by making it so he can twist, bend, and taper. After even further noodling, I've determined that I'm going to need a set of four null objects to serve as Al's handles:
1) n_base - this is the common base for all of the other handles, sitting at the very bottom of Al's "body." If I had to have any of the deformations start to affect Al from any point other than the bottom, I would have needed to create additional base handles further up Al's torso, but for this sequence, they can all share the same base handle.
2) n_bendhandle - this handle sits at the top of Al's "head" and will control how Al bends.
3) n_twisthandle - this handle also sits at the top of Al's "head" and will control how Al twists.
4) n_taperhandle - ditto the other two handles, except this one will control the taper.
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Figure 6 shows Al's hierarchy in LightWave's Scene Editor after I've added all the handles and parented them to Al. I'll then open up the Al's deform tab and add the Deform:Bend, Deform:Twist and Deform:Taper plug-ins, and then link each appropriate handle to its corresponding deformation plug-in (fig. 7). Now Al's all handle-d up and ready to rock -- all that's left to be done is to animate the handles and Al will follow along.
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| Figure 6: Al's parenting hierarchy. |
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| Figure 7: Al's Object Properties panel showing which handles are assigned to the three deformation displacements. |
Speaking of animating the handles, maybe now is a good time to explain a bit about how they work. Depending on which type of deformation is applied to the handle, you're going to need to move, rotate, or stretch the handle to get it to do what you want. Whatever do I mean? Well, let's say you have a twist handle. You wouldn't expect a twist handle to actually do its thing by moving it around the stage, would you? I mean, by definition a twist is a form of rotation, and the same goes for our virtual handles. Affecting the rotation of the twist handle will get Al to twist, while affecting it's movement won't do anything at all. As for our other handles, the bend handle is affected by movement, and the taper handle is affected by stretching, which fortunately for us is a pretty intuitive way of doing things. Now, some of you may be wondering why I needed to make all these handles in the first place if three distinct actions control all of Al's deformations. And you'd be right. Technically, I could have used a single handle and applied all three deformations to the one handle, since moving, rotating, and stretching the handle can all be controlled independently. However, if you've ever tried to keep up with relative coordinates of any model once you begin to add rotation and scale into the mix, you'll know why I have three separate handles. If I could stretch my marionette metaphor from earlier just a bit further, imagine what a contorted claw your hand would become if you tried to control a complex marionette's movement with a single handle. Sure, it's possible, but can you say carpal tunnel? Trust me, it's a lot easier on the brain to keep the three actions we're assigning to Al separate in this case, so I usually assign one control handle for each deformation I'm planning on doing.
In any event, Al is chock stinkin' full of handle goodness and ready to be animated, and after I've done the deed, Al is, in fact, now looking around frantically as shown in figure 8.
| Figure 8: The finished shot. Doesn't Al look frantic? |
Of course, this was a real quickee job for the purposes of demonstration, so my usual caveat applies that I would probably perform WAAAYYYYY more tweaking of Al's movement here if this were actually a production sequence, but I'm sure the producer will be oh-so thrilled nonetheless. And besides, you can plainly see how much range of motion is available to Al through just the addition of four null objects and three deformation plug-ins, so my work is done here.
So now that we've got two character animation techniques under our belt, next time we're going to wrap up the series with a look at bones. As an added bonus, our seemingly forgotten friend Ralph the Peanut will finally be getting some action, so don't miss it!
When not fleeing the paparazzi or spending his vast fortune associated with the fame and notoriety of being a DMN contributor, Kevin Schmitt can be found with his eyeballs glued to his computer screen, attempting to use some of the hardware and software he rants so incoherently about. An award-winning animator, artist and multimedia producer, he is currently a freelance designer located in the enormously bustling megalopolis of Charlottesville, VA. Whether you're looking to "give him the business" of either the figurative or literal type, feel free to drop him a line. He's ready to believe you!
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