Character Motion

[greg]

Hi,

 

OK I've got my AVI and import issue taken care of, at least for now. Something I don't expect is happening when I add a character and motion to my scene. Basically, I'm just doing the walk and wave exercise from the tutorials with a little different twist.

 

I define a path on my screen, from left to right, and contrain my character to the path. I would like the character to walk down the path to the end and stop. So I add the walk action to the character and set the constrain ease to 100% as it says in the tutorial. Making sure my character has enough walk action to get to the end of the path. When I play the scene everything looks fine. So I set a key frame when the character stops walking. I move ahead a few frames, about 1/3 of a second and I postion the character to face the back of the scene.

 

My thiught is that the chracter would walk to the end of the path, stop, and then turn toward the back. However, when I play the scene to that point, the chracter begins his walk and then part way through it he begins to turn to the back. I thought that when I defined a key frame at the end of the path that is where the turn would begin. Am I missing something?

 

Thanks,

 

Greg

[frosteternal]

My thiught is that the chracter would walk to the end of the path, stop, and then turn toward the back. However, when I play the scene to that point, the chracter begins his walk and then part way through it he begins to turn to the back. I thought that when I defined a key frame at the end of the path that is where the turn would begin. Am I missing something?

You need to set a keyframe at the point right before the turn begins. Keyframes are as follows: 1) starting direction, 2) ending direction, 3) turning direction, 4) ending direction #2

 

My guess is your character is beginning to turn throughout the animation, you just need an extra keyframe to define where one facing direction is to end.

[phatso]

Ah, but greg thought he defined a keyframe.

 

The issue may be that keyframes are not global. The three buttons on the bottom toolbar let you choose whether you're keyframing a bone, a chain of bones, or the whole model. And even that doesn't keyframe everything if you have more than one model.

 

Go to the workspace, find the line for the model, and use the triangle to break it open. You will find separate controls for translation and rotation in x,y and z axes. Click on the one that controls rotation in the axis you want (probably y) and in the timeline you will get a single, isolated spline that shows exactly how that property is behaving. If there isn't a control point that defines a keyframe where you want it, insert one. Then use bias handles (or right-click on the CP to access more options) and either peak the point, if you want rotation to start abruptly, or go to the bottom and select more options, then select zero slope, if you want rotation to start gradually as if controlled by inertia.

 

You may also find you've inadvertantly put keyframes on this spline that you don't want. This would be a good time to get rid of them.

[greg]

Thank you very much. I hope I can figure this iut from here. I've been really busy the last couple of weeks. But now I hope I can concentrate on A:M for a while. I also purchased David Rogers' "Animation:Master A Complete Guide", which I hope will be a great help.

 

Thanks again,

 

Greg