making ground hard

[Master chief]

ok i have fianly managed to rebuild most of my models that i lost and i have created a basic corograpy ( i know i cant spell) any ways i have 9, 4 leged robots who have a basic walking animation and i have them walk along a predefined path and the leags move correct to the speed ( that took a while ). my question is seeing that i have used a rounded terrain instead of blocks is there a way that i can make it so that the legs on my bots dont go through the ground. Ie touch it but go no further.

[KenH]

Using a curved path sounds like the easiest solution. Draw a curved spline in the chor that follows the ground. Delete your model out of the chor and then drop the model onto the spline path. Then drop the walk cycle onto the model.

[Master chief]

Only problem with that is that the bot has 4 legs and even if i use a spline thats perfact to the vurrent path there will still be legs going through as like i said im using a smooth rolling surface

[KenH]

A path should do it. I'd need to see a picture.

[Eric2575]

I seem to remember something about a constraint to terrain? Anyone?

[John Bigboote]

I think MTPeak made a nice tutorial/project file for constraining a 4 wheel vehicle to a rolling ground surface...but that's a horse of a different color.

 

My advice would be KEYFRAMES...lots and lots of KEYFRAMES.

[Master chief]

honistly any thing that would make this easyer would help i have 9 bots with 4 legs each , they walk for 20 od seconds and then they get blown up. thats a whole lota individual frames to use

[Caroline]

Keyframes would be probably be best - I have learned that real animation has A LOT of keyframes, but you can also do it with paths, I think.

 

This is fairly advanced - you need to know about paths, and Animate mode, and have a lot of patience.

 

This is a $0.62 tutorial, seeing as John is away. ie. a very quick rendition.

bot.mov

 

You can see the path in this movie - at the top of the mountain, the bot's pink legs were digging into the mountain, but by rearranging the points on the path, I could stop it going into the ground. At the bottom of the mountain where I have not rearranged the points, the bot is still sinking into the ground.

 

You need a path with lots and lots of points - I have not found a way to add points to a path, so make sure you put lots of points in there to begin with.

 

Constrain the bot to the path. Change the length of the chor to match the speed of the bot.

 

Drop the walk action on the bot.

 

Set the action to repeat a number of times.

 

Move the playhead to familiarise yourself with the movement.

 

Turn Animate mode OFF - that's the big A at the top right. Move the playhead to where the bot sinks into the ground, and move the path point accordingly. Press the space bar to update the bot's position after moving the path point. Repeat this lots of times until it is not sinking.

 

Remember to turn Animate mode back on. The reason for turning it off, is that you do not want keyframes all over the place on your path. If you turn it off, it will position the path on keyframe zero, no matter where your current play position is. If Animate mode is on, you will get a keyframe where your current play position is, and you don't want that because your path would be moving all over the place.

 

But remember to turn it back on, otherwise your actual keyframes that you want to be created won't be.

[Luuk Steitner]

There actually is a trick to accomplish what you want, but it's a tricky one and I'm not sure how well it will work.

The Cloth - deflector simulation does exactly what you want, so my idea is to use cloth. You can have your model drag an invisible piece of cloth over the ground, and it should be modeled in a way that it's always near the foot. The ground must have a deflector material. If you have animated the walking character over the ground, you can do the cloth simulation and if it works out the pieces of cloth should drag over the ground where the foots fall below the ground. Now you can add an expression to the foot to make it rise to the same height as one CP that is nearest to the foot on the piece of cloth. Add an 'if' in the expression so it will only affect the foot when it's lower then the CP on the cloth.

 

Well, this is a awkward way to do it, but I could work for you.

[NancyGormezano]

You need a path with lots and lots of points - I have not found a way to add points to a path, so make sure you put lots of points in there to begin with.

 

In the chor select the path, then change the mode to MODELING mode (f5) - the yellow thom icon - (NOT muscle mode - arm flexing icon)

 

Add cps and modify path. This changes the path model.

 

No need to put more cps in than necessary.

 

Turn Animate mode OFF - etc

 

Remember to turn Animate mode back on. etc

 

In a similar way - instead of using animate mode on/off

 

go to frame where the monster model is not hitting terrain correctly, select the path - change mode to modeling mode and reposition path cps, (add cps, subtract cps if required), and then:

 

Remember to change mode back to director (or skeletal)

[thekamps]

I'm old school

I'd keep it like you have it, constrained to the path and then layer another action over it to correct any steps that are not as you like or show up correctly in camera view.

[John Bigboote]

I'm old school

I'd keep it like you have it, constrained to the path and then layer another action over it to correct any steps that are not as you like or show up correctly in camera view.

 

DIG! In the time you have fitter-futtered trying to get some 'one size fits all' solution you could have (as mentioned by 'thecamps') looked thru the camera and adjusted ONLY the robot feet that the camera see's going thru the ground. KEYFRAMES!