animation "weights" - wondering if there is something that can anchor bones...

[purplegirl]

Sometimes when I'm animating, I'll have one bone not moving for a few seconds, then when I do move it for another frame, it's moving during the whole animation!!! Of course, I try to set it back in each frame where it's not supposed to move, and then everything starts wiggling like crazy because I'm not very precise. I've heard of weights for cp's...is there some kind of "weight" like that for bones that will keep it in place while I don't want it to move?

Thanks for whatever help you can give me!

[robcat2075]

To keep a bone in place for a stretch of time it needs to be keyframed to the same location and rotation both at the start of that time and the end of that time. Copy the first key and paste it to make the second one and they will be identical.

 

AND... the "interpolation" between those two keys needs to be flat. Setting the two keys to "zero-slope" will do that.

 

There's a video on "keyframing basics" in the screencam tuts link in my signature that talks about this.

[purplegirl]

I took a look at the tutorial...wow, that really helped. Thank you SO much!

[robcat2075]

You're welcome.

 

May your bones never wander again.