"A Complete Guide" action question - muscle mode

[sb4]

A question for anyone whose has worked through some of the exercises in "Animation:Master - A Complete Guilde" by Rogers, 2007:

 

In chapter 4, "Action Basics", on animating the flour sack in an Action window, after you lay down the basic "hopping" animation, the author instructs you to refine the action using Muscle mode and doing some overshoot of the "ears".

 

The idea is to use the "group" tool to select a single CP at the tip of the ear, and then use the "rotate manipulator" to lag the ear behind the fast motion of the torso.

 

If I understand correctly, you are supposed to move the pivot of the rotate manipulator to the "base" of the ear, so you can rotate the tip CP relative to the pivot at the base, and thus drag the mesh a little by the tip to make the ear flex.

 

The author wants you to then step through the timeline and wag the ear appropriately using the "rotate manipulator".

 

The problem I find is that when I step through my animation with the sack hopping up and down, when the sack moves, the rotate pivot point does not follow the sack. So for each frame, I have to reposition the pivot to the base of the ear in order to try to achieve a useful rotation frame.

 

In the end, it is so clumsy that it seems a very ineffective way to wag the ear. I feel I can simply grab the CP with the mouse pointer and drag it one way or another far more easily (viewing from an appropriate perspective).

 

I'm wondering if I'm not getting the correct technique to using the "rotate manipulator" in this case. Has anyone gone through this, or has a comment?

 

Regards,

 

-SB

[robcat2075]

Repositioning the pivot would be within the scope of awkward things that professionals grit their teeth and live with, but probably daunting for new users.

 

If you make that ear a named group it will save a custom pivot point (although there were some older versions where that didn't work). If the pivot point was getting left behind you could reset it quickly by unselecting the group, then re selecting it in the PWS.

 

I'm not sure what happens to a custom pivot point after some muscle mode animation has been done. My own preference for a floppy ear would be to rig it with a bone rather than use muscle mode animation, but the author may be using this as a sample case to introduce the concept of muscle mode animation.

[zandoriastudios]

I haven't moved the pivot, but have gone into muscle-mode to add secondary movement, like belly jiggle. Could it be something as simple as hitting the spacebar to refresh?

[sb4]

Repositioning the pivot would be within the scope of awkward things that professionals grit their teeth and live with, but probably daunting for new users.

 

If you make that ear a named group it will save a custom pivot point (although there were some older versions where that didn't work). If the pivot point was getting left behind you could reset it quickly by unselecting the group, then re selecting it in the PWS.

 

I'm not sure what happens to a custom pivot point after some muscle mode animation has been done. My own preference for a floppy ear would be to rig it with a bone rather than use muscle mode animation, but the author may be using this as a sample case to introduce the concept of muscle mode animation.

 

I have a named group for the "ear" and the properties show that does save a pivot, but the coordinates seem to be absolute (i.e. relative to the origin of the x y z axes).

 

I suppose it would be difficult to make a pivot point "relative" to a group, since any deformation of the group would make the new pivot location ill-defined (unless you had a way to set the pivot point to the center of mass of the group, for example -- but even then the orientation would be ambiguous probably).

 

So I guess it is a tool to be used as appropriate, and the author was pointing it out.

 

Thanks,

 

-SB