question about animating
 

I'm looking for a clear tutorial about making skelegons in modeler and the things I need to keep in mind when when making those (like pitch banks and stuff) and how to convert them to bones and IK or FK so I can animate a character. I've been looking on the net but havent found one that works for me.

Is there someone who know of a really good one? Or is there one planned to make for this site in the free section?
I'm really looking foreward to learn character animation and hope that someone knows a really good tutorial.

wozz :confused:

Here is the best for me at this time : http://www.evil-plan.com/CS_MOD1.html .

Cya

hey man I tried that one and yes it is good as long I only need to animate one leg. that works fine, but when I try to add a second one the character starts behaving really strange, like putting his legs in his neck and not rotating his knee and more of that weird stuff. So I am really looking for an other good tutorial
Anyway thanks for the tip
wozz

character animation book
 

hey
you should try looking at the book "lightwave 3D 7 character animation" its an awsome book. it helps you rig the whole character step by step and even helps you with alot of animation techniques. i would highly recomend the book. heres a nice site i came over its good for beginners.

http://www.splinegod.com/rigs.htm

i still like the book. hope this helped.

sincerely roshan

Also if you want help with the rigging part check out ACS4.. still have to do the skelegons in modeler though ( I think ), and its a commersial plugin.. version 3 is free though, not as good but still a great plug

//Matt

moving to the "new" animation section

cool rig
 

hey i just found this but there is this great video tutorial on someone rigging a character its really detailed and it helped me alot. unfortunately it doesn't have audio but its still really good.

http://www.lightwave3d.com/contests/...ChrisOlsen.zip

hope that helped
sincerely roshan

Re: question about animating
 

The World Wide Tour CD on my site has a section that covers not only skelegons but setting up IK and creating a walk cycle. The CD also covers, particles, HVs, Expressions and others. There is close to 10 hrs of material on it.

hi splinegod, great to have you hear and glad you're replying to my post. Problem is I dont have the mony to buy points on this site so I guess I dont have the money to buy your tutorial. I know they are good, but unfortunately I cant afford them, sorry. It would be a good alternative but I really cant pay it.

wozz

I understand. Do you mean my Character Series or the World Wide Tour CD (tutorials based on the material presented at Newteks World Wide Tour Seminars)?

well exactly, those character series stuff looks what I need but thats completely impossible for me. The other one, the LW wprld wide tour looks also great tho I neither can afford that. I hate it to be a student without income. So I guess I have to look further for some good tutorials, allthough I hate it to look for others when you know where to find the good ones(that are really good)

I have a couple of starving students making very reasonable monthly payments... :)

I told Philip who runs this site also I have no bank account, so there is no way in hell I can pay even if I got the money to pay it, maybe in a few years I'll be able to pay it. When I'm graduated and have a bank account
wozz

The lack of money is the root of all evil. :)
I know how you feel. Been there myself. What are you good at?
Ive been known to barter on occassion. :)

Well if I look at myself I think I'm good at nothing and nothing. Studying electronics now, but cant do anything with that now. I started with bryce and became good at it, but I wanted to move on, and I guess bryce does not count here. So I dont think I'm good at doing things.
Barter, what things did you barter? Dont know what I should barter. Thats maybe a solution but have no idea what and where I could do that. And who would be interested.
wozz

The barter option looks good to me but I really dont know what ppl could barter. What did you barter as I may ask?

I downloaded youre free rigs on your site and will have a look at them. Gonna study those and hope I can learn something from it. Hope I can get myself so far to understand it, but I think thats the problem. I'm doing something but I dont know why. So I guees the main part to focus on would be understanding the why and how.
Hope it works with those rigs. I downloaded some others from the net too but the only thing I could see were enormous coloured boxes all around the object. So it didnt make any sense to me.

wozz

Very occassionally I may barter CDs for web work or something or for a plugin I need written.
The rigs I have are simple and dont have all the confusing control objects floating around. You should be able to figure out whats up with them.

what do you mean with web work?
will have a look at your rigs now,hope I can figure them out yes.

wozz

Splinegod I had a look at youre rigs and everything looks easy when its done. I think I understand what you did but not shure why you used different thechniques so I guess I'll have to find some good tutorials (free I hope) and otherwise I think I'll give it up for now.
Everything looks that simple but I guess when I give it a try it will do the most strange things you can think of.

When I want to animate a leg or something, do I need to use IK? Because I saw that in you long neck bird you only parented the bones. Is that enough or am I completely wrong with those thoughts?

wozz

You dont HAVE to use IK. You typically want to use IK for things that have to stick to other things like the feet sticking to the ground. FK(forward kinematics) is a top down animation style like you would do with a stop motion puppet. You start from the root and work your way down the chain of bones towards the extremities.
IK(inverse kinematics) is the reverse of FK. You animate the extremity and the motion is propogated inversely back up your chain towards the root. This is more or less how a muppet is animated. There is a rod that connects to the wrist. Move the rod and the whole arm moves. You could also move the body, for example, and the hands and feet dont move.
Animating via FK is more tedious but more precise. IK is typically faster but not quite as precise. THere are ways to mix or blend IK and FK including a free plugin on flay.

Hey man I really appreciate youre comments. I think I'm starting to understand the stuff, but dont shoot me when I say I dont know how to use all that stuff. I'm pretty new to this stuff and am trying to learn. I understand the difference between the IK and FK I guess. Thanks for that clarification (if thats a good english word). I hope I'll be able to manage that all once. I guess I'll wait until I have a bank account so I can buy some good tutorials like yours. But until then I guess its best to stop breaking my head on the subject. Because I guess figuring it out on my own will be a too much time consuming job.

So the thing you are saying is that ppl best use FK for character animation, right?
problem is I only see those IK options in the motion tab in layout, and you only find tutorials on the net covering IK and not FK. does that mean FK is less often used? Or is it that difficult to animate a character using FK?

thanks anyway man

wozz

For a character most people almost always use IK to control the legs. This is because the characters feet have to stay in contact with the ground. IK makes it easy to move the body up and down and the feet stay in contact with the ground and the legs bend automatically. Unless the hands need to stay in contact with something (like a character holding onto the safety bar on a bus while its moving) its usually better to animate the arms with FK instead. Lightwave even allows you to control just the channels you want with IK and FK. For example you can have just the pitch channels controlled with IK but the heading channel controlled by FK.

Thanks man appreciate your help but dont think I can manage this out of the blue. I'll wait till I get my inside LW book but I heard animation is not that much explained in it.
Hope it is because someone asked me to animate some models for him and I thought it wouldnt be that difficult, but I have to admit I overestimated myself and guess I'll have some troubles down there. OK its not payed so he wont be that mad, I only hope his time limit is big enough for me to learn it.

thanks man for your help and explanations

wozz

If youre really wanting to focus on characters I would get Timothy Albees book since it deals specifically with that in Lightwave.

I want to know all the aspects about LW but now at the moment am I interested in the character animating because I told a friend to help him with some animating stuff, but I guess I'll have a look whats in the inside LW7 about animating and if its not enough I'll check the price of the other book and hope I'll find a way to pay that one if I really need it.

thanks man

wozz