12 replies to this topic

[morpheus]

I am about to embark on a project to essentially make a pair of these type of wings. (you might want to mute the bad music!).


The opening of the wings happens at 3:17.

They aren't to be connected to a body mesh or anything, it's just the wings animated opening up very similar to the xmen clip.
This has got to be as high detailed as I can make it with regards the movement and animation.

So to start myself off, should I be looking at the animation of this to be a purely FK setup or is there an advantage of an IK?
I am thinking of rigging all the feathers with bones so that I might use a bit of Soft IK for secondary motion, unless someone has a better route I should take.

For now I am wanting to make an animatic, but I might as well start the rig for the animatic the right way.
Many thanks.

A

[Cactus Dan]

Howdy,

For a wing I'd think animating in FK would probably be best, but I'd suggest rigging it with IK/FK just to have both available.

Here is a really good (old) tutorial on wing rigging:
http://www.jackals-f...tutor/tut1.html

It's done in Maya, but I think it can still be followed.

Adios,
Cactus Dan

[morpheus]

Oh sweet!
That link might just be what I need to have a look through to get started. And of course Maya is no problem since your plugins emulate the Maya workflow anyways.
It's true, I might as well set up an FK/IK blend just in case.
May pester you again when I get to the soft IK stage...
Thanks Dan.

[carvalhar]

Digital tutors has a wing rig tutorial also:
http://www.digitaltutors.com/11/training.php?pid=546

[morpheus]

Thanks for the link.
I saw that tutorial, but digital tutors still P!Ss me off in that you can't just buy individual tutorials.
I would love to pay for that tutorial, but they only offer a subscription to access everything.

Also tried to watch some of the free chapters but nothing will play on my mac. Would need to look into if I have a codec issue or something...

[morpheus]

What is the shortcut key to splitting a CD Joint exactly in half to create two joints?

[morpheus]

Sorry to bump this.
Anyone know the answer to the above question?
Cheers

A

[morpheus]

Hi Dan

Is it possible to set an initial state for spring constraints?

I have them all connected to my wing feathers to give some extra motion. When I go back to the first frame however I need to keep pressing the back button on the timeline until all the springs settle down.
Many thanks

A

[morpheus]

Wings are coming along...




I went with an IK setup in the end with sliders to control the fanning of the feathers along with CDSpring constraints to give a bit of extra movement.

Depending on what time I have, there is still another two layers of feathers to add in.

Also animated using CDSpringy Keys for even more little bits of movement.
Will post a moving version once the show is up and running.

A

Edited by morpheus, 16 April 2012 - 04:38 AM.

[Cactus Dan]

Howdy,

Hmmmmm, somethings wrong with the forum settings or something. I'm not getting email notifications of new replies to threads in this forum. I'm only getting email notifications of new topics. My settings are to follow this sub forum and that seems to override the automatic setting for replies when I reply to a topic in this forum.
I'll have to ask Nigel about that. Sorry for not replying sooner.
Even though you may have figured these out already:
Answer for CD Joint Tool shortcut - Hold the shift and control keys down to split a joint and constrain the new joint to the Z axis.
Answer for CD Spring Constrain - In the "Spring" tab there are options for setting the start frame. When you enable the "Start Frame" check box, it temporarily turns the constraint off so you can manually drag the object to the position you want. Then when you click the "Set" button, it stores that object position and the current frame in the timeline.

By the way, your wings are looking good.

Adios,
Cactus Dan

[morpheus]

Thanks Dan.
I did manage to figure out the split joint command. At the time I was hoping to be able to split the joint exactly in half, but it was fine just doing it by eye.
I did notice when I was creating joints in a straight line though that they weren't constraining exactly to the same angle so I had to go in and re-adjust a little. When my time frees up again I will have a closer look and see if the problem repeats.

Probably should have looked at the spring constraint a little closer. Start frame checkbox is what I was after...

Many thanks Dan.
A

[Cactus Dan]

Howdy,

You're welcome.

By the way, Horganovski created a small script to split joints in equal lengths and numbers, which is floating around here somewhere.

Adios,
Cactus Dan
P.S. I manually clicked on the "Follow This Topic" button so I'll get email notifications from this point on. I've sent a message to Nigel to see if it's a bug or not.

[morpheus]

Oh kewl. I will have to bug Brian about it as it's a useful one to have.

The cafe is having a forum upgrade again soon. Maybe there's some things going on with the site while its being sorted through.
Cheers

A