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Part 2 - Setup
Once you have some guidelines it is time to begin. The first thing you must do is setup your character to animate. This may be as simple as linking all the sections together in a hierarchy or as complex as creating a bone structure and assigning weighted vertex clusters to the bones. Again, the level of setup required will be determined on the game engine and your discussions with the lead programmer and your style of animating. When setting up a character to animate I try to build an IK structure that will allow me to have a lot of freedom when animating. Some of the more important issues I try to build into my skeletons are the ability to rotate the elbow and the knee once the hand and foot is positioned. (see figure 1) A good IK structure will allow you to do this without interfering with the position of the hand or foot once it is placed.
If you are using Character Studio with 3d Studio MAX then this particular ability is built right into the biped. Image A represents the posed figure after I have positioned the arms and feet where I want them to be. In image B, I have simply selected the lower leg and rotated it about the x axis, thereby altering the position of the knee. Notice though, that the feet have not moved an iota. This is very nice to be able to do and a good setup should allow you to work this quickly. By allowing yourself the ability to pose the elbow where you want it without having to then go back and reposition the hands or feet you will be saving yourself countless hours. NOTE: Other limitations present themselves when you use biped. So don't expect this to be an end all be all or a way for you not to have to learn IK setups. It is also a good idea to have a few nodes in your structure set aside to just move the body. I use one to move the upper body (including the hands and elbows) up and down, and another to move the entire body. Depending upon how you feel comfortable animating you may even split your nodes up to just animate the up and down and another to animate the forward movement. The amount of control you desire is up to you and after several tries at setups you will find a setup that becomes comfortable. I recommend you experiment early on in the design phase of the game so you can settle on a setup style that works well. Then you can begin to save out a general "rest pose" with the character already set up so you can begin each animation quickly and not have to worry about the set up process ever again. This will speed up your production time immensely. It also makes it easy to go from one animation to the next seamlessly. Constantly having to rebuild the setup structure is not fun. Make one well, and use it over and over. Spend a good deal of time fleshing out a structure that is fluid. A strong foundation is KEY to creating solid animation, and I cannot stress enough how important a good skeleton can be. If you are constantly having to fight your setup to get the character in a pose you want then your setup is flawed and should be rethought. However, once you have found a style that works you will never have to worry about it again. A good setup can be used over and over for a variety of different animations. |
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