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iest_rob 1,671 posts
Hey all - ok this might sound a bit dumb, but im gonna give it a shot non-the-less. When ever i read an article from any animator - be it Victor Navone, Jason Schleifer or any one, all they seem to be talking about is the arcs; "make shure your arcs are clear" or whatever. Can anyone explain how exactly this works, and is there a way at all to show these arcs on the viewport?
I've just bought myself the animators surviving kit by Richard Williams, and im awaiting the arrival of it trough the post - hopefully it'll show me some stuff. But i thought i might ask you guys anyways.
Thanks
-Iest
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man, that book is gonna tell you all about arcs. just take what he teaches you, and expand on that theory... you'll have a great understanding of arcs once you get the book...
sorry im not helping more than i am teasing
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Richard 1,943 posts
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hype 2,964 posts
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MikeWilson 638 posts
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Richard 1,943 posts
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Global 1,589 posts
The guys you mentioned were talking about an 'arc of motion'.... not, as Mike was saying the arc of the splines in you graph editor. Basically, if you isolate a part of the body, say an elbow or a hand, and you animate it going from A to B, bon't have it travel along a straight, linear path... rather, have it follow an arc from A to B.
It's definately one of the key principles of animation and is covered thoroughly in Williams's book. A very good addition to your library!
In the meantime there's a great tut on arcs from Keith Lango
http://www.keithlango.com/
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iest_rob 1,671 posts
Awsome Global! Thats the best explaniation, and exactly what i was looking for. Thanks also for the link to Keith. I'll read up on the tutorial now, see what the man has to say.
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ivanisavich 4,196 posts
"Arcs" are the things that represent your object's motion path in 3d space.
In 3ds Max you can turn them on in the viewports by going to the motion panel and clicking the "Trajectories" button. Personally, I could not live without that feature, nor could I animate the way I do without being able to see them.
When I used Maya for the helicopter freeze animation I made last year, I got a script that could do the same thing (show arcs in Maya's viewport). I don't remember the name of it however, but I do know that it was free.
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Global 1,589 posts
Oooh... T. If you can find that (or post it even) that would be cool! To tell the truth I didn't use the function when I was a Maxer (it just seemed to turn my little laptop to mush) but I've also developed quite a bit since then and would like to give it a try.
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iest_rob 1,671 posts
Hey - thanks a lot!! Just searched for it and got it. Awsome piece of plug-in! Thanks T. Here is it is if anyone one wants it;
http://www.lluisllobera.net/MEL/llUpdateMotionTrail.mel
from
http://www.lluisllobera.net. Awsome!
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Global 1,589 posts
Lol! I think you posted at the same time as me! I like it when requests get instantly answered... now about that Ferrari...
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iest_rob 1,671 posts
He he - were you also on the case were you? Thanks
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ar LutiK 455 posts
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zachm 1,230 posts
actually, this is the plugin you want, it allows you to grab your keyframes in the viewport and it has weighted tangents as well! totally awesome. The big difference between this plugin and the one on the link you provided is that this one allows you interact with your curves in the viewport as the other one just updates a path in the viewport based on what you do in the curve editor.
-Z
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MikeWilson 638 posts
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Global 1,589 posts
Sorry Mike... I thought you were talking about splines and the Graph Editor etc. Looked at it again and still seems to be more about ease in and out of the splines, which is a very important aspect of animation too, but not really related to the 'arc of motion'
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MikeWilson 638 posts
but thats how you achieve it, you can do it linear, and adjusting the curves can change it all
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Global 1,589 posts
I see what you mean Mike... and yes, changing the cuves in the graph editor may well change the actual arc of motion... but not necessarily so. Whereas here we're talking about one of the fundamental principles of animation, be it 2D or 3D. Arc of motion shouldn't be confused with anything to do with the arcs and cuves in your graph editor.
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iest_rob 1,671 posts
Hey guys - nice one, Im really starting to get a better pic of this now, thanks Global, really helpful. Also thanks for that plug-in Zach - but i have no idea how it works. I've followed the instructions over at highend, but i cant get it to do anything, do u know how to use it?
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zachm 1,230 posts
Here we go. To use this plugin, first you have to enable it in Window-->Settings/Preferences-->Plug-in Manager. Once the plugin manager is open, you click to auto load and load your animPath plugin. Now, go ahead and set a couple of keyframes on your object and then go to your animation module (F2) and select your animated object and select Animate-->Attach Anim Path.
now you should get your spline showing up in your viewport. After that, you must click Select by component type and then you can edit your spline.
-Z
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iest_rob 1,671 posts
Hey! Great! Nice one Zach! I was selecting the controlers instead of the object. It works great now. But, say if i wanted to see the arch movement of my characters arm - how would i do this? Because if i have to select the object, then that mean i have to select the whole character - I've tried to do so by just selecting the controlers (NURBS Curve) but i cant get anything to come up on screen.
Thanks again Z!
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zachm 1,230 posts
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iest_rob 1,671 posts
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Global 1,589 posts
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zachm 1,230 posts
dude, I'm sorry, I totally missed that you posted back on this. So when you apply the motion path to the nurbs curve it doesn't work? Is that what's happening? I downloaded some rigs, played around with selecting the nurbs control curves for separate parts, then applied the anim curve to the control objects, and it seemed to work for me. Can you explain exactly what you are doing step by step? Sorry, sometimes in 3d, I am dumb.
-Z
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iest_rob 1,671 posts
He he no problem man. Yeah i had that bright idea of parenting a cube to the nurbs curve, but nothing happened - because i hasnt actually got keyframes on it, it just follows what the curve is doing.
OK - I've animated pman's elbow with some 20 keyframes on it. (his elbow is lifting up from a table, and then kinda swings behind him and bach forward). What i want to do is see how this elbow's doing because it seems awfuly jurky, so i select the elbow's controller, go to Animate > Attach Anim Path and then i get a result saying 'AnimPathShape1' at the bottom right of the screen saying basically that the anim path has indeed attached itself to the curve - but in the viewpot there is nothing at all.
I have gone into the Hypergraph and gone into the animpath's attributes and checked a few boxed (mainly the show key frames, show timeline and tangents always) and i get this animpath on screen - but it looks nothing at all like what the elbow is actaully doing, and when i go into 'select by component type' i cannot selct anything on that curve.
Hope this makes sense man
Thanks for the help
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Global 1,589 posts
If you just want to see what's happening with the elbow, you could check out some of the options in the animate menu. ie. Animate>Create Motion Trail. Or 'Animated snapshot' even. I've found them quite handy in the past (Motion Trail specifically for arcs)
But seriously... there's something quite fun about using a dry marker on your screen
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iest_rob 1,671 posts
Hey - excellent! Those are great tools man! Thanks a lot for the heads up. It would be great if i could change the path just by chainging the point as that plug in does, but oh well - i get a much better view as to what's happeing now, thanks man.
Yeah - im gonna have to get me a marker - knowing me ill probarbly getting a permanent one
Thanks again for that.
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mahmoudnahmad 1,159 posts
grrr some one make scripts for max
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zachm 1,230 posts
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Global 1,589 posts
Yeah... If I remember right you can display the Tangents, and in fact edit the curves directly. But I also remember that it really hogged the system resources and I gave up using the feature on my laptop. Would be interested to know if that feature has had a makover since Max 6.
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ivanisavich 4,196 posts
Yep you can display your trajectories in Max and I wouldn't live without it. It's probably the feature I use the most (besides the "set key" feature
) when I'm animating.
Goto the motion panel and click "trajectories". If you turn on sub-object mode you can also edit them in real time in the viewports! Ain't life grand??
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BColbourn 2,323 posts
tyson until your tutorial i ahd no idea about the viewable trajectories, you're a life saver
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mahmoudnahmad 1,159 posts
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hype 2,964 posts
this is yet another one of those things that i hear about and say "What?! maya doesn't have it?!?!"
one of those things i think is a basic thing for all programs to have.
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Global 1,589 posts
Well, not to leap to Maya's defence or anything, but it does... just not 'editable'. There's quite a few things I miss from Max, but having used Maya now for just over a year I can definately see why it's so popular.
An app is an app as far as I'm concerned, I neither love it nor hate it (well... sometimes, when it crashes!
)
