Procedural Animation Experiment #3, Mech
Here is another Procedural Animation Experiment, this time the procedural movement was so complex that i needed to use a technique that i call "Animated Setup", Take a look at how it's working by now (Description Below):
In this rig the Length of the steps and its height is controlled by parameters, so technically this rig can be called a Procedural Animation Rig. But all its movements were not directly programmed, the walk cycle was animated by hand and then this animation was parameterized (i'm not sure if that word really exist XD). With that i mean that this animation can be modified using parameters, for example the time of the walk cycle the rig must be in regards to the traveled distance.
This is the hand animated walk cycle:
This is the hand animated walk cycle:
The way to convert an animation by hand to procedural (Animated Setup) is using ease and multiplier curves. With those curves i can modify the timing of the animation and its amplitude. For example if i had a bouncing ball, i can take the value of the ease curve to show the desired point of the animation in the current time, i can wire that value to a slider to go forwards or backwards in the animation using its value or change how fast or slow it is. Using the Multiplier curve i can make the bouncing higher or lower and i can animate that effect as well.
Here you can see the bouncing being affected by those curves:
Here you can see the bouncing being affected by those curves:
In the mech setup i used the ease curves to wire the walk cycle to the distance traveled by the Control_Main, and used some multiplier curves to control how long and high are the steps. Here you can see the controllers assigned to the feet:
The feet and hip control Objects were projected to the ground using a Projection Constraint, and basically that's it.
I think that this sort of animated Setups can be very useful for several kinds of rigging, when the behaviour of some parts of the setup is so complex that you need the magic hand of the animator to make it believable. It's going to be interesting to experiment more with this technique to see what sort of things can be achieved.
I think that this sort of animated Setups can be very useful for several kinds of rigging, when the behaviour of some parts of the setup is so complex that you need the magic hand of the animator to make it believable. It's going to be interesting to experiment more with this technique to see what sort of things can be achieved.