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How do I get objects to pick up and put down other objects?
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How do I get objects to pick up and put down other objects? // New Users
Post by ssutherland // Jun 13, 2006, 5:56pm
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ssutherland
Total Posts: 16
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I recently saw a relatively simple animation in for a security product at work in which an animated person walks up to a conveyer belt while carrying a briefcase, sets the briefcase onto the coveyer, then takes off his hat and places it on the belt. The character then walks through an Xray system, goes to the other side of the conveyer (simulating a luggage Xray system), picks up the hat and puts it back on his head, picks up the briefcase, turns and walks away.
This raises a question about an issue I was never able to solve while I was using Imagine on the Amiga or PC. How do I set up an animation of this type, in which one object (could be a person, as in the case above) put down an object it is carrying, or pick an object up and then leave with it? I am not sure how to set up such an animation, and, being a newbie to TS, I am even less certain as to how to accomplish this seemingly simple task.
Any guidance would be appreciated.
Scott
Haverhill, MA |
Post by noko // Jun 13, 2006, 8:40pm
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noko
Total Posts: 684
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One way comes to mind is that the object can follow a path in which the path mimicks his head and then later his hand placing hat on conveyor. Probably not the easiest way but can be continueous from start to finish. Each frame will probably have to be key framed.
Another way is to attached object to skeleton and let the bone animation move hat. New animation with hat attached to hand bone placing on conveyor. Another animation with hat moving on conveyor. Just put them together in video they will be seamless.
Another way is to have multiple hats but keyed invisible until a certain frame where one becomes visable while the other turns invisable, so in essence you have a hat attached to head (visible) one to hand (invisible), one on conveyor invisible or just not in animation until a certain frame number. Guy reaches for hat, the head one turns invisible and the hand hat turns visible. Hand places hat on conveyor, hand hat turns invisable and conveyor hat becomes visible.
I am sure there are other ways. |
Post by frank // Jun 14, 2006, 3:29am
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frank
Total Posts: 709
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Another thing to consider would be to copy the translation and rotation keyframes of the hand or head (whatever you want to attach the objects to) of the animated character and paste those onto the individual objects. You could then do some minor hand-keying on the parts where the objects transition from being static to being picked up.
If you happen to be using MotionStudio, you can give each object their own single-bone skeleton, parented to the main character's skeleton. It's a pretty neat way of handling things like this because you can isolate the movement (for instance, keep a sword in a holder on the belt) and then later have the character manipulate the object, or even leave it on the ground, since it would be on its own skeleton, thus "floating". (Thanks to Vinny / "Humdinger" for that tip!) |
Post by TomG // Jun 14, 2006, 6:38am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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I think the important thing to note here in all solutions, is that the object in the animation does not pick up the other object, but the animator does it :)
IE you can't just create a "person" and then tell them to pick up an object and it happens. It's all a matter of copying animation information, copying animation paths, attaching and unattaching things to bones in skeletons, etc.
This may well change over time of course, with procedural animation and scripting and physics you could write ways in which an actor can pick up an object, without pre-degining which object and where and when. In time, it could even be that the actor could figure out where to grab the object, or at least the hand could close around the part of the object it was told to grab until it holds it realistically... and so on an so forth! Much potential :)
For now though - the animator simply moves both actor and object, and ensures that movement matches, using some or all of the techniques listed here to match the movement of one to the movement of the other :)
(EDIT - think of it this way, if you deleted the actor, the hat would still float through the air as if on his head, still drop onto the conveyor belt, etc, since it is in fact independent of the actor in most current solutions.. in the future, delete the actor, and the hat will just fall to the ground ;) )
HTH!
Tom |
Post by ssutherland // Jun 14, 2006, 2:18pm
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ssutherland
Total Posts: 16
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I appreciate all of the ideas. I did realize that the character does not really pick up the object, but that the animator creates an animation to give the impression of such an action. I was hoping that the 'physics' descriptoin, in which the hand could actually grip the hat and move with it, was a realistic option in TS.
The skeleton idea seems the most promising, but I'll need to become better versed in TS before attempting it. The idea about having a hat on a path that mimics the path of the head offers a bit of a challenge. If the paths are not perfectly sync'd up, the hat could effectively bobble on the head.
In Imagine there was a command that I believe was called Associate, in which you could couple two objects and the would retain their relative positions, even if moved along a third path (for example, a moon could be associated to a planet, so it maintained its relative position to the planet, and the planet could be moved along an independent path without affecting the planet/moon pair. Is such a function available in TS?
Thanks again.
Scott
Haverhill, MA |
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