Animating for Games - Game Character Development with Maya - page 984

2. Move along to frame 8 and set the Rotate X attribute to -0.7 ( Figure 16.31d ). In
this instance we don't mirror the first value because that would cause her to bend
too far backward. Set a key on frames 8 and 24.
3. Flatten the tangents in the Graph Editor. Your curves should now resemble those in
Figure 16.32 .
FIGURE 16.32 Set all the X rotations' tangents to flat in the Graph Editor.
The torso area is complete. Looking at Kila's walk from the front, she sways quite a lot.
This could work well for a character with real “attitude,” but for Kila we want to calm this
down a bit. We want her head to be almost stationary as her hips sway from side to side.
We can fix this easily by animating the Rotate Z attribute on the main Root_Control. (If
you like the attitude and want to keep the exaggerated sway, you can skip this step; or you
could reduce the amount that we're going to edit the animation, to give her even less of a
sway.)
1. Switch to the front view and make sure you have the grid visible. As you can see
in Figure 16.33a , on frame 0 Kila's head is over to the left of the main gridline.
We want her head to stay more central to that line.