Animating for Games - Game Character Development with Maya - page 994

FIGURE 16.38 Add extra keys to make the arm pause slightly before it changes direction
in its swing.
2. Move along to the first set of keys, which in this instance lie on frame 8. Hold
down the middle mouse button, and move along the timeline to frame 12. Set a key
on the shoulder; this will give us a pause of 4 frames ( Figure 16.38b ).
3. Move along to the next set of keys at frame 24. Again holding the middle mouse
button, move ahead another four frames and set a key ( Figure 16.38c ).
4. The new keys' tangents are quite angular, so select them keys and flatten the tan-
gents ( Figure 16.38d ).
The final things to alter are the start and end frames, which need to be updated to
take into account the change in the curve. Our new last key was placed at frame
28, so that means there are four frames between that and the end frame 32.
5. Move four frames back from frame 24; this is now where the arm ends its cycle.
With the middle mouse button, click on frames 0 and 32 and set a key on both.
This gives you the final curves seen in Figure 16.38e .
The shoulder will now pause slightly before it changes direction. Apply this arrangement
to the elbow and hand animations.
The left arm now has motion, so follow the steps in this section again for the right arm.
When both arms are at this same stage, it will give you a better idea of how the animation
feels as a whole, so create a playblast and spend some time tweaking things until you are
happy with the results.
Try playing around with the timing of both arms so that they are not exactly sym-
metrical; this can add interest to the animation.
Try moving the keys back a frame or two, so the arms' animation happens slightly
sooner.
That's it for the primary animation included in Kila. If you want, go ahead and add move-
ment to her head, breasts, and even her hair. Stick to just simple animation for these parts;
all they really need to have are slight bounces. Tweak the overall walk cycle, refining her
movements until the walk is perfect.
Save the finished file as Kila_Walk.mb.
CreatingawalkcycleforGraeisalittlemoredifficult,becauseofhisunusuallegconform-
ation. The basic principles remain the same, but you may want to give him more vertical
movement as his knees unbend. Also, his wings would move in the same pattern as his
arms, but you may wish to give them even more sway to indicate their less-solid construc-
tion. Save the file as Grae_Walk.mb when you're happy with it.