Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 10.18
Creating the spine
collection of joints.
Tips and Tricks
Remember when finished placing joints, press Enter to exit the Joint tool.
Why?
Notice that there are very few joints in the back. We really have one at the
base of the back and one at the small of the back but none through the rib
cage area. Although in real life there is definitely bending through ranges like
the rib cage, it's unlikely we would notice such a thing in a game situation.
However, do notice that the joints get pretty dense up near the neck area; be
sure you have a joint at the base of the neck and the base of the head.
Be really sure that the joint at the base of the head is where the spine connects
to the base of the cranium. If this is in the wrong place, the head will deform in
very strange ways when animated. Also note that there is a joint at the top of
the head; this simply gives the head base joint a location to point to.
Step 45:
Make the AC_Back_Base a child of AC_Root. Do this in the
Outliner by middle-mouse-dragging the back base on to the root.
Why?
Eventually all the joints will need to be in one skeleton. With this step, we
again have all the joints as part of a skeleton lead by AC_Root.
Arms
The arms and hands can be a bit tricky. This is largely because the joints
need to be placed and adjusted in more than one view panel at a time. No
matter which view panel the joints are initially placed in, they will need to be
adjusted in another. In the short term this creates some problems because
once the joints are moved around (after placement), the orientation of the
joint above them no longer matches. No big deal though; we will look at ways
to get all this sorted out in the coming steps.
Warnings and Pitfalls
Remember to make the
adjustments with the
Move tool. Don't rotate
them at this point.
Step 46:
Activate the Joint tool and in the front-view panel, click the AC_
Clavicle_Base joint to tell Maya to build new joints off of this joint. Then
create four new joints to represent the clavicle, shoulder, elbow, and wrist
(
Figure 10.19
). Name them (in the Outliner) as indicated in
Figure 10.19
.
Step 47:
In the side-view panel, use the Move tool to adjust the location
