Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Engage Thrusters
The irst task that we must perform is the parening process.
Let's make sure that we are in
Edit Mode
for the
char_skel
armature, then go
to the
Bone
tab of the
Properties Editor
, locate the
Relations
panel, and then
the
Parent
textbox (with a small bone icon to the let); now apply the parening as
indicated:
shoulder.L and shoulder.R must be parented to spine3
thumb.L must be parented to hand.L; thumb.R must be parented to hand.R
leg1.L and leg1.R must be parented to spine1
spine1 must be parented to the root
footIK.L and footIK.R must be parented to the root
1.
Remember that the bone that must be selected to set up its parent is the child
bone; in the previous list, we must select the
shoulder.L
bone, and then set its
parent in the
Bone
tab of the
Properties Editor
to
spine3
.
This very easy task also gives us the most basic tool for seing up an armature, that
is creaing the hierarchy of bones. From now on, when animaing a bone that has
child bones, the child bones will be afected by the animaion of the parent bone.
We must note that the bones created by extrusion are automaically parented to the
bone they are extruded from.
The second part of the setup is about creaing a very common but simple
mechanism that will enhance the level of control that we can have over our
armature.
2.
Let's switch to
Pose Mode
(using the same drop-down where we find
Object Mode
and
Edit Mode
), then select the
leg2.L
bone, go to the
Bone Constraints
tab of
the
Properties Editor
, add a new
Inverse Kinematics
constraint, and set it as
follows:
Ta rget : c h a r _ s ke l
Bone: footIK.L
Chain Length: 2
This will cause the
leg2.L
bone to be "controlled" by the
footIK.L
bone, by means
of this constraint. The value of 2 for the
Chain Length
parameter is needed to limit
the controlling effect from going beyond the leg chain and into other parts of the
armature, which is something we don't want to have at all.
