Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Making an armature
An armature is used generally in 3D animation to move the model in natural ways.
The idea and name comes from Claymation where a metal frame, sometimes with
hinges sometimes just made from bendable material, would be built into the clay
model like a skeleton to hold it upright and maintain poses, while the animation
is accomplished frame-by-frame. In computer modeling the armature is used in
a similar way to define the pose of a complex model by manipulating just a few
skeleton lines.
Normally when modeling characters the process of building an armature is a
complicated one involving many steps that would be outside the scope of this
work. However, by using the skin modifier the process is simplified significantly.
This marks the beginning of another major section so this is a reminder about saving
(
Ctrl
+
S
) and incremental saves.
1. Exit
Edit Mode
(
Tab
).
2. Open the modifiers panel and
Apply
the
Mirror
modifier.
3.
On the
Skin
modifier click on the
Create Armature
button.
Now the original line mesh that the skin modifier was based on will be converted to
a new armature object and added to the scene.
Then select the original
BearSkin
and
Apply
the
Skin
and
Subsurface
modifiers in
that order, but leave the new armature modifier.