ztonzy wrote:

Well...I had almost the same suggestion early last autumn, but I was talking about MotionPaths that LW has, which many ppl wanted to have like Onionskinning, which is not the same, LW has motionpaths which displays visually when selecting either bone/skeleton that shows how the bones will move in 3D space...some wanted to have this called onionskinning, and it almost ended up like a postingwar, lucky me Lyubomir came to my rescue *hehe*

How about a screenshot?

Chris

Hos wrote:

How about a screenshot? Chris

okey =)

I will see what I can dig up !

Hos wrote:

How about a screenshot? Chris

I'd presume it would be similar to this feature in Maya ( http://mke3.net:9000/blender/ui/misc/onion_skin/maya_motion_trail.png ), but allowing one to interactively edit the path made by the connection of those points. I guess it derives a path from the keyframes.

Here's a very interesting paper I found talking about this stuff:
http://www.snibbe.com/scott/publications/motion95.pdf

looks like this,
the lightgrey (purple) lines are the motionpaths,
it could be any onject, but since it is
more important for character animation,
it is better to show it here:

BEN wrote:

Excuse me to introduice myself in your discussionbut I'm just a child in Blender bigworld and I have got a problem. How can I save my animations in mpeg format or other compress' formats with blender 2.27? 'Cause I've read that it can do it. If somebody understand what i just have to write please help me to b.jehl@nordnet.fr Sorry for my very poor english

here is supposed to be a posted messege from a "Guest" but when I click it, it is not there, but when viewing the main header in this Forum "Character Animation" it is there, but when clicking on "guest" (last reply) then there's NO POST???

how is this possible ???

For claymation/stop motion purposes, there is a piece of freeware that does ghosting. It's called 'Anasazi SMA'. Not a lot of features, but it does the job, and of course can be used in conjunction with blender. one way to put your claymation character into a blender animation, or a blender animation into your claymation piece, is with blue screening. You can combine as many layers as you want. In blender, just make sure the background is solid blue, or in a stop motion piece, that you set up a well lit blue (or green or whatever) backing. having rendered your clips to be combined in avi, convert them to giffs, and change your blue to a transparency. of course, the easiest way to put a blender object (as long as it's always in the foreground) into a 'movie', is to apply the movie to a plane, and position/animate it in relation to your object. be sure to remove all specularity from the plane, and give it a high emit value.

I just figured out the armatures, and made a robot guy to try them out. I was very pleased with the movement i got. very natural. I find that the animation features in blender very much resemble a complex puppet controller. parenting a path to a path for instance is very much like having a sub-controller on a controller. You see, a real marionette, or mechanical puppet control is a fairly complicated thing. I wish I could provide a couple of examples, but the problem is, people who design such things are usually very careful to keep them hidden from those who would attempt to emulate the design. Just imagine a largish lattice with an array of sliding extensions, subcontrollers hanging off it, and the odd trigger, or rotating bar. If anyone saw the John Malcovich movie, note that the controller pictured was definately NOT the controller used for the complex scenes, but a very common type of european controller. Somewhat obsolete. In fact, a very large and unique controller was fabricated, due to the directors demand that the puppet do back flips. haha. There is a lot in terms of theory, that 3D character animators could take from puppet theory. Here are a couple of pointers for starters:

In general, during graceful movements, the feet are very light on the ground. In solid movements, the feet are firmly planted.

Generally, the movement of the head precedes all other movement. example: I my 'puppet' is going to turn and walk in the other direction, it goes, first - head, second - neck, third - torso, etc. Strong movements come from the hips.

When a person/puppet walks, remember, they are falling forward and catching themselves. Not shuffling, and not stamping. Check out 'The Human Figure in Motion --- Muybridge.

When possible, keep movements paced, and simple. Too much fast or spastic movement gives the impression that the puppeteer is not in control of his puppet.

Be aware of the puppets center of mass.

Signing off for now

Here's a question....is there a way to get my armature/'limb' to dangle? say my armature is a string of beads,...is there a way to adjust the tension of it's string? like, if i had a high tension string, i could hold it in any position, and it would behave basically like a solid rod. a low tension string would droop and flop, were one of its' beads displaced. Another way to visualize it is as one of those plasic 'button' puppets that were all over the place in the 70s. Disney characters mostly. anyway, they consisted of a bunch of segments connected by strings. by pressing the button on the bottom, one could control the tension of the strings, and by tip the whole thing control the position somewhat. Does anyone know if similar properties can be assigned to blender objects?

modron wrote:

Here's a question....is there a way to get my armature/'limb' to dangle?

hey

do you mean like 'rigid body' ?

aheem, even Blender's current particlesystem does not have
Dynamic behaviors, of it is that what you mean...

Just found the Draw Key button (K on keyboard).
Blender never ceases to amaze me.

Thanks for the tip Caronte

I have had no luck in creating any kind of complicated 'dangle' movement, but for a simple one a little patience seems to do the trick. I tend to think that everything is possible though,...have been checking out some python docs and downloaded 2.2,...(to the last poster: I only recently learned the 'shift-T' command!,...(try select>>>shift T on an IPO key) but I can't remember which thread it was in arg. VERY handy though)...