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lisa · 5th June 2008, 07:32 PM

Are you looking for help with the walk sequence itself, or just how to position the parts without resorting to moving points?

To position the parts, I'd recommend splitting each mesh into submeshes for each body part the same way you would if you were building an animation rig. i.e. Make a mesh for the shoulder, forearm, hand, etc.

Adjust your object centers to the pivot point for each mesh. For example, for the forearm the object center should be at the top where the forearm meets the elbow.

In the AC3D settings, turn on "Rotate about object centre".

It should now be fairly straight-forward to keyframe your animation. Grab each mesh and rotate it, and it will now rotate around the pivot you set earlier. If you grab multiple meshes--for example, the thigh, shin, foot and toes--the first object you select will serve as the pivot point so you can rotate the chain and still maintain the correct relation between the parts.

When you're done, you can re-weld the parts into a single mesh if need be. I don't know what kind of character you are animating, but if you're character is "skinned" (i.e. all the vertices are connected smoothly versus independent pieces like a suit of armor) you will need to do some fix-up to re-connect the vertices. You can snap them back together with control-T and then adjust. Making sure you have enough geometry around areas like knees and shoulders should help minimize the amount of adjustment you need to do, the same as it would if you were using regular animation software.

Incidentally, that's another question... why not animate with some kind of animation software, then bring the individual frames back into AC3D to build your solid meshes for your project?

5th June 2008, 07:32 PM	#7
lisa Senior Member Professional user Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 917	Re: Animating with Frames Are you looking for help with the walk sequence itself, or just how to position the parts without resorting to moving points? To position the parts, I'd recommend splitting each mesh into submeshes for each body part the same way you would if you were building an animation rig. i.e. Make a mesh for the shoulder, forearm, hand, etc. Adjust your object centers to the pivot point for each mesh. For example, for the forearm the object center should be at the top where the forearm meets the elbow. In the AC3D settings, turn on "Rotate about object centre". It should now be fairly straight-forward to keyframe your animation. Grab each mesh and rotate it, and it will now rotate around the pivot you set earlier. If you grab multiple meshes--for example, the thigh, shin, foot and toes--the first object you select will serve as the pivot point so you can rotate the chain and still maintain the correct relation between the parts. When you're done, you can re-weld the parts into a single mesh if need be. I don't know what kind of character you are animating, but if you're character is "skinned" (i.e. all the vertices are connected smoothly versus independent pieces like a suit of armor) you will need to do some fix-up to re-connect the vertices. You can snap them back together with control-T and then adjust. Making sure you have enough geometry around areas like knees and shoulders should help minimize the amount of adjustment you need to do, the same as it would if you were using regular animation software. Incidentally, that's another question... why not animate with some kind of animation software, then bring the individual frames back into AC3D to build your solid meshes for your project?