Rigging101 I didn't know you could do THAT?!?!?

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• Posted 10 months ago
• By ramesh
• Latest reply from monkeysocks
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1. 

   ramesh
   Member
   Posted 10 months ago
   #

   hello i am new to maya and want to know something about constrains.
   my character should take book and read some time and put it on the table so anyone can give me some easy way to do it ....
   thanks.....
2. 

   monkeysocks
   Member
   Posted 9 months ago
   #

   Hey Ramesh, I have a answer for you. its actually from an old instructor of mine. Let me know if you arent getting the correct results :)

   “An animator should allocate about half of his animation time to planning.”

   -Ollie Johnston

   Constraining objects during animation, from Chuck:

   “Create a locator. Position the locator near the object. Name the locator "start"

   or something like that. Select the locator, shift select the object. Go to

   Constrain>Parent Constraint and open the option box. Make sure that Keep Offset

   is checked (might read "Maintain Offset" - I'm writing this from memory and

   don't have Maya on this computer). Constrain the object to the locator. Nothing

   should appear to happen, but if you look in the channel box of the object, the

   translate and rotate values should hi-light blue.

   Create another locator. Name it something like "grab". Snap it to the position

   of your character's hand. Parent the locator to your character's wrist joint.

   Animate your character reaching for the object. At the frame when the character

   is supposed to pick up the object, Parent Constrain the object to the locator.

   When you select the object you will see two constraints and associated weight

   values under the Shapes attributes in the channel box. The weight values are

   identified by a capital "W" followed by a number, starting with "0". Next to the

   "W(X)" name will be the value currently assigned to the weightt. 0 means the

   weight is off, 1 means the weight is on. Any number in between indicates that

   the constraint has a partial conrol over the object. The constraint weights for

   each constraint can be animated, allowing you to turn the control each locator

   has over the object on and off.

   Set your timeslider a frame before the frame where the character is supposed to

   pick up the object. Key the first constraint weight on (set W0 to 1, hi-light

   the attribute in the channel box, RMB and select Key Selected). Now key the

   second constraint weight off (set W1 to 0, hi-light the attribute in the channel

   box, RMB and select Key Selected). Advance your timeslider to the frame where

   the grab occurs. Set the Weights as follows and key them; W0 = 0, W1 = 1. You

   have now keyed a change in the weights. For the first part of the animation, W1,

   the grab constraint weight, has been set to 0 - not affecting the object. The

   start constraint, W0, has been set to 1, "holding" the object in place on the

   ground. At the moment the object is picked up, you changed the weight of W1 to

   1, while changnig the weight of the start constraint, W0, to 0; letting the grab

   constraint take over. If you scrub throught the animation, your character should

   reach down and pick up the object.

   To put the object down we continue with the same logic. You may have noticed

   that the object is always "controlled" by another node to which it is

   constrained. We transition the control from one constraint to another by

   changing the constraint weights.

   When the animation has led to the point where the character is ready to release

   the object, create another locator. We'll name this one "release". Position the

   locator in an appropriate place (if you are placing the object down, in the

   vicinity of where it will be placed, if you are throwing the object, you will

   place it near the release of the object). At the moment of release, create

   another Parent Constraint, constraining the object to the release locator

   (select the locator, shift select the object, Go to Constrain>Parent Constraint

   and be sure to maintain offset). Follow the same process of anmating the

   constraint weight change as described for picking up the object to facilititate

   the transtion of control from the grab constraint to the release constraint.

   This time you will be animating constraint weights W1 and W2 (when you created

   the new constraint, a new weight, W2, will have appeared in the Shapes area of

   the channel box).

   Once you have animated the transition to the realease locator, you can animate

   the locator's translation and rotation attributes to control the objects

   flight/fall.”