The more disappointed I was that I couldn't use the character's legs, the more I thought about using the sword as a substitute for some kind of action. I spoke about the sword earlier, and how it may be problematic to attach it to the character, and it turns out, it is a task in itself.
If I wanted to convincingly attach a sword to a character's hands, I would have to create a different, and separate, kind of rigging system. There are also MEL scripts which apparently do this for you, but I have no knowledge of that, and wouldn't even know where the begin.
The closest I came to successfully attaching the sword was by using an open-source tool called "ZV Parent Master". Its use is demonstrated in the video below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUrYuU3hCYo
It is a very useful tool that actually over-simplifies things. It's great if you're in a rush, but it lulls the user into a comfort zone and diverts him from learning new things or alternate methods that could be useful in other circumstances where the ZVPM is not available.
Anyhow, I decided against having sword related animation. The rig I spoke of earlier -- the special "sword" rig -- that is something that I will look into further later on. It would be useful for many instances, not just swords, as characters are often expected to hold things.
No comments:
Post a Comment