Instructor will show students how to use inverse kinematics to rig symbols for efficient animation. Rigging demonstrations should include both shape and symbol rigging. Tools emphasized include the bones and bind tools, as well as associated properties of IK armatures including joint constraints.
Description:
Students will download the simple base character and rig the armature appropriately, setting up the various constraints as needed. Students will then animate the character in sync with the provided background music. (Students may choose to use their own music if preferred.) Grading will be based on how the quality and precision of the rig as well as the degree to which the character is sync'ed with the selected music.
Place two instances of the "handle" movieclip on the stage, at the should areas.
Select the bone tool.
Drag a joint from the body to the head. Make sure the join is very small.
With the bone tool, drag from the circle on the body to the two handle movieclips on the two shoulders.
From these two shoulders, drag bones out to each of the arms, leaving the joints at areas where joints are on the human body.
Using the black selection tool, select the shoulder bones individually. For each, in the properties panel, set their "speed" to 0%. This will make them immobile when animating them.
The robot is currently ready to be animated, but some strange things may occur because the bones have not been constrained. Click on each bone in the robots arm (not including the link to the shoulder), and check "constrain" in the properties panel.
You will notice that a layer has been created named "armature_#". This layer works the same as a tween layer in Flash CS4. Right-click on fame 50 and click "insert frame".
Animate the robot raising his arms by selecting frame 25 on the timeline, and dragging the robot's claws to the top of the screen. Then, on frame 50, drag his claws to the bottom of the screen.
Note that the yellow handles are still visible. Click on each, and in the properties panel under color effects, set their alpha to zero.
11. Finally, the robot moves rather statically. Tweens cannot be applied via a motion editor. To apply a tween, select a pose frame "indicated by the black dot" and click on the amature layer. Within the properties panel there is a section called "ease". This allows the animator to select specific eases and apply a strength to them. Apply two simple tweens of strength 50 to frame 1 and 25.
Now, on a new layer, draw a rectangle. Use the bone tool and place 3 bones within the rectangle.
On frames 25 and frames 50 drag the bones to different locations. Note that the shape morphs according to the bone structure.
Animate the robot (and shape, if you wish) to dance to the included music. The music is one minute long, animate for at least 30 seconds. See example. (Feel free to change the music)
Save this flash file as lastname_firstname_ik.fla, and turn the .fla into the g drive
For questions or comments concerning the course or website contact Ronald J. Glotzbach.
