Assignment Task
Introduction
In this assignment, you will rig and animate the humanoid character that you have created in the previous assignments. Specifically, you will:
- Rig the humanoid character to an armature .
- Animate either a walk or a run
- Animate an idle cycle
- Create at least one other interesting animation appropriate for your character.
Creating an Armature
In the previous assignments, you were asked to give one of your characters limbs of some sort. In this assignment, you are to rig those limbs with armature bones . Specifically:
- The main body of your character should be a single connected armature. The overall armature does not have to be overly detailed, but it should be sufficient to allow the rigging algorithm to associate all vertices on the mesh with at least one bone.
- Each leg must have a chain of armatures at least two links long.
Once you have created the armature, you will need to rig it to the mesh using parenting (I suggest that you use the default algorithm). I also suggest that you experiment with “posing” the character to make sure that the rigging has worked well
Walking or Running Cycle
You are to create a walk or run cycle action for your character.
- It should follow the basic guidelines described in class (and in the figures I have online), with keyframes at the points where the character’s feet leave/contact the ground.
- It should involve more than just the legs; that is, the character’s arms and body should also move as part of the cycle.
Additional Animations
- You are to create an “idle” animation for your character. It should be something where the character stays in place, but does not appear to be frozen. This could involve slight arm or head movement, rocking back and forth a little bit, etc.
- You are also to create at least one additional animation as part of the timeline. This should be something somewhat complex and possibly related to a game, such as jumping, throwing an object, etc.
Grading
The grade will be based primarily on how effectively that you use the different tools specified above in the animation, as well as whether you meet all of the criteria given above.
In particular, I will be looking at:
- How effective the rigging That is, are there any obvious distortions of the mesh that take place during the animation?
- How effective the walk/run cycle is. That is, does it motion create a smooth cycle? Are other bones besides the leg bones involved? Does the character appear to keep their balance?
- How effective the other animations are in terms of the character.
What to Turn In
- Post your updated blend file to the course Blackboard site.