Funny Bones

[bupaje]

Well, it has been some time since I added a totally wacky suggestion so figured I would start 2007 with a SPROOINGGG!!!

I was wondering if it might be possible to create a class of objects with special properties that might be fun to use in animations.

For example you have all seen the cartoon boxing glove on a spring? Let us call this a tethered spring. The idea is that you can create two shapes and attach the base to one, and the spring head to the other. When you 'fire' the spring head it bounces out and in a few times, each time less. Allow to adjust the bounce, wobbliness (side to side motion etc), and you can use this in many animations like clock springs popping out, head pops off, paddle ball (on elastic string), catapults, bow firing and so on.

Then you can also have one called the pendulum. Attached at one end, set in motion it swings based on some parameters you set, slowly to nothing or continously swinging.

And another would be a gear type setup where object A can be set to rotate object B, in same or opposite direction and in different ratios ie 2:1.

I know you can simulate all of this but would br great to have something as simple as the bones, just drag and add the object, select what it will affect, adjust parameters. Engines, bicycles, clocks and so on ....

By attaching these to boned objects and particles might be possible to come up with all types of creative mayhem.

Disclaimer: Fired off during a short work break so may be less coherent than usual.

[heyvern]

While not as flexible I believe everything you mentioned could possibly be done with some kind of menu script.

For instance the spring. This would be... uh... math stuff applied to the rotation of the selected bone.

The gears and other gizmos could also be automated application of key frames from one bone to another based on some kind of... uh... math thingy... like an algorithm or something.

In my head I see these scripts being applied to a bone or bones and then the keys are placed. If you need to change it you would "reapply" the script overwriting the previous keys.

If only I had paid more attention in school I would have the math skills to simulate physics in animation.

Just throwing this out there. This might be easier to do than a custom object type thing in AS itself.

-vern

[bupaje]

Maybe you are right, we do have the waves script. In fact, now that I think of it, I did suggest something similar based on these motions here

http://digitalcarversguild.com/plugin.php?ProductId=6

Anyhow, doesn't have to be accurate physics, just evaluate some common types of movements/relationships between objects to allow you to easily add them. I like the idea of a bone or hinge-like gizmo only because it is easier to visualize but either way would work.

Something for Anime Studio XL 2009 maybe?

[heyvern]

Actually... I haven't been doing much scripting lately. I got burned out on it and now I am getting a jones for it again. I may try to figure out how to do this using that bone wiggle script as a starting point.

This would kick arse. I have trouble using the dynamic bones and getting the results I want. Being able to "hard code" the wiggles without dealing with crazy bouncing dynamic bones would be fun.

You could just slap in a bit of wiggle on the end of extreme movements.

-vern

[Genete]

bupaje wrote:

For example you have all seen the cartoon boxing glove on a spring? Let us call this a tethered spring. The idea is that you can create two shapes and attach the base to one, and the spring head to the other. When you 'fire' the spring head it bounces out and in a few times, each time less. Allow to adjust the bounce, wobbliness (side to side motion etc), and you can use this in many animations like clock springs popping out, head pops off, paddle ball (on elastic string), catapults, bow firing and so on.

Could be this?

I agree with heyvern. There are some NEEDED feature requests that must be done in next releases, but new kind of layers/objects to achieve an specific task is a little improductive. E-frontier can always offer a separated set of solutions for cetain common tasks and every user can import and modify to its benefits or learn the how to (in fact this forum is that). I prefer to have a simple program but with the needed features inside (better color picker, visual shapes hierarchy, or video import for linux, for example) and some current bugs corrected. For example the spring clown I show in the post was needed to traslate the movement to frame 100 more or less, due to if I make a 0 to 1 frames movement (like usual in ordinary animation) there were a lot of spring movement due to the big step from frame 0 to 1. But when I pressed play in AS everything was played correctly, but qhen i export the animation there were a lot of movement during 3, 2, 1 animation due to the big step between 0 and 1.
So the bug is that frame 0 is considered to calculate spring movement when exported but not when played.

Last thing, calculate how boring the program can be if everything is already done. New users's imagination will be quickly out of order. I'm enjoying so much discovering new things that I don't want to loose this satisfation.

[Bones3D]

Maybe you are right, we do have the waves script. In fact, now that I think of it, I did suggest something similar based on these motions here

http://digitalcarversguild.com/plugin.php?ProductId=6

Anyhow, doesn't have to be accurate physics, just evaluate some common types of movements/relationships between objects to allow you to easily add them. I like the idea of a bone or hinge-like gizmo only because it is easier to visualize but either way would work.

I actually use Cognito in Carrara Studio myself. It's a pretty amazing tool set once you figure out how to make it work. I've actually created "gear" sets to automate repeatitive tasks, such as character walk cycles. Depending on the complexity of the character/gear setup, you could completely change a characters entire bodily movements merely by swapping out a couple numbers.

I can't see why a basic form of this couldn't be applied to shape/bone properties for automating certain character elements. Another use for this, would be useful for controlling complex "billboard" sets in 3D.

[Genete]

I think the BEST feature request (and any kind of mechanical movement can be achieved) is to have math formulas (any parameter from any bone) inside the bone constrains. It will open a universe of options.
By now, there are formulas but are restricted to linear combination and to the same family of parameters (angle with angle, traslation -x and y together- with translation and scale with scale). It would be great if math formulas were allowed.