Bones on Switch Layers
Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 3:21 am
While pondering the recent Moho Animation contest discussion regarding ways to modify Moho's Trimble character, I found something with switch layers that I'd not quite seen mentioned in the forums before.
When bones are added directly on the Switch Layer (Not in a Bone Layer), you can use Flexi-Bind Points or Layer Bind with each of the switch's vector sub-layers. Or, you can choose to have the sub-layer not be affected by the Bones at all.
Before the steps below, go to each sub-layer in your switch select all vector points, and from the Bone menu, select Release Points. (It seems each vector layer has all of the points bound to the bones by default. We don't want this)
1. Go to the appropriate switch sub-layer
2. Select the Appropriate bone
3. Select the relevant points on the layer that need to be mapped to the bone.
4. Click on Bind Points and press SPACEKey to bind.
Each sub-layer can have different sets of points mapped to the same parent bones.
In linked example, I modified Trimble such that all of his body parts had several different switch options. Some of those switch options, such as the Nose (with elephant trunk), the arms, and the legs have bones directly on the switch layers and allow their sub layers to be animated with the one set of bones.
The link is just an example of various switches going on and off as the character is transformed while bones are animated. Very crude, but I think it illustrates something that could be very useful in the right case to someone.
Apologies, if this has been mentioned elsewhere.
Click here to watch Mr-Potato-Trimble
When bones are added directly on the Switch Layer (Not in a Bone Layer), you can use Flexi-Bind Points or Layer Bind with each of the switch's vector sub-layers. Or, you can choose to have the sub-layer not be affected by the Bones at all.
Before the steps below, go to each sub-layer in your switch select all vector points, and from the Bone menu, select Release Points. (It seems each vector layer has all of the points bound to the bones by default. We don't want this)
1. Go to the appropriate switch sub-layer
2. Select the Appropriate bone
3. Select the relevant points on the layer that need to be mapped to the bone.
4. Click on Bind Points and press SPACEKey to bind.
Each sub-layer can have different sets of points mapped to the same parent bones.
In linked example, I modified Trimble such that all of his body parts had several different switch options. Some of those switch options, such as the Nose (with elephant trunk), the arms, and the legs have bones directly on the switch layers and allow their sub layers to be animated with the one set of bones.
The link is just an example of various switches going on and off as the character is transformed while bones are animated. Very crude, but I think it illustrates something that could be very useful in the right case to someone.
Apologies, if this has been mentioned elsewhere.
Click here to watch Mr-Potato-Trimble
