Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2005 10:27 pm
Yeah, what jorgy said. When I used to work in fx, we often built animatronics to fit certain shots. Maybe you just couldn't turn the figure all the way around or you'd see the jib and mass of cables coming out the back ('course, no you just make that go away digitally).
That said, people are continually coming up with new ways of doing things. But they aren't necessarily easy. There are a few things you can do. You could make maybe 8,16 or so copies of your character in separate bone layers each representing a number of degrees of the turn. Then drop them all in a switch layer. Then you can switch sequentially between the various views and get something that (if it was properly drawn) should be reasonably smooth. One of the things that would be work is that you would have to position the skeletons for each new switch to match the pose from the previous switch's position. The fact that the onion skinning takes into account changes in switch layers is vital here. Move the current switch's bones to their position you want them to me on the frame where the change between switches will be, and then make the switch. If you set up an onionskin for the same frame you are on, and maybe another a few frames farther back so you can judge the movement, you can make the separate drawings match up okay. Takes a little work, but you can get used to anything.
Here is a quick, horribly, horribly crude example of what I'm talking about.
http://www.sharemation.com/Moho/Examples/BodyTurn.swf
I just busted it out. If I were to actually do this, I would certainly use a separate head and hands hands, but hopefully you get the picture.
That said, people are continually coming up with new ways of doing things. But they aren't necessarily easy. There are a few things you can do. You could make maybe 8,16 or so copies of your character in separate bone layers each representing a number of degrees of the turn. Then drop them all in a switch layer. Then you can switch sequentially between the various views and get something that (if it was properly drawn) should be reasonably smooth. One of the things that would be work is that you would have to position the skeletons for each new switch to match the pose from the previous switch's position. The fact that the onion skinning takes into account changes in switch layers is vital here. Move the current switch's bones to their position you want them to me on the frame where the change between switches will be, and then make the switch. If you set up an onionskin for the same frame you are on, and maybe another a few frames farther back so you can judge the movement, you can make the separate drawings match up okay. Takes a little work, but you can get used to anything.
Here is a quick, horribly, horribly crude example of what I'm talking about.
http://www.sharemation.com/Moho/Examples/BodyTurn.swf
I just busted it out. If I were to actually do this, I would certainly use a separate head and hands hands, but hopefully you get the picture.