Anim8or Community

General Category => General Anim8or Forum => Topic started by: gsjohnson on August 11, 2009, 12:08:27 pm

Title: Linear Animation
Post by: gsjohnson on August 11, 2009, 12:08:27 pm
Hi everybody!  I'd like to say thanks to rellik420 and RudySchneider for their help with my last post, I really appreciated it and it worked great!  I was able to import an Alibre file format into Anim8or as a .obj file!

OK, now I have a new question: I am aware of the Anim8or tutorial on animating the little, red bird to create a walking sequence, but is there a method/tutorial that can help me animate my object in linear and rotary patterns without having to use a skeleton?  I'm basically trying to demonstrate how two identical connector pieces come together and mate.  To do that I have to add on some plastic "flexing" properties to the snap-fit latches and animate them connecting together.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!
~gsjohnson
Title: Re: Linear Animation
Post by: RudySchneider on August 11, 2009, 01:05:16 pm
gsjohnson ---
Virtually all of the animations on my website were done without bones --- all a combination of linear translations and rotations.  It's basically just a matter of "parenting" items as they would be in the real world.  That would certainly suit your needs for the connectors/latches.  You may need to consider bones for the flexing, but you may be able to make do with morphing, or using a sequence of slightly different objects, which you "expose" on a frame-by-frame basis.  I've done this latter scheme, too, with the "growing" seed, here:  http://www.rudyschneider.com/More_Projects/PortalNewEarth2.wmv (http://www.rudyschneider.com/More_Projects/PortalNewEarth2.wmv)