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Electric Image Animation System 7 Tutorials
Animation / Constraints pt. 1
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Subtitles of the Movie (Electric Image Animation System 7 / Animation / Constraints pt. 1)
In these last lessons focusing on animation, a I want to present some tools that are specifically meant for automating the task of moving your objects. These tools are Constraints. Basically, constraints are commands that tell one object to be affected by the properties of another. This is more than a simple inheritance function. Constraints don't force you to parent one object to another so you can keyframe your objects independently, then constrain one object's rotation values, for instance, to another object's rotation values. In this project we have a head and a moving cube. The head model has no animation but I want the head to look at the cube no matter where it goes. With the head model selected, go up to the Menu Bar and select constraints. This is where we find all our constraint choices. So I'll select Auto Look. An alert up here is asking me to select the object to be used as the constraint in this case, the object to look at. And I'll click once on the cube, then hit the Cancel Button to get out of Selection Mode. Immediately you see the head model facing the cube. Let's preview. So now the head is watching the cube. Again, the only thing I've animated is the cube. The head model is simply constrained to keep its front facing the cube so all the rotations are calculated for us. With the head model still selected, let's go back to the Constraint Menu and choose the Constraint Editor. This new window shows all the constraints for the selected object. The Type Pop-Up Button at the top shows the list of constraints applied to the model. We only have Auto Look so far. In the list is our object that's doing the constraining. Select that and you see its weight. Weight is the amount of influence this constraining object has over our head model. Since this is the only object in our list, it has the full weight amount of one. At the bottom is what the constraint type is doing; changing rotation and reference. Bear in mind, once an object has been constrained like this, the Rotation Tool won't work. See? The Rotation Tool has no effect because the other object is controlling it. But I can use the Translation Tool and move the model and you can see that the constraint is a live control. The head is always looking at the constraint no matter where I move it. Let me Undo. You can not mix some constraints. Let me try to add the Aim Constraint. Animator won't let me do that because Aim conflicts with the Auto Look Constraint. Both control rotation so I can't add Aim yet. I'll remove the Auto Look Constraint by deleting the cube from the list in the Constraint Editor. And then add the Aim Constraint. If you get an alert like this, just click OK. You are just telling Animator that it's OK to replace the previous calculation. Hit Cancel to escape the selection process and let's preview. Now the orientation of the head model has changed. Let's top the preview. In the Constraint Editor, this type of constraint has more options. You can bias which axis of the model is being used to aim with by changing the values in these fields. I'll delete this constraint again and this time I'll add both a Position Constraint and a Rotation Constraint. Let's preview. And the head rotates and moves exactly with the cube. You can access each constraint and its options through this button now.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | Electric Image Animation System 7 |
| Author: | Scott Simmons |
| SKU: | 33996 |
| ISBN: | 1-935320-45-9 |
| Release Date: | 2009-06-01 |
| Duration: | 8 hrs / 102 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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