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This is a
great technique for animating a curving movement. It enables you to animate
a curve with one object or bone. Examples of what it can be used for are
animating a rope, a cat’s tail, or the leaf of a plant.
A step by step process that describes the options available for the
technique
1. Create an object, such as a rope
2. Place bones inside your geometry
-Keep in Mind:
One end of your bone chain will be the bone that you’ll use to
animate with
3. Select the second bone, the one right after your main bone (see figure
1)
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figure 1
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4. Hit "m" on your
keyboard to open the Motion Options window
5. Add the modifier “Follower” from the drop down menu
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figure 2
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6. Double click
“Follower” to open the window for Animation Control
7. At the top select the bone to follow, see the drop down menu after
“Item to Follow”, this will be the previous bone, which for
right now is your main bone
8. Change the “Time Delay”, usually a small number like 0.12
9. Set every channel to “none” under the “Source”
heading except for the Heading and Pitch Angles
10. Determine which rotation you will be using, for example I used the
Pitch rotation
-For the one you are not going to use set the “Multiply By” and
“Add” columns to zero
-The one you are using set the “Multiply By” column to a low
number, such as 1, and set the “Add” column to zero, numbers
can be used
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figure 3
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11. Repeat steps 4 through 10
for the rest of your bones using Follower on the previous bone. For longer
chains of bones, better results are achieved when all the bones follow one
bone.
-Keep in Mind:
The numbers you use for the “TimeDelay” and “Multiply
by” column don’t have to be the same for each bone. They can be
higher or lower depending on the curve you wish to create.
12. To animate your curve select your main bone. Move the time slider to a
new key frame and move you bone to a new position, as well as create a new
key frame for your bone.
Now you can play, or move your time slider to watch the movement you
created.
Each project is different in size and shape. You'll have to experiment a
little to get the effect you would like.
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figure 4
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