Keynote Reference Guide

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anchors

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anchors 2

[HwitVlf]

Good pictorials. You taught me some new words in there! Your advice about editing in 'wireframe' view has been extremely helpful.
Does the anchor setup on the sheep work decently?

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Its simple, as you can see but works. Bending the neck is the hard bit. I think combining with a morph may be the best option

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OK
As i say the bone deformation is not bad but could be better. So I tried a morph on the neck/head region which js a pain to move all the verts and it only really gives one option ie +1. What I think needs to happen is that, as the neck and head bend downwards the front belly area needs to drop rather than follow the arc of the neck.

 The bdef tag will enable WOVertex but that has its limitations. For example a red vert, even though its at zero, can't get any redder so you can only give it a negative number. It also gets confusing when having to swap in and out of keynote and trying to remember which verts to select.

I've uploaded the mqo here if you want to take a look. I changed the neck bone into a constain bone and as you'll see it also controls a smaller bone in the belly region, vai the code in the bump channel. Are you with me so far!
There are bout 10 different codes that can be used though my initial experiments have been varied!
This is a wip and not good (anchors need adjustment) but I think you can see how this may work

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C bones

[HwitVlf]

OK
As i say the bone deformation is not bad but could be better. So I tried a morph on the neck/head region which js a pain to move all the verts and it only really gives one option ie +1. What I think needs to happen is that, as the neck and head bend downwards the front belly area needs to drop rather than follow the arc of the neck.

 The bdef tag will enable WOVertex but that has its limitations. For example a red vert, even though its at zero, can't get any redder so you can only give it a negative number. It also gets confusing when having to swap in and out of keynote and trying to remember which verts to select.

I've uploaded the mqo here if you want to take a look. I changed the neck bone into a constain bone and as you'll see it also controls a smaller bone in the belly region, vai the code in the bump channel. Are you with me so far!
There are bout 10 different codes that can be used though my initial experiments have been varied!
This is a wip and not good (anchors need adjustment) but I think you can see how this may work

This constrain setup may work well for making SoM Enemies that can 'fall apart' when they die, or even with crazy 'Tranzor Z' style rocketing fist attacks. Am I right that the (C,5. . .) tag would be ideal for setting up a linked rotating gear model? For something like a windmill model that was geared to a grind-stone, you could set up the 'fan' as the main bone and make the other shafts turn automatically with the fan.

Your sheep seems very close to 'just right'. The constraint bone seems like it would work with a little tweaking. Maybe making it longer so it doesn't deflect as much or linking it to the shorter neck bone. Did you make the models yourself? They're quite impressive. I can make artificial 'symmetrical' shapes decently (cars etc), but it's quite hard to make a natural animal shape that looks that good.

[airflamesred]

It would be great for gearing - the only problem is you can't chain them together. ie bone 1 constains bone 2, if you then introduce bone 3 it changes the whole relatioship. My first thought was the hands on a clock! As a footnote I think the number after the C(5,.... is a percentage rather than degrees.

Ive got the sheep gerat now, just by adjusting the anchors. The problem with that is how to get displacement on the wool. The organic stuff just takes a bit of practice really and I'm not great at it - I just sort of make it up as I go along.
I've started doing Jonh Barry from a couple or reference pics.

As far as bones etc I think I have covered everything, though if anything isn't that clear just let me know. I think its fair to say this is no ordinary plugin!

Animation next!

This is my first encounter with bones/anim so J don't really have a comparison for keynote and wether its any good. It seems to me it does the job and good animation seems to be about little subleties.


WWith the SOM stuff do you just export diffrent anims which then get triggered?

[HwitVlf]

With the SOM stuff do you just export diffrent anims which then get triggered?

Yep. SoM uses models with animations cut into separate sets (called "motions" in Keynote) which get triggered in-game by player action, events or such.

[airflamesred]

Well thats good news then. I've looked at the animation side of keynote and it all seems straightforward.

The zip here is just an hour and really just to test out the multi track. Its easy enough just to add keyframes but on this scale it could get very laborious.
1. added keyframe at 0
2. moved second hand 90 deg and added at keyframe 15. It calculates all the ticks in between and I think you need 'fast calc' from options on.
3. cloned this motion (A panel appears which you can choose the frame range and its next start point. This does create it on another motion layer so you need to use 'mix down' Strangely, this creates another motion layer so you can then delete the first two.
4. same procedure again and I have 1 minute
5. create new motion, move the minute hand mix down again etc I think you get the idea