Calvinthesneak wrote...
It's a bit beyond my talents. I know enough to know all the work involved, I simply don't know enough about animation and animation keys to do the finer details required.
I used to think the same way, then one day I just decided to jump right in and give it a shot. The first animation I ever attempted was less than stellar and basically to fast to use, but I learned a lot. Some caveats, at least for creatures:
1. Always make sure the animation key bar is red - this means you're actually setting keys. I only state this cause I've forgotten to hit that set keys button several times when I first started.
2. Hide any skinmeshes. They will orient off the bones so you never need to set keys on those. Also hide dummy nodes (except the rootdummy), the ignore_ngon, and the aurorabase.
3. The root dummy should be the only thing that ever gets a position key set manually. If the model needs to actually move across the aurorabase in the animation (i.e. appear and disappear animations), you'll do this by moving the rootdummy.
4. For all other model parts you'll be setting rotation keys. So make sure the angle button is depressed - its the one that looks like a circular arrow located next to the position button on the toolbar.
5. Save the model as a 3ds scene as you work on the animation, indexing the numbers as you complete animations. This way, when you screw up, you can just load the last indexed save and start over with the animation you are working.
6. When setting keys, make sure you set an origin key one frame before the animation begins and one frame after the animation begins.
Setting rotation keys is a fairly simple process:
1. Start at the first frame for the animation sequence and position the model. Select all the parts and hit the Key button (the big one with a key on it).
2. Move to the last frame and position the model. Select all the parts and hit the Key button.
3. Now take the total number of frames in the animation and divide by two to find the middle frame. Move to that frame and position the model. Select all the parts and hit the Key button.
4. Go back to the start key and run the animation frame by frame, adjusting the model's position as you see fit. Before moving onto the next frame be sure to select all components and hit the Key button.
5. Finally, when you are done, export the model and run it through CM3 to have it cleanup any extraneous keys.
