8

Animating a Quadruped 765
importance of the interpolated ankle joint over the
interpolated knee joint for intervals in between
keyframes. This is relevant only to interpolation
on bipeds.
Using IK constraints and pivots on the b ip e d hands and feet
allows you to animate quadrupeds.
See also
Key Info Rollout (p age 2–809)
Procedure
To use pivots:
1.
Select a biped hand or foot.
2. On the Key Info rollout, click Set key, and
then choos e Object.
You can also select an object if you like at this
point, by selecting a non-biped object in the
view por t.
3. Tu r n on S elect Pivot.
4. Select a pivot in the viewports.
Pivots are shown as red dots on the hands and
feet. Use wireframe viewport shading if you
have problems seeing the choices.
5. Tu r n off Se lec t Pivot.
6. Rotatethehandorfootaroundtheselected
pivot.
Tip: If you find that you are not rotating around
the selec ted pivot, set two consecutive keys at
adjacent keys with the same pivot.
Animating a Quadruped
While character studio was initially designed as
an specialized program for animating two-legged,
or bipedal characters, it works quite well for
creatures that walk on four or more legs.
Here are s ome general rules to follow when
animating characters that don’t wa lk upright on
two leg s:
• Use Freeform animation, not Footstep
animation, if your character walks on four legs
all the time.
• PosethebipedtomatchthemeshinFigure
mode, scaling and rotating body parts so t he
spine is horizontal, and the arms stretch to
reach the ground.
• Ifappropriateforyourmesh,setLegLinks
to 4 and rotate the legs so the knees point
backwards. You c an set this value at creation
timeintheCreateBipedrolloutontheCreate
panel, or later using the
Structure rollout (page
2–837)
on the Motion panel.
• Animate pivot points with planted keys to
mimic the rolling of the feet from heel to toe.