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Track View (Biped) 1003
Footsteps in Tra ck View - Dope S heet
By default, left leg footsteps are blue and right leg
footsteps are green. Inactive footsteps are more
saturatedvaluesofblueandgreen,activefootsteps
arepaleblueandgreen. Theleftedgeofeach
footstep block indicates when a foot touches a
footstep (Touch State). The right edge of each
footstep block indicates the last frame the foot is
on a footstep (Lift State). The space between two
footsteps indicates an airborne state for the foot
(MoveState).TheperiodbetweentheTouchand
Lift States is the Plant State.
Editing B iped K eys in Track V iew
Track View is often used to change multiple keys
simultaneously. For example, to change Dynamics
Blend for all the ver tical centers of mass keys, select
all the vertical keys, display the TCB (Tension,
Continuity, and Bias) dialog by ri g ht-clicking over
the selected keys and change the D ynamics Blend
parameter.
Right-click a key in Track View to display the TCB dialog.
Separate Tracks
By default, Biped stores all of the toe, foot, and
calf keys in the thigh track. The finger, hand,
forearms, and upper-arm keys are stored in the
clavicle track. Al l the spine keys are stored in the
spine 01 track. Although you can see all of these
objects in t he Track View hierarchy, they have no
transform track, unless you enable them in the
Separate Tracks group of the Keyframing Tools
rollout (page 2–962).
Forexample,ifyourotateabipedfoot,akeyis
createdinthebipedthightrack.Thisoptimized
approach works well in many cases. If your
animation requires extensive hand and finger
keyframing,turnonArmsontheKeyframing
Tools rollout; all of the arm transform tracks ar e
now enabled, down to the first finger link on each
finger. Now if you delete an upper arm key, your
finger-hand animation is preserved.
How D y na mics an d Footsteps R el ate
When footsteps are created, a footstep tr ack
displays in Track View – Dope Sheet. Footsteps
appear as blue and green blocks, laid out to show
their exact placement in time. If you compare
thecenterofmasstrackstothefootsteps,you
wi ll notice that frames w here leading and tr ailing
edges of the footsteps occur also have keys for
the center of mass Body Vertical and Horizont al
tracks. These keys cont ain dynamics information
used by character studio to calculate airborne
body position relative to gravity, and leg bend on
landingandbalance.BipedDynamicsisthereason
you do not need a vertical center of mass key at the
top of a jumping motion or at the bottom of dip
when the biped lands from an airborne period.
Click and drag the middle of a footstep to move it
in time. Click and drag one edge of a footstep to
stretch the footstep in ti me.
Note: Changing the duration of footsteps or
moving them relative to one another may change
the “support relationships” of the footsteps.
Whenever the support relationships change, Biped
generates new keys and deletes any existing leg
keys in the airborne period between the e dited
footsteps.