9

858 Chapter 14: character studio
10.Play the animation again and make any
corrections to the upper body motion.
Footstep Met hod
In the viewports, footsteps represent support
periods in space for the biped feet. You can move
and rotate footsteps in viewports. In Track View,
each footstep appears as a block that represents a
support perio d in time for each of the biped’s feet.
YoucanmovefootstepsintimeinTrackView.The
footstep position and orientation in the viewport
controls where the biped will step.
There are three ways to create footsteps for the
biped:
•Placefootstepsindividually.
• U se the footstep tools to automatically create a
walking, running or jumping animation.
•Importmotion-capturedatatofootsteps.
A key advant age of the footstep method is the
natural adaptation of the biped that occurs when
the footsteps are edited in time and space. Editing
footstepsintheviewportsallowsyoutoreposition
all of t he footsteps to move the entire animation.
In Footstep mode, stride, length, width, and
direction can be changed quickly for an entire
animation and the biped automatically adapts.
Using the Footsteps Show/Hide button on the
Display rollout, all footsteps can b e come visible.
Move the footsteps in the viewports to position
them for proper ground collision with the terr a in
object. For example, if the biped toes are rotated
for the Lift key at the last frame of a footstep (to
create more toe curl as the character walks) the leg
automatically repositions itself to maintain foot
contact with the ground (footstep).
These adaptations speed up the process of creating
and editing animation for the biped. If necessary,
the animator can prevent biped adaptation by
using t he Adapt Locks parameters (page 3–905) on
the Dynamics & Adaptation rollout (page 2–980).
Foot States
Within a footstep animation, there can b e four foot
states (page 3–943): move,touch,plant,andlift.
These correspond to the state of the biped feet in
relationship to the footsteps. Use the foot s t ate
displays in the Biped rollout to determine the state
of the biped feet w hen you are editing the biped
footorlegkeys.Thefootstatescanbedisplayed
in the viewport by turning on Leg states in the
Display group of the expanded Biped rollout. The
Foot states are represented as colored keys in Track
View - D ope Sheet.
Footstep M ode
When Footstep mode is active, footstep
creation controls appear in the Motion panel.