2009

under these controls. You might want the character to fly, swim, or to do
something improbable in a physical world. For these situations, Biped supports
a comprehensive set of freeform animation controls that allow you to take
total creative control over your character's pose, movement, and timing.
character studio gives you the option to animate characters using freeform
mode exclusively, or to create freeform periods during a footstep animation.
In freeform mode (without footsteps), you can pose every joint of your
character exactly as you like using traditional keyframe methods. Hands and
feet can be locked down in space by setting planted keys. You can also animate
the pivot points for hands and feet to simulate rolling motion. You can blend
dynamically between forward kinematics and inverse kinematics to introduce
higher-level control.
To use freeform animation in Footstep mode, you create freeform periods
between footsteps using Track View – Dope Sheet. You can convert an existing
footstep animation into a freeform animation and back again. This lets you
mix the use of footstep and freeform methods.
WARNING You can't add a freeform period at the beginning or end of a footstep
animation.
TIP If you want to do this, stretch out the timing for the first or last set of footsteps,
then convert the footstep animation to freeform.
Freeform Method
A freeform animation contains no footsteps; instead it relies on the transforms
of the biped body objects and center of mass. Use Freeform for motions like
swimming or falling where footsteps are not necessary. If you are a familiar
with creating all of your keyframes manually to animate a character, you may
want to use the freeform method exclusively.
To start a freeform animation, turn on Auto Key and start positioning the
biped. You can also leave Auto Key off and use the red set key buttons on the
Key Info rollout on page 4367 to create keyframes.
You can also create freeform animation by importing motion capture data
and choosing freeform rather than footstep.
TIP Take advantage of both methods by combining footsteps and freeform
animation. You can create a freeform period for any airborne period between
footsteps. A freeform period replaces the ballistic motion calculated using the
GravAccel value with a user defined spline motion.
Freeform Animation | 4233