Animated props, need help please !

MaloneXI

Hi all, 

I need your help about how to animate a prop. For the needs of a comic book I'm preparing , I need to animate a helmet. I started from the Leviathan one from Midnight Stories scifi suit. I prepared it on my 3D modeleur. I divided it into parts. 

What I need is to understand how to animate the helmet in the way of a morph , such as simple. I would want a parameter cursor to control the process. 

Raah I'm explaining my problem badly.... 

The idea is to show that the helmet will be reconstituted part by part. 

And I never did such a thing lol. No doubt that I have to rig the model , but I don't how how and where to start...  

Can anybody could help ? Thanx a lot ! 

Richard Haseltine

Will it be OK to parent the helmet, rather than have it fit? If so try:

1. Open the Figure Setup pane (Window>Panes(Tabs) menu)
2. Right-click in teh groups area and import your modified model - you want to have each part a separate face group
3. Drag into the Relationships section
4. If you are just going to be translating you don't need to adjust anything here, if you plan to have elements rotate or move together you may need to adjust the rotation order (by right-click) or hierarchy (by drag and drop)
5. Create the figure using the button at bottom-right
6. Activate the Node Weight Map Brush tool (Tools menu)
7. Right-click>Weight Editing>Fill by Selection Sets

From memory I think that should give you a basic set up.

MaloneXI

Raaah thanx a lot !!! I found a video tuto on youtube too , it really looks complicated to fully rigg such a thing... 

guilledcf

Have you cosidered animating it via morph? You wouldnt have to rig it, although im not sure it'd move as you intended. You do this:

- export your helmet as helmet.obj
- import helmet.obj in your modeling app 
- edit it "open"
- export as openHelmet.obj

 

Then, back in daz and with the (closed) helmet selected:

- go Edit / Object / MorphLoader Pro
- Click Choose Morph Files and select openHelmet.obj
- And your morph is done! It should be under Morphs in the Parameters Tab.

 

Just a couple caveats: check around to pick the proper import / export options between DAZ and your modeling software, and keep in mind you need to keep the vertex order. This means that the number of polygons have to be the same both in helmet.obj and openHelmet.obj. And that implies that when you edit your object in your modeling app you cant add any new geometry, just move and transform the existing polygons.