Other Animation Options
5 of 5
You may have wondered why we used a leg object which is so "blocky" when setting up and animating the scene. When doing character animation with Inverse Kinematics, animating is difficult enough without having to work with complex objects that slow your system down. To make set up easier and faster, we use a simple version of the object, known as a "stand-in". In LightWave, we have several ways to go from the blocky stand-in to a good-looking, renderable object.

The first option is object replacement where you simply replace the blocky object with a smoother one. We'll do this in Option 1 and use the Muscle Flexing option. The second solution is MetaMation. This is a function that Metaforms on a frame by frame basis throughout the animation. We'll use MetaMation in Option 2.

Option 1: Object Replacement and Muscle Flexing

    When doing character animation with a stand-in, your system is more responsive because it's not being bogged down by a lot of points and polygons. With most organic modeling being done with Metaform and MetaNURBS, this makes life a lot easier. The pre-Metaformed objects make perfect stand-ins.

    The animation process works exactly as it normally does except when you are ready to render, you use the Replace Object function on the Objects Panel to replace the stand-in with the Metaformed object. Select the more detailed object and you're ready to go! Anytime you do this, the same exact skeleton is used inside of a different set of points and polygons.

    We are going to do something similar with the leg in our current tutorial, plus we are going to add some muscle flexing.

    Replacing the Object

  1. We already have the blocky leg, the skeleton, and the animation. To make it smooth, we have to do one more step: use LightWave's Object Replace function.

    On the Objects Panel check that the legRough.lwo object is the Current Object and click the Replace Object button. From the file requester choose the legMeta.lwo object. This is Metaformed version of the leg that we have already created for you.

    When you continue back to Layout, the blocky leg will now be replaced with a much smoother version. The skeleton and animation are left untouched; the only thing that has changed is the object.

    The blocky leg is replaced by the smooth one.

    Note: To do this yourself with the legRough.lwo object, import it into Modeler, Metaform it, and export the new object back into Layout.
    Adding Muscle Flexing

  2. The second enhancement to our animation will come in the form of muscle flexing. To turn on muscle flexing, select the shin bone (Bone (2)) in the Layout screen. Press p to open the Skeleton Panel. You will see two options at the bottom of the panel: Muscle Flexing and Muscle Flexing for Parent. Turn on both of these and set their values to 400%.

    Continue back to Layout and slide the Current Frame slide through time. You should notice a bulge occur on the upper leg and the calf whenever the lower leg bends. At 400% the bulge might be a little extreme, but you can always go back and adjust it to a lower percentage.

    Leg without Muscle Flexing.
    Leg with Muscle Flexing.

    Using the Replace Object function, we can animate with a simple, low polygon count object, then render with a smooth, highly detailed one.
Option 2: Making the Leg Smooth with MetaMation

    A second option for smoothing the rough object is to use MetaMation. Like the Replace Object function, you use a blocky stand-in to set up your animation. Then you apply the MetaMation plug-ins Metaform_Shaper and Metaform_Target to smooth the rough object during the rendering of the animation.

    The first step is to make the smooth version of the leg out of the blocky version. If you still have the legMeta.lwo object in the Layout scene, do another Replace Object (like in step 1 above) to put the legRough.lwo object back in the scene.

    Making the Smooth Leg

  1. If it's not already running, start Modeler.

    On the Objects menu, choose legRough.lwo from the Import pop-up menu. This brings the leg in from Layout.

  2. Press a to Autofit the object in all views.

  3. Select MetaFormPlus from the Custom pop-up menu on the Tools panel. Turn on Metaform triangles as triangles and enter 2 as the Subdivision level. Press OK or Enter on the keyboard.

    This will perform a Metaform to smooth out the leg.

    Note: The original leg was tripled to avoid the problem of non-planar polygons. These polygons can cause rendering errors in Layout where a lot of pulling and stretching with bones will cause non-planar polygons to appear if the object is not tripled.
  4. Back on the Objects menu, click the Export pop-up menu and choose New. In the Export as New Object requester, enter a name for the new object, like legSmooth.lwo. This exports the smooth leg to Layout as a new object.

    Now we are ready to set up the MetaMation plug-ins in Layout.

    Setting up MetaMation

  5. Back in Layout, the Metaformed leg object should be sitting at the origin. Open the Objects Panel, select legRough.lwo as the current object, and open the Displacement Map Plug-In panel.

    Select the Metaform_Shaper on the Plug-in 1 pop-up. Click on Options to open the Meta Shaper Interface panel. Check that legRough.lwo is selected in the Object pop-up and that the Subdivide Level is 2.

    In this pop-up we are telling Metaform which object is the rough one that needs to be smoothed and how many levels of smoothing to apply. The Subdivide Level MUST match the value used in Modeler's MetaFormPlus plug-in. Click OK then Continue to get back to the Objects Panel.

  6. Change the current object to legSmooth.lwo. Open the Displacement Map plug-in pop-up and select Metaform_Target on the Plug-in 1 pop-up. Click on Options for Metaform_Target. It will ask for the name of the Cage object. This is the same object that was selected previously in Metaform_Shaper.

    Make sure that legRough.lwo is showing in the pop-up and choose OK and Continue until you get back to the Layout screen.

  7. Slide the current frame slider in time and you should now see the smooth leg update and reshape itself to the blocky leg.

    If it's not working, make sure that Auto Key Adjust and Auto Key Create are turned on and that your settings in the previous steps are correct.


    The Smooth Leg Conforms to the Rough Leg.

  8. The final step in the MetaMation process is to set the Object Dissolve on the Objects panel to 100% for the blocky object (legRough.lwo). Make sure you have the legRough.lwo object selected as the current object.

    This will remove the blocky object from view when the scene is rendered leaving you with a nice smooth animated leg.


    The Rough Leg Dissolved.

Animate the Leg No Next Page
This page copyright © 1996 NewTek Inc. All rights reserved.