Manually Animating Creature, No Motion Capture :/
0Takes a while. And like I said, I am no animator. Nobody at Pixar will come knocking on my door after seeing this :D
Someone seasoned at this sort of stuff could get this done in a fraction of the time. Its kind of fun messing with it though. Something different than the normal stuff I do with BeamNG. I also now realize that all bones/armatures are not always going to work like I explained in that video with the mammoth. FilmBox/FBX format arrives in Blender all messed up. What I did for that other creature did not work for this one. So I just remade the bones. Still no way to import in motion capture with my limited knowledge of bone hierarchy. They have to be connected like the toe bones connected to the foot bone, the foot bones connected to the shin bone, hehe kidding. Its more like this, (if using 3dsmax, I am not)
# Some facts about the CMU skeleton:
# lhipjoint and rhipjoint are in the same location as hip, and have no
# keyframes.
#
# lowerback is in the same location as hip, and has keyframes.
#
# thorax, lowerneck, lclavicle, and rclavicle are all in the same location.
# thorax and lowerneck are keyed. lclavicle and rclavicle are not.
#
# lwrist, lhand, and lthumb are all in the same location.
# rwrist, rhand, and rthumb are all in the same location.
#
# lwrist and rwrist have rotation keyframes along one axis only, which
# is a "twist" axis parallel to the lower arm. The CMU dataset puts
# the more interesting wrist motions (wrist bends) into keyframes on
# lhand and rhand.
#
# Although we have two neck joints, the CMU "lowerneck" is really in
# the middle of the spine -- it sure doesn't look anywhere close to
# the human neck to me.
#
# Per CMU web page: 'The "finger" and "thumb" joints are added to the
# skeleton for editing convenience - we do not actually capture these
# joints' motions and any such data should be ignored.'
TEMPLATE: cmu
# Left column is the joint name from the original CMU dataset.
# Right column is the renaming to make the dataset Max-friendly.
hip Hips
# lhipjoint has no keyframes and is just a connector to attach the
# leg. Max doesn't want it, so we just maintain its original name and
# let Max ignore it.
lhipjoint LHipJoint # Not used by Max
lfemur LeftHip
ltibia LeftKnee
lfoot LeftAnkle
ltoes LeftToe
rhipjoint RHipJoint # Not used by Max
rfemur RightHip
rtibia RightKnee
rfoot RightAnkle
rtoes RightToe
# CMU's lowerback is in the same location as Hips.
lowerback lowerback # Want Max to ignore
upperback Chest
thorax Chest2
# "Lower" and "upper" neck? Good grief.
lowerneck lowerneck
upperneck Neck
head Head
lclavicle LeftCollar # child of thorax
lhumerus LeftShoulder
lradius LeftElbow
# In 3dsMax, "LeftWrist" is a synonym for "LeftHand". You can't have
# both a "wrist" and a "hand"
lwrist LeftWrist
lhand lhand
# LFingers and LThumb: CMU notes that there's no data on these joints,
# so we want to ignore them.
lfingers LFingers # Want Max to ignore this.
lthumb LThumb # Want Max to ignore this.
rclavicle RightCollar # child of thorax
rhumerus RightShoulder
rradius RightElbow
rwrist RightWrist
rhand rhand # Want Max to ignore this.
rfingers RFingers # Want Max to ignore this.
rthumb RThumb # Want max to ignore this.