Project 2 Progression

Hi, i'm starting to work on my project 2 right now, as you can see from my previous post, i had a rendered video of a crane moving a box over.

Then for project 2,i'll have to animate it according to my scenario 1.
It's just basically animating it moving boxes and interacting with a bouncing ball.

Ok to start any animation, i'll have prepare my model first.

Ok here i have a normal model without any parenting, constraint,etc.

Just a plain model

Then now we have to set the skeleton joints for the crane to be able to move in a hierarchy.

So i used the Skeleton > Joint tool function to set the points.

And the joints are set :)

Parenting

Before next is to parent, it is very important to parent it properly before animating, although i'm not very used to the parenting, but i can still put it off :)

First thing to parent is the Crane Arm to the Skeleton

And then for the SwivelBase will be the parent node for the hierarchy so that the crane will turn at the center of the base.

Next is to apple IK to the hierarchy

IK allows you to control the joint rotations in a skeleton using an IK handle

I have to select Skeleton> IK Handle Tool

Next i have to create a locator for my IK handle.What's a locator and why?
The control object controls the movement of the IK Handle using a constraint
So i created it using Create>Locator

Then to constraint the IK Handle, i select Constraint >Point 

But what we get in the end is the Crane head to be facing according to the direction that we are moving or locator, so in this case we have to Constraint > Orient for the Crane head to face down no matter how we move the crane.

Next is to Lock the positions for the crane so that the animation won't get too exaggerating.
We have to lock the Translate X for Armcontrol, Rotate X&Z for the SwivelBase.


 All ready to start my animation now!!

From this exercise i've learnt that it is important to prepare before you start animating anything, because this is to save time and trouble later on.
However,i'm still kind of blur about the parent and constraint function. Hahaha,
I had problems with it for quite a lot of times but luckily with teacher's help i was able to set it properly.
but well i guess with more practices i will master it someday :)