HOW TO ANIMATE DINOSAURS - part 1 — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:09Hello everyone.
2. 0:11I am Ball Breaker and welcome to the
3. 0:14first ever episode of me trying the best
4. 0:16I can to explain how to animate any
5. 0:18creature.
6. 0:20For this particular episode, we're going
7. 0:21to use uh a carnotaurus
8. 0:25as requested by a lot of people. So, I
9. 0:28figured why not?
10. 0:30Now, for most of you who uh are new to
11. 0:34Blender, which is a free 3D modeling and
12. 0:39animation software,
13. 0:41um this may be a little bit
14. 0:43overwhelming. There's a lot of different
15. 0:45tabs and buttons, and there's a lot
16. 0:48going on here.
17. 0:50Uh so let me just uh let me just explain
18. 0:54uh what some of these mean and uh we'll
19. 0:57just go from there.
20. 0:59So this is obviously going to be our uh
21. 1:01main port, the 3D port. And also we're
22. 1:05going to use this uh this little part
23. 1:08right here, which is going to be um
24. 1:11where all our key frames
25. 1:15are going to be uh in the near future.
26. 1:19And so first of all,
27. 1:22um when you download Blender and you got
28. 1:25it working and uh and set up and
29. 1:27everything,
30. 1:29uh if you want to work inside the source
31. 1:31engine, uh the first thing you should do
32. 1:35is
33. 1:37install this source engine extension,
34. 1:40which allows you to export and import in
35. 1:43SMD files, which is key.
36. 1:46So, more information on this um will be
37. 1:51found uh on Steam because there's a
38. 1:55whole tab dedicated to developers and
39. 1:57stuff. So, once you got that set up, um
40. 2:01we obviously import our model and this
41. 2:04is what it looks like.
42. 2:06So
43. 2:10yeah, it's just a model with a skeleton
44. 2:12inside
45. 2:14and the skeleton is going to look
46. 2:18something like this.
47. 2:20Like all these balls here.
48. 2:24Uh they are they supposed to be uh
49. 2:27representing the bones.
50. 2:31Uh, normally when you do your um your
51. 2:34modeling yourself
52. 2:36and you're going to make your own rig,
53. 2:39these bones are going to be looking a
54. 2:40little bit different, like less like
55. 2:42balls and more like
56. 2:46this, only thicker,
57. 2:48but it shouldn't really matter.
58. 2:53So, first of all,
59. 2:55um,
60. 2:57for any good animation, you're going to
61. 2:59need animation controllers. which
62. 3:01basically mean that you have um you make
63. 3:05one extra bone
64. 3:09which in a certain way you uh connect to
65. 3:12for instance this headbone right here.
66. 3:20As you can see, I can't really rotate it
67. 3:22by itself. But if I take this, I can
68. 3:29and I can move it in in very uh
69. 3:32particular ways.
70. 3:35Um,
71. 3:37and the neck will move like some sort of
72. 3:40like some sort of chain.
73. 3:43Now, I'm going to show you how to set
74. 3:45this up. Like I already did most of them
75. 3:47except for this one right here.
76. 3:51Uh so first of all let's do that.
77. 3:55So here we have uh all our axes
78. 4:00uh z being upwards, y being horizontal
79. 4:05and um well x2 actually but you know
80. 4:10forward backwards left right
81. 4:13and for our orientation the minus y
82. 4:18which is this one is going to be the
83. 4:20forward direction of our Oh,
84. 4:24so this is very important to keep in
85. 4:26mind because if you're going to export
86. 4:27it like maybe rotate it 90 or 180°
87. 4:34it will not uh function properly in
88. 4:36Sword Engine. It will be backwards.
89. 4:39So we're going to look from the side. So
90. 4:42you can just press on
91. 4:45the either the minus or the positive.
92. 4:48Doesn't really matter. We're going to
93. 4:49have a nice side view like this.
94. 4:53And we want to go into this tab right
95. 4:56here, which says pose mode.
96. 4:59And we're going to want to change that
97. 5:01to edit mode. So now everything changes.
98. 5:06We can see that all these little bones
99. 5:09now transformed into sticks
100. 5:12with two tiny balls on each end which
101. 5:16you can select as well as the whole
102. 5:18thing.
103. 5:20Now what we want to do is
104. 5:23take this most I guess you could say
105. 5:26forward part uh the one that points into
106. 5:29the direction uh of its uh children. So
107. 5:34in um
108. 5:36in these type of bone structures you
109. 5:38have um what you call uh parent and
110. 5:41children. So a parent bone is going to
111. 5:44be like this bone right here and its
112. 5:46children are going to be the one um
113. 5:50attached to it like these ones right
114. 5:52here. So you move this bone uh these
115. 5:56bones will move as well uh but not the
116. 5:59other way around.
117. 6:02So
118. 6:04that's what that means. So we want to
119. 6:07get the the part that uh that's closest
120. 6:11uh to its children. So, this part.
121. 6:14Then we're going to go over here
122. 6:16down here, extrude.
123. 6:19And we want to extrude
124. 6:22straight out.
125. 6:26And so the trick here is uh to make sure
126. 6:29that it extends
127. 6:32uh perfectly straight
128. 6:35out of its original bone.
129. 6:41So
130. 6:43once we did that, we uh we're going to
131. 6:46want to select it,
132. 6:48uh right mouse button, go into parent,
133. 6:52and then clear, and then clear parent.
134. 6:58Now we can go over to pose mode once
135. 7:00more.
136. 7:03We first select our created bone
137. 7:07and then the bone we are going to want
138. 7:09to manipulate in this case the footbone.
139. 7:12Hold shift and select
140. 7:15and then we want to hold shift and press
141. 7:18I which is going to bring up this add IK
142. 7:22inverse kinematics target selected bone.
143. 7:25We will select that.
144. 7:28And now if we go down here and press the
145. 7:31blue bone
146. 7:32at bone constraints,
147. 7:35we can see all our options here for this
148. 7:38constraint. And you can see this uh this
149. 7:41yellow line,
150. 7:44this yellow dot and green yellow dotted
151. 7:46line uh goes straight to the root bone
152. 7:50right here. This is the root bone.
153. 7:55So we want to set this up properly.
154. 7:58We want to make sure that this line
155. 8:01uh extends no further
156. 8:04than the thigh bone. So the bone that is
157. 8:08going to be controlling here this upper
158. 8:10part of the leg. Uh we don't really need
159. 8:13much more than that as it will cause
160. 8:15issues.
161. 8:17So right here we have chain length. And
162. 8:20this basically means that if you for
163. 8:23example have uh three working joints,
164. 8:28you're going to want a chain length of
165. 8:30three or maybe four. In this case, four
166. 8:35because it's one, two, three, four. And
167. 8:38all these other bones, they don't really
168. 8:39matter because they're just for the
169. 8:42physics jiggle bones stuff.
170. 8:46So now we have the right amount of
171. 8:48change
172. 8:50chains.
173. 8:52Uh right now really important is um if
174. 8:57we are going to move the the body and we
175. 9:00want to keep the feet still for uh in a
176. 9:04moment when we're going to try to make a
177. 9:06little idle animation or maybe even a
178. 9:08running animation [snorts] or anything
179. 9:11for that matter. You want to make sure
180. 9:13that if it's not using its feet and it's
181. 9:16going to be stationary
182. 9:18um you know you want to have like the
183. 9:21the the movement in the body and stuff
184. 9:23and you want to going to um animate the
185. 9:26root bone
186. 9:28but you want the feet to keep still. Now
187. 9:31the way we have it set up like this
188. 9:35uh if you move it
189. 9:38like this
190. 9:40now you can see that the foot
191. 9:45does not stay still.
192. 9:48I mean the bone stays in one place but
193. 9:52it's allowed to rotate freely.
194. 9:59So very easy to fix that. You go over
195. 10:02here, rotation, and you check it.
196. 10:06And because we had our bone aligned
197. 10:08properly,
198. 10:10it will stay exactly in the same place.
199. 10:12If this bone was misaligned, like for
200. 10:16example, uh I have it uh I had it
201. 10:19sticking out that way, then it would
202. 10:21snap to our controller bone.
203. 10:27Yeah. which can cause uh all kinds of
204. 10:30awkward stuff
205. 10:33because there's a lot going on in
206. 10:35between Blender and source
207. 10:39like the way uh you you recompile these
208. 10:42models with uh the animation data. If it
209. 10:45has for example
210. 10:48um now bear with me on this one a faulty
211. 10:52rest pose then this can show up through
212. 10:55all your animations. I had this before.
213. 10:57It's kind of a lot to explain, but um
214. 11:01those are things you should look out for
215. 11:03and should be avoided, but now uh the
216. 11:06way we just uh we did it just now, it
217. 11:08will be fine and will cause no issues
218. 11:10whatsoever.
219. 11:13So, if you can see right now,
220. 11:16if I move this, the feet stay perfectly
221. 11:20still.
222. 11:23Right. So now we've set up our first
223. 11:27uh inverse kinematic constraint
224. 11:30controller.
225. 11:31So good for you.
226. 11:33So right now we're going to do the rest
227. 11:35of the stuff. So we obviously have uh
228. 11:38one more right here for the body, which
229. 11:42actually works pretty awkward,
230. 11:47but it's not meant to be moving a lot
231. 11:50over the Y-axis. Anyway,
232. 11:53I will show you how you're going to be
233. 11:55using that in just a sec. We got the
234. 11:58head here.
235. 12:00It's a little bit of awkward movement.
236. 12:03Obviously, now there are ways to uh work
237. 12:06around this. Like for example,
238. 12:08uh we can change
239. 12:11the orientation of some of our bones to
240. 12:13fix this.
241. 12:16Like something like that, or maybe this.
242. 12:20uh just what works in that moment.
243. 12:25But yeah, sometimes it's just like this
244. 12:29and there's not much you can do about
245. 12:31it,
246. 12:39but it will do. So, right now, I'm just
247. 12:43going to make uh a little bit of a
248. 12:44hierarchy among these bones. So, I'm
249. 12:47going to go back to edit mode.
250. 12:51And as you can see, I've had set up
251. 12:53these three bones which are going to be
252. 12:56controlling uh different parts.
253. 12:59Now I want to uh parent the root bone
254. 13:04to this one
255. 13:06which may seem pointless.
256. 13:10Keep offset. Very important,
257. 13:13which may seem pointless,
258. 13:16but as you'll find out, can actually be
259. 13:19really useful.
260. 13:24I'm going to be doing the same for this.
261. 13:26Um, [clears throat]
262. 13:28so I want to take this and this bone
263. 13:32while keeping shift pressed and
264. 13:35selecting it. Now I want to pair in both
265. 13:38of them to this bone. So I have one
266. 13:41controller that can control the entire
267. 13:45uh forward half of the body so to speak.
268. 13:50So I have these ones selected. Then I'm
269. 13:52going to press shift again and select
270. 13:54this one. And as you can see the ones
271. 13:56the one that is selected last will be
272. 13:59highlighted uh
273. 14:02in green
274. 14:05like a lot more brighter than these two
275. 14:07which are also green I suppose.
276. 14:10So now we're going to right click parent
277. 14:13make and keep offset.
278. 14:17Very important. If you don't this is
279. 14:19what happens.
280. 14:22the bones snap immediately
281. 14:26to their respective parent pawn,
282. 14:31which is uh not great.
283. 14:35So, we're just going to go ahead and
284. 14:37undo that.
285. 14:40Instead, we want to parent make and keep
286. 14:44offset.
287. 14:50Look, this is the result we are after.
288. 14:59So now I've done that for this one.
289. 15:01[clears throat]
290. 15:03And now
291. 15:06we have a controller that controls this
292. 15:09part of the body and one that only
293. 15:11controls the root bone.
294. 15:14Uh, but we also want to have a
295. 15:16controller that controls also the feet.
296. 15:19So, we can move the entire thing, which
297. 15:22is really useful in um especially
298. 15:25running animations, but also in uh
299. 15:28interactive combat with uh like two
300. 15:32different dinosaurs.
301. 15:35um because you have to animate
302. 15:39both of them at the same time but you
303. 15:41want to export them separately. So for
304. 15:44instance um you want to first export
305. 15:47this one
306. 15:49so this one is placed nicely in the
307. 15:51center
308. 15:52um right way facing forward.
309. 15:56then export the model um and turn it
310. 15:59around exactly 180° so the other one
311. 16:02stands here on this exact same spot and
312. 16:05then export it again.
313. 16:08So for now I'm just going to parent this
314. 16:11one this one
315. 16:15well actually all of them.
316. 16:24So
317. 16:26the last one uh that should be selected
318. 16:28is this one
319. 16:31make parent and keep offset.
320. 16:35So if we go back into pose mode
321. 16:38this should move everything [snorts]
322. 16:42which it does.
323. 16:46Let's see if everything works. Yes,
324. 16:49everything is set up.
325. 16:55So, now we're going to Oh, by the way,
326. 16:57one more thing before I forget
327. 17:01the tail.
328. 17:04I guess I should start from the start.
329. 17:07The carnotaurus was a pretty strange
330. 17:12creature.
331. 17:14like it was believed to be I think
332. 17:17related to the abosaurids
333. 17:19on account of them having like these
334. 17:22four little fingers instead of three or
335. 17:25two that most typical therapods have.
336. 17:30Now, these horns, I don't really sure if
337. 17:34the evidence suggests or even uh
338. 17:38remotely
339. 17:41supports the idea that these guys you
340. 17:44use their horns for head bunning like
341. 17:46like a goat.
342. 17:49I think they would be
343. 17:52more like uh like the Spinosaurus
344. 17:56for display,
345. 17:58but I don't know. I'm not exactly an
346. 18:01archaeologist,
347. 18:04but the tail,
348. 18:06this tail should actually be much
349. 18:09thicker
350. 18:11because one things that um that was uh
351. 18:14kind of special about this dinosaur in
352. 18:16particular is the fact that the tail had
353. 18:20um these like Yshaped tail vertebrae
354. 18:25which would anchor massive muscles that
355. 18:28would sit right here which would act I
356. 18:33guess kind of like its glutes
357. 18:37uh in the sense that they um pulled the
358. 18:40leg backwards and propelled the animal
359. 18:43forward
360. 18:45and because um because of that shape the
361. 18:48muscles on top which would keep the tail
362. 18:51uh up and stable would have uh much less
363. 18:55space and would as a result be much
364. 18:57weaker.
365. 18:59And so uh a solution for that problem
366. 19:02would be to
367. 19:04kind of interlock these vertebrae
368. 19:07which would uh solve that problem
369. 19:11but would also um but would also make
370. 19:15the the tail kind of stiff if you know
371. 19:18what I mean. So that of course is
372. 19:20something important to keep in mind for
373. 19:23if we're going to be animating this
374. 19:25tail. It would not make sense to have it
375. 19:28be like wiggly like like a tentacle like
376. 19:32the tail of a lizard or something like
377. 19:35that. It would not be the same.
378. 19:38But
379. 19:40because we are animating for a video
380. 19:42game, I guess some of these scientific
381. 19:46[snorts] accuracies
382. 19:49uh can be taken with a grain of salt
383. 19:51because after all we are going for uh
384. 19:55for like a cinematic effect. So no one
385. 19:58really cares about if it's you know
386. 20:00accurate for that matter. Dinosaurs are
387. 20:03extinct anyway. So the fact that you're
388. 20:06even seeing them in the first place is
389. 20:07in itself also fake. So doesn't really
390. 20:10matter. But but with that said to be
391. 20:15convincing in uh portraying a creature
392. 20:19these are of course things to keep in
393. 20:21mind.
394. 20:24So normally what I would do is select
395. 20:28the last one
396. 20:30and then hold shift press the next then
397. 20:34press control shift C and we want to
398. 20:39select dampened track.
399. 20:44So now we keep uh for the first one we
400. 20:47keep the influence at 100%. But for the
401. 20:50next one, we want to do this again. We
402. 20:53want to pull the influence down a little
403. 20:55bit. And which each one
404. 20:58the influence will be reduced.
405. 21:04Yeah, this is fine.
406. 21:07So now we have the tail done.
407. 21:11Let's see about an animation. So to
408. 21:14start, we want to press this key right
409. 21:16here, auto keying.
410. 21:20So from this point forward, we uh are
411. 21:23going to have to manually
412. 21:26put the first key frame in here. So what
413. 21:30I like to do is just select everything
414. 21:32and then you can press I
415. 21:35which adds a key frame.
416. 21:39Very important because this is going to
417. 21:41be your starting point.
418. 21:44So let's see if it took
419. 21:47looking good.
420. 21:50Yeah. Right. So first of all, we want to
421. 21:54take the root.
422. 21:56Going to reduce this because we're only
423. 21:59going to need like 84 frames.
424. 22:05So we're [clears throat] going to start
425. 22:08very simply by going 12 frames apart.
426. 22:13pressing this down slightly,
427. 22:17then going here, then going up slightly,
428. 22:21and then repeat that.
429. 22:24And then of course at the end we have to
430. 22:27copy this key frame and paste it right
431. 22:30here. So it ends exactly the way it
432. 22:34started, which is key for a looping
433. 22:37animation, of course.
434. 22:40And this is the result.
435. 22:42So, as you can see, because of our
436. 22:44dampened track effect, this tail is
437. 22:49already doing
438. 22:51its own animating, so to speak, which is
439. 22:55going to save us a lot of time and will
440. 22:57give us
441. 22:59actually a very decent effect.
442. 23:02Now, let's go over to the head
443. 23:05or actually first the torso. Yes. So, as
444. 23:10this moves down and it's starting to go
445. 23:13back up,
446. 23:15the torso would in reality still be
447. 23:19moving down like in a delayed sort of
448. 23:24pattern
449. 23:26as we are going to discover.
450. 23:31So, this is a little bit too much
451. 23:33movement.
452. 23:35So it goes a little bit down before it
453. 23:40goes up and then before it goes down
454. 23:42again it will go a little bit up even
455. 23:45more.
456. 23:49So I can copy this one go here
457. 23:54like
458. 23:55one to three frames apart I think would
459. 23:58be the sweet spot in this case. It's not
460. 24:01that massive.
461. 24:04So,
462. 24:07we are going to have to improvise here.
463. 24:13Yeah. So, I guess that is too much.
464. 24:17So, I kind of liked this position.
465. 24:21Yeah. This is going to do well. And so
466. 24:24right here, [clears throat and cough]
467. 24:27you see now I've um decided that I liked
468. 24:31this as a starting position better.
469. 24:35Um
470. 24:37you know, we want to keep this this
471. 24:39shifted
472. 24:41placement
473. 24:43uh all the way through here. It's going
474. 24:46to be a little hard because yeah,
475. 24:48there's not really any reference. So
476. 24:51we're going to create that now.
477. 24:54So here at the 48 uh frame mark or at
478. 24:59the end of your animation which uh in
479. 25:02this case is right here. Um as you can
480. 25:05see I went a little bit beyond uh that
481. 25:08uh
482. 25:10you know the end.
483. 25:12I'm going to put the slider here and
484. 25:16we're going to simply press I and then
485. 25:20all channels which creates a key frame
486. 25:23which we can copy and place at the
487. 25:26start.
488. 25:29And then we can take this one,
489. 25:32put it right here.
490. 25:34And so now
491. 25:37look at that. We we got this little
492. 25:40delayed wave motion going on.
493. 25:44Awesome.
494. 25:45So now for the head. First of all, let's
495. 25:47close its jaw because
496. 25:53this is very cringe.
497. 25:56Look at that. Little bit of freaking
498. 25:58artifacts going on there. Shouldn't
499. 26:01matter.
500. 26:03Something like this for now is good.
501. 26:06Let's take the head.
502. 26:09So, first we're going to look for
503. 26:13a pose that
504. 26:17best suits this monster.
505. 26:21I guess something like that, right?
506. 26:24Yeah.
507. 26:28I don't know.
508. 26:31Like
509. 26:33maybe maybe keeping its head down more
510. 26:35would be kind of like more menacing
511. 26:37instead of like
512. 26:40like some sort of excited bird.
513. 26:44Uh why not? Let's go with this.
514. 26:48We can make this work.
515. 26:51So the rest of the body is I think kind
516. 26:54of positioned rather awkwardly.
517. 26:57But we can fix that very easily by just
518. 27:01moving the feet into a more active
519. 27:04position like it is about to do
520. 27:07something. It is stabilized.
521. 27:10So we can put them very narrow
522. 27:14which is going to make him look kind of
523. 27:16weak.
524. 27:18So for these particular creatures, um I
525. 27:22like to give them a more wider, more
526. 27:24stable stance.
527. 27:27And realistically, we would have uh the
528. 27:30leg that's forward, a little bit more to
529. 27:32the side,
530. 27:34I think. And you can do it like this,
531. 27:37but that's a little bit too, you know, I
532. 27:40don't know. That's too much.
533. 27:44Something like this feels more natural.
534. 27:47And then maybe even bring it down all
535. 27:52the way. Well, I guess.
536. 27:56Can I? Yeah, I just animated this. So
537. 27:59now I cannot use this one because if I'm
538. 28:03going to move this down in this frame,
539. 28:05it's only going to be down on this
540. 28:07frame. But we want to move that down
541. 28:10throughout the whole animation.
542. 28:14And so in cases like this, it's pretty
543. 28:17useful to have
544. 28:20another bone which is kind of empty.
545. 28:24So now I can take this
546. 28:28and this
547. 28:32and just put it down
548. 28:35to somewhere I feel like
549. 28:39it's believable.
550. 28:45something like this, I guess.
551. 28:48Right. So, we have our basic motion. Um,
552. 28:52and now to complete this, uh, of course,
553. 28:55the head needs a little bit of motion,
554. 28:57too. So,
555. 29:00let's see.
556. 29:03So this comes down
557. 29:07and then right after it's starting to
558. 29:09move up right here, we move the head
559. 29:12down a little bit.
560. 29:16Yes. And now the same here. Move its a
561. 29:19little bit. Let's see how that looks.
562. 29:22That's maybe a little bit too much.
563. 29:27Yeah, I guess something like that will
564. 29:31do nicely.
565. 29:37So, do pretty much the same thing.
566. 29:46And there we go.
567. 29:55So that's kind of like
568. 29:58actually the wave pattern I was talking
569. 30:01about in my uh introduction video
570. 30:04in which uh when the center of mass
571. 30:07moves here. Well,
572. 30:11yeah, I guess that should be the center
573. 30:12of mass because that's where the legs
574. 30:14are attached and the creature should be
575. 30:16perfectly balanced. with the tail and
576. 30:18whatnot.
577. 30:21But um in any case,
578. 30:25the the root of this creature where the
579. 30:27legs are attached,
580. 30:29which obviously gets the most direct
581. 30:32power, is going to move first.
582. 30:35And then because you know this has uh a
583. 30:39lot of weight
584. 30:41as this moves up
585. 30:44uh this will move up in a delayed
586. 30:47fashion because you know it takes more
587. 30:49energy to get it upwards.
588. 30:52So anything with uh a lot of mass is
589. 30:54going to be harder to accelerate than
590. 30:56something that has uh very little of it.
591. 31:00And so you go further down the line. the
592. 31:02further it is from the center
593. 31:05um or the root motion uh the more of a
594. 31:08delay obviously uh is going to
595. 31:10experience also that depends on uh how
596. 31:15rigid or how uh flexible
597. 31:19the appendage is. For example, a tail uh
598. 31:23which has um a lot less mass and a lot
599. 31:27more joints obviously is going to
600. 31:30experience much more of a wave pattern
601. 31:32like this than the heavily musculared uh
602. 31:36head and torso.
603. 31:38But there we go. We have a very basic
604. 31:41idle animation now. And it wasn't even
605. 31:43that hard. So right now, of course, this
606. 31:46is a base. And from here you're going to
607. 31:49add a lot of details. Uh and of course
608. 31:52you have to keep in mind that this is
609. 31:54three dimensions not two or four
610. 31:58actually because not only do we have the
611. 32:00three spatial dimensions we actually
612. 32:03also have a traversible dimension of
613. 32:07time.
614. 32:08We go forwards
615. 32:12and also backwards.
616. 32:16Funny thing.
617. 32:18So, I guess I'm going to leave this
618. 32:20here.
619. 32:23I mean, it is already a pretty long
620. 32:25video as it is right now.
621. 32:30Blocking in at about 40 minutes.
622. 32:33Damn. Well, I guess time flies when
623. 32:35you're having fun. That's it for now.
624. 32:38Thanks for watching and until the next
625. 32:40time.
626. 32:45>> [music]
627. 32:56[music]
628. 32:58>> Heat.