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There are 7 replies to this topic

-JHawks
Member

3 years ago

Hi all,

I'm doing an animation for a Samurai I created and I'm having trouble animating a smooth sheathing. The animation is one that you see in Samurai Jack or other similar swordsman.

They rest the beginning of the blade on the sheath as the swordsman slides it against it until it reaches the tip (as though drawing it out) where he then places the tip inside and then sheathes his sword.

I can't find a video example but if anyone can help me achieve this?

Or at least help me figure out how to make a hand follow the sword. The thing is, before my character sheathes his sword, he does some moves and in this animation, the sword follows the hand. I don't know how to vice versa it without ruining the animation.

Thanks in advance
Cliff

Knowledge is power

-jovanie_
Member

3 years ago

Try checking this out man.. hope it can help you...

part1: [Link to www.youtube.com]
part2: [Link to www.youtube.com]
part3: [Link to www.youtube.com]
part4: [Link to www.youtube.com]
part5: [Link to www.youtube.com]

Started Max last September 2008

Jovanie_
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-JHawks
Member

3 years ago

Umm thanks for the links but not what I'm looking for.

I'm not talking about how to model it, I'm talking about animating it as described in my first post.

Knowledge is power

-Tyson
Senior Member

3 years ago

I'm not totally sure what you mean, you will probably want to use link constraint. so you can have animated linking. Ie: when he's done sheathing the sword he can let go of it. secondly you might have trouble keeping the sword inside the sheeth. you might want to create a morph target of the blade squashed into itself and animate it as he sheaths it like a joke shop knife type trick.

-JHawks
Member

3 years ago

Link constraint? Hmm, I best find a tutorial for that though judging from your description, that's another thing I'm trying to master.

Luckily he's not going to move around after sheathing his sword.

Hmm, it's hard if you haven't watched Samurai Jack. He does it almost all the time after finishing a fight.

Knowledge is power

-Tyson
Senior Member

3 years ago

I can briefly describe it. basically you select an object that you want to link to another object. go to the animation menu and choose constraints>link constraint. then you get a dotted line in the viewport to select an object to link to. then you can move
ahead in time and link to another object dynamically. you can add links and change when they are linked in the motion tab. Its a bit clumsy and if you have animation keys aswell it can be cumbersome to change your link keys but you just have to keep track of everything

one example: At frame zero use link constraint to link the sword to the hand. (pick the sword>animation menu>constraints>link constraint>dotted line to the hand object.

scrub to frame 130 where you have animated the hand meeting the other hand and in the motion tab click add link, pick the second hand. now the sword sticks to the second hand.

So you are just animating the hand motion and maybe the rotation of the sword.

does that help/make sense?