Posing your Character UT2k4
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Revision as of 20:22, 29 March 2011
Contents |
Introduction
Welcome to the character posing tutorial. Here you'll learn how to create poses for your character that you can then use with the SetPose Node.
Posing in MovieSandbox
Posing in MovieSandbox is done directly in the SceneEditor, so i suggest you open the SceneEditor now. Let's place a character using the Actor Menu Button and move around it until you can see it conveniently (see pic 1).
Posing your Character
As of Version 1320, the Posing editor is located in the Actor Menu. Click on it to open the Posing Editor Options (see pic 2). By clicking on the select Pawn Button and then selecting our character, you prepare your character to be posed. A colored cube should appear at the Character's Pelvis, indicating the first characterbone that you can rotate with the Posing Editor. By using the NextBone and PrevBone Buttons, you can switch through the character's skeletal bones.
Be aware that deselecting while in the PoseEditor cuts the link to your Character and you need to open the Poseeditor and select your character again!
The RotateBone button lets you rotate the selected bone to your desire. When clicking on it, your Mouse movements (or keyboard movement key presses) are translated into relative Bone rotation, which means that moving the Mouse to the left (or pressing the A or D keys) will change the bone's relative Yaw, moving the Mouse up or down (or pressing the Wor S keys) will change the Bone's relative Pitch. By pressing and holding shift and moving your Mouse left or right (or pressing the A or D keys while holding shift) you can change the bone's roll. By clicking again with the left Mousebutton, you confirm the rotation and you can now switch to another bone. You can keep switching Bones back and forth and rotating until you're satisfied with your Pose.
Cycle through the bones and pose your character to a waving pose (see pic 3).
Saving and Loading Poses
When you finished posing, click on the Save Pose Button just below the RotateBone button. Click on CreateNew to create a new Pose for all your characters to use and give it a name. After hitting Enter to confirm, your Pose gets saved and is ready to be used by all your characters.
You can also load Poses from within the Posing Editor to refine them or create new Poses based on their bone rotations. For that, click on the Load Pose Button on the very bottom of the PoseEditor Menu and select the Pose you want to load.
Assigning Poses to your Characters
After you finished creating a waving Pose, close the PoseEditor by deselecting. Then create a SetPose Node from the Nodes Menu and attach it to your PawnRoot (see pic 4). Select your character as the PoseActor and type in the PoseName (it's the name you gave your Pose when saving). BlendTime indicates the number of seconds it takes for the character to animate to your Pose.
