Hi guys,

I’m looking to animate a human tower, so they all sway forwards synchronized with each other, as if helping the guy at the top grab for a hat stuck in a tree (when I finish the tree).  I’v included a picture to help illustrate what I mean.

Any ideas on the best way to go about animating this in Maya 2012? I have just under 2 weeks to do it so I’m looking more towards efficiency than quality at this point.

Cheers in advance for any help.

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completely depends on your experience, and the quality of the result, and whats actually happening in the animation but heres a couple of ideas…

1.
low quality, fast build, extra time refining rendering etc.
-model the tower of people group them all under 1 group (make sure they’re all clean - ie deleted all unnecessary history, freeze transforms etc) and add a bend deformer to the group, lower it towards the bottom of the pyramid and play around with the attrs. then create a very simple FK arm for the top bloke, skin it to his arm, rivet the arms root joint to a point on the blokes shoulder (verts which should have ZERO influence from the FK arm, otherwise you’ll hit issues).
you can animate the bend deformer, and use the fk arms joints to reach out for the hat.

2.
mid quality, moderate build, some time refining rendering etc.
-model the tower of people minus the top bloke (whom reaches for the hat) group them all under 1 group (make sure they’re all clean - ie deleted all unnecessary history, freeze transforms etc) and apply a couple of non-linear deformers, mainly a bend deformer, lower it towards the bottom of the pyramid and play around with the attrs. then create a very simple FK arms, ik legs rig for the top guy, you can then rivet the ik feet ctrls Parent to the shoulders and the parent constrain the hips/root ctrl parent to both ik feet ctrls.

this way you can animate the bend deformer, the top guy will follow, and you’ll be able to animate him as you need to grab the hat.

3.
better quality, longer build, little time refining rendering etc.
-model the tower of people minus the top bloke (whom reaches for the hat) group them all under 1 group (make sure they’re all clean - ie deleted all unnecessary history, freeze transforms etc) and create a couple of spline ik chains, a couple of joints on random heads, and an fk arm, ik feet for the top bloke, same setup as mentioned above but a few blendshapes added in for more interaction in the tower, plus being able to animate a few of the heads.

either way its not going to be straightforward.

hope that helps though.

Lee Dunham | Character TD
ldunham.blogspot.com

its fine :)

your dont directly parent as it doesnt quite work like that.
you use a type of constraint, which is a node that calculates various factors to produce a connection between multiple objects. One of which is called the point-on-poly constraint, which does exactly what it says on the tin :)

you select a vert on a poly object, and ctrl-select another object (i suggest the parent of the foot controller - preferably a group which has the same pivot point) and then press point-on-poly (animate menu, constraints -> point-on-poly).

if you are having trouble with that (im aware of an issue from maya 2011 point-on-poly not supporting namespaces) you might find it easier getting a rivet script (something like -> )

http://www.creativecrash.com/may.../polygon/c/djrivet-mel--3

which i think creates a locator which you can parent or parent Constrain your foot controller (or its parent group) to.

Lee Dunham | Character TD
ldunham.blogspot.com

hmm the rivet looks fairly off. what edges on the pyramid mesh did you rivet?

i’d suggest grabbing the edges next to the foot controllers.

did you try the point on poly constraint?

Lee Dunham | Character TD
ldunham.blogspot.com

yeah go on then. send it in .ma if thats ok.

Lee Dunham | Character TD
ldunham.blogspot.com

no probs, you just needed to get the rivet in the right place by selecting the closest 2 connected edges per foot.

https://rcpt.yousendit.com/1250811569/def7ec894e8f0278ec7bac7851182cd2

Lee Dunham | Character TD
ldunham.blogspot.com

Genius, thanks you really helped me out. “Do not touch” Haha, I’m almost tempted to break it just so I know how to fix it my self...not till after the project is completed and handed in though right ;).

lol right.

its good habit to organise your nodes into groups, keep things organised.
after a while, when it becomes second nature you’ll start noticing that your avoiding aload of problems, such as scaling etc.

:)

Lee Dunham | Character TD
ldunham.blogspot.com