I did finally figure out how to get my plain-jane character (I have faceless dummies – one male, and one female) rigged for posing. Outliner is the way to go. I took the trunk-body and embedded the upper body to that, which in turn had the arms in a chain from there. I did the same for the legs in a chain from that trunk-body. It forms a pretty nice bone structure. There’re no IK limits or anything of course, but I don’t need that — I’m not animating anything — just posing.
One of the cool things I noticed about Sketchup is it’s ability to handle a large scene due to the low polys being used. It’s also very cool to be able to log on to the google warehouse and grab pieces for a scene.
May 29, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Hi,
If you’re working on storyboards, and especially if you’re using SketchUp, I would recommend you take a look at Antics 3D. It’s 3D animation software that’s used extensively for storyboarding, previz, machinima etc. It’s available as freeware, and has the ability to browse Google Warehouse and drop stuff straight into your scene.
Take a look at our WordPress blog for more info (coincidentally the latest blog is about how to animate a SketchUp car) – http://www.antics3d.wordpress.com
But I would still recommend Antics as it seems a good match for what you’re working on. Any questions let me know.
And yes, I do work for the company
Gary Conway