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Character Setup

Animation-Constraint blending workflow

See also Animation-Constraint blending and pairBlend.

Scenario

A basketball player character passes a ball to his teammate.

1. Select the first player’s hands, and then the basketball.
2. Parent constrain the ball to the hands, making sure that Maintain Offset is on and the weight is set to 1 in the constraint options.

For the procedure on creating parent constraints, see To create a parent constraint.

Maintain Offset preserves the original, relative translation and rotation of the constrained object.

The Weight attribute sets the amount of influence that the target’s position and orientation has on the constrained object. For information on parent constraint weighting see Weight.

3. In the Channel Box, set keys for the weights of the first player’s hands.

Note When the basketball is selected, the parent constraint and all its target weights appear in the Channel Box.

This anchors the parent constraint’s weighting, and the position and orientation of the basketball, at the current time in the character’s animation.

4. Animate the arms of the first player so that they appear to be throwing the ball.
5. At the point in the first character’s animation where he is to let go of the ball, set a key on the ball and on the weights of the hands.

Since the basketball now has both a constraint and keyframe animation, a new blend weight attribute appears in the Channel Box.

6. Change the blend weight to 1, and key the blend weight.
7. Advance one frame along the timeline.
8. Set the weight of the first player’s hands to 0, and set the blend weight to 0.

When the blend weight is 0, the keyframe animation has full control over the position and orientation of the ball.

9. Key the hands’ weights and the blend weight.

This anchors the animation-keyframe blend weight and the first player’s weight at the current time in the character’s animation.

10. Keyframe the ball as it is thrown from the first player to the second player.
11. When the ball reaches the position where the second player catches it, parent constrain the ball to the hands of the second player, making sure that Maintain Offset is on and the weight is 0 in the constraint options.
12. Key the weights of the second player’s hands and that of the blend weight.
13. Advance one frame along the timeline.
14. Set the blend weight to 1 and the second player’s hands’ weights to 1.

When the blend weight is 1, the parent constraint has full control over the position and orientation of the ball.

15. Key the blend weight and the weights of the second player’s hands again.

This anchors the weighting of the ball’s animation and that of the parent constraint at the current time in the characters’ animation.

16. Animate the second player.

Note If you want to ensure that the transitions between the blend weights are clean (no interpolation), set the tangent types of the weights to Stepped.