Original subtitles

- [Pierre] In this video, we are going to create

the artillery shot animation.

Again, we will rely a lot on the space switching

to achieve it.

We can start from our cling action and duplicate it.

The idea is to have our robot standing

with its two feet planted in the ground.

I've renamed the action

and I will click the little shield icon

to make sure that I won't lose the animation.

Since the rotation range of the cannon is a bit limited,

I will also select the head of the character

and slightly rotate it back.

The process is the same as for the walk cycle.

I will first create a base motion

and then we will propagate each using space switching.

The shot is a very fast action,

so I will jump on frame four

and I will pull back the recoil control.

What I noticed while playing the animation

is that it was repeating,

there is probably a cycling quantifier.

So I will select all the keys of all the controllers

and press shift E and clear cyclic.

From there.

I will directly jump into the graph editor and I we'll work

on the curve of the record controller.

Since it's kind of an instant motion

I will select the first key frame of the recalling

controller and convert it to vector.

The idea is that the controller is pushed back

at full speed

right at the beginning, the moment where we shoot

With the artillery, it gets

Very fast to its extreme on frame four.

And then I will duplicate the very first frame onto frame 10

so that the controller gets back into its position.

Then I played the animation a couple of time

and tweaked the curve.

In the end, I set the extreme on frame two

and reset the position of the controller on frame seven

Played the animation a couple of more time, and then

decided it was better to sit in final position

on frame nine.

So we have the base motion of the Canon.

Now we need to move the root of the torso of the robot to

keep the exercise simple.

I will just walk on the Y axis.

We've my torso root controller selected.

I will directly jump into the graph editor and hide

everything but the Y location axis,

since the recall controller,

or Canon controller reach it's extreme on frame two

I will take the very first frame of the route controller

and duplicate it on frame two.

The ideas that the record

motion start when the Canon is pushing the whole body back.

Now we can add a key frame on frame 10

and move the curve up so that our character torso

is moving back.

Then I will reset the pose of

The character around frame 23.

Again, this is a creative process.

If you want, you can use other values.

I'm here to teach you in the method, not all to

make this specific animation.

I will create a more easing on the back position

by scaling the curve.

And I will make the first angle to be vector because again

I don't want any easing into the recoil, the recoil start

at full speed.

Then it eases into frame 10, and it finally gets back

with easing onto frame 23.

As I watch the motion, I feel like the robot is a bit out

of balance, so I will select the whole curve

and slightly offset it down.

But the character is positioned more forward onto his feet.

When he's going to shoot, it's important to watch out

for the center of gravity of your character, so

that it looks balanced when shooting.

And so the shot looks more believable

(Wooshing Noises)

Before we start animating the head of the character,

I will just add a very slight rotation to the Canon.

In the end, we will use also space switching to

add more emotion to the Canon

but the idea is just to have some kind

of passive motion or rate.

I don't think it's necessary though, but it's very fast.

It's just one key frame on frame four or five, to get a bit

of rotation back and switch the first handle to vector.

Then I will dial the angle

by reducing the amplitude of the curve and we are done

and we can jump onto the head controller.

In this video, we are going to repeat a lot

of thing we have done during the walk cycle

meaning that we will use a lot

of copy location and a lot of end space.

The only things that will change is

all we offset the curve in time.

Instead of creating a delay

we will make the curve move back

in time so that the head motion

occurs before the bud in motion, this way

we will fake the fact that the motion is led by the head.

First let's work with the location of yet.

I've added an empty, I will make sure

that it's displayed in front and on the armature

in the armature viewpoint display, I will enable names

and axis it will just help us identifying the bone with ease

Back on my empty, I will add a copy location

as usual source our armature, and then the head controller.

I will bake the action

For this specific animation, I've used 30 frames on it.

Then get rid of the user's curve, If you want a gain.

It doesn't matter.

DMT is following the add motion.

Let's now reverse the constraint

go to the head bone inputs mode

add to it a copy location, constraint and source the empty.

We can now get back to the empty and instead

of offsetting the curve to the right filtering time

we'll offset to the left back in time.

And now the head moves before the torso.

I will offset it back by one key frame.

So is that there is a bit of delay between the shot

and the head motion, but the head motions still occur

before the torso root motion, as I'm happy with the result

I will bake the action onto the head, boom.

And now we can work on the head rotation

since the Canon is a child of the head

whenever the head will rotate, the cannon will rotate too.

And I don't really want that

because the Canon was supposed to lead the animation.

So what I will do is that I will create an aim constraint

or tracking constraint for the gun

and we will keep this constraint to the end of the animation

so that the gun will always be pointing at the same target

while we are working on the different part of the robot.

So you should know the process now

but I will repeat it either way first, add a copy, transform

to the empty, then press control-A

and apply the visual transform.

From there, We can get treated of the copy

transform constraint and move the empty on its local Y axis.

Then we need to make it a child of the artillery pivot

so that it will follow its current motion.

So I will select it.

Use a child of constraint, source the armature

and then the Archer re-pivot controller.

We will click setting verse to reset it's position

and bake it's action.

Now I will select the artillery pivot controller

and I will add to it a locked truck constraint

targeting the empty.

The gun is pointing

On it's minus Y axis

and rotating around its X axis.

As soon as I saw the empty, the gun

We'll always aim an empty and whatever the motion

of the head cannon will point a DMT.

We've the limitation of the hydraulics

and the rotation angle of its controller.

So we can keep this constraint

and now work on the rotation of the head.

Since this is something we have done a lot of time

I will slightly speed up the video.

I've created a new empty

I will add to it, a copy transform.

Source the armature then source the head controller apply

its visual transform and get treated of the constraint.

But the trick here is that I won't be upsetting it forward

on the y-axis since we don't have any upended motion

but I will offset to down.

As the body moves back and forth, it's better to get

to this pendulum motion based on the Z axis from there

the process will be exactly the same as what we did before.

During the walk cycle.

First, I will add a child

of constraint to DMT target the armature.

Then you hit controller set inverse.

They take the action, then select the head controller

add a dumped truck, constraint and target the empty.

But this time I will use the minus Z axis

of the head controller instead of the minus Y axis.

And now I can offset the curve in time.

So as usual, you have to experiment, try offsetting

to the left so that the rotation will

occur before the translation of the head

or try the other way, offset the curves to the right

so that the head rotation is based on its translation.

Plus the position of the target, our empty

with variants under or, upon the head will kind

of change the behavior sometimes, delaying the curve.

We'll make the head kind of moving

before it's current translation.

Why if DMT was upon the head and we were targeting

toward the positive Z axis in the constraint

offsetting the curve the same way we'll kind of

reversed the head rotation.

So you have to experiment the reason, no like golden method

try offsetting the curve left to right

check out the behavior of the controller.

And then just guess all you want to

work the final touch here was to edit the empty curve

to get a slight overshoot of the head rotation

and this loose motion of the rotation.

So I've used the baked curve as a guide.

And then I reworked the curve by removing most

of the key frame and smoothing the curve shape

as we did during the walk cycle.

So as usual, it's a matter

of spending time on to your animation

but the location motion of the head is the snap here.

And then since the rotation is kind of reacting to this

I've made it quite smooth.

Now you also want to show

that this robot is made to shoot with the artillery.

So I bring a bit

of smoothness to the motion showing more control than

If it was wobbling all around.

From there, I've repeated the process

for the body controller, the arms, the hips, et cetera

this way I've slowly propagated the recoil motion

from the gunshot on to the whole body of the character.

The final touch was to add a very subtle up and down motion

to one of the feet as if the robot was pushed back

by the recoil and kind of losing a bit of balance.

I've made this motion only

on one foot to break the twinning in the animation.

and make it look more natural

more random in a way to do so.

I've just walked a beat on the Hill controller

and then animated the front two in reaction.

This is very simple.

So I will let you there with this animation.

And in the next video

you will find a slow paced time-lapse of the whole process.

This is something we have repeated a lot

in the previous videos.

So if you don't feel comfortable

do not hesitate to rewatch the work cycle process

as we are using exactly the same process.

And don't forget to check out the axis I'm using

depending on the controller, I'm moving

for these specific animation regarding the body controllers.

I was mostly using in space, downward

and space downward on the minus Z axis

so that I can source the back and forth motion of the body.