Chapter 8
Dem Bones: Setting Up Your Joint System
Now that your blend shapes are complete, you can add the skeleton, or joint system, to the model. The skeleton’s job is to animate larger segments of your character, such as the arm or the head.
- Understanding how joints work
- Building joint chains
- Putting it all together
- Putting it to use: connecting the joints to your model
Understanding How Joints Work
Joints in a 3D model work pretty much like joints in your body do—you rotate a joint, and some portion of your body moves as a result. However, in a 3D model you can have joints rotate in ways that they never could in your body. You can have an elbow joint that rotates in more than one direction, for example.
Joints function by influencing vertices ...
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