6 Chapter 2 Inverse Kinematics, Forward Kinematics, and IK Booster.. 262 Chapter 11 Advanced Animation Mechanics.. 382 Chapter 18 Advanced Animation Tools.. Chapter 1About This Book This
Trang 2LightWave 3D®
8 Character Animation
Timothy Albee
Wordware Publishing, Inc.
Trang 3p cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 1-55622-099-5 (pbk., companion cd-rom)
1 Computer animation 2 Computer graphics 3 LightWave 3D I Title.
TR897.7.A425 2004
© 2005, Wordware Publishing, Inc
All Rights Reserved
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ISBN 1-55622-099-5
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Trang 4Foreword vIii
Chapter 1 About This Book 1
1.1Who Is This Book For? 1
1.2How to Use This Book 3
1.3The Models 5
1.4The Exercises 6
Chapter 2 Inverse Kinematics, Forward Kinematics, and IK Booster 7
2.1FK (Forward Kinematics) 7
2.2IK (Inverse Kinematics) 8
What Is IK? 8
“Standard” IK Basics 9
“Standard” IK Hazards 16
“Standard” IK Rules 28
2.3IK Booster 28
Applying IK Booster 28
Long Chain Dependability 31
IK Booster and Movement 32
IK Booster and Keyframes 32
Pose and Motion Saving and Loading 35
Quaternion Rotations 37
Keyframe Move Mode 37
2.4Newbie Sensory Overload 39
Chapter 3 Prepping Your Character for Setup 41
3.1Where Is He Going to Bend? 42
3.2Pre-bending to Help IK 45
Chapter 4 Boning Your Character 53
4.1Adding Bones to Your Character 54
4.2Spinal Controls 55
4.3Hand Controls 62
4.4Foot Controls 66
4.5Fingers 69
4.6IK System Skelegons 72
Trang 5Chapter 5 Converting, Organizing, and Aligning 85
5.1Converting Skelegons to Bones 85
5.2Organizing the Schematic into Something Helpful 89
5.3Aligning the Spine, Pelvis, and Feet 91
5.4Bone Hierarchy 99
5.5Recording Pivot Rotations 102
5.6Recording Bone Rest Information 105
Chapter 6 Putting IK and IKB to Work 107
6.1Terminating IK Chains 107
6.2Creating Goal Objects 109
6.3Activating IK 112
6.4Activating Individual Controllers 114
6.5Deactivating Individual Manual Controls 122
6.6Applying IK Booster 125
Chapter 7 Point Weighting 133
7.1Point Weighting Basics 134
7.2Beginning the Point Weighting Process 135
7.3Swapping Models and Testing Weight Mappings 148
7.4The Use Weight Map Only Option 156
7.5Finding Stray Points 157
7.6Straightening the Feet for Animation 161
7.7Putting Him Through the Motions 166
7.8Tidying Up 167
Chapter 8 Using the Controls 169
8.1The Model Itself 170
8.2Root 171
8.3Pelvis 172
8.4Spinal Bones 173
8.5Head 175
8.6Hand Translation Controls 176
8.7Hand Rotation Controls 177
8.8Shoulder Controls 178
8.9Elbow Controls 179
8.10Foot Controls 180
8.11Toe Controls 181
8.12Knee Controls 182
8.13The Fingers and Thumb 183
8.14Notes on Modifying the Setup 186
8.15IK Booster Controls 187
Fingers/Toes 188
Trang 6Knees/Elbows 190
Shoulders/Hips 191
Spine/Head 194
Hands/Feet 196
Control Order 199
Chapter 9 Life Drawing — The Next Logical Step 211
9.1The Standing Model 213
9.2The Seated Model 218
9.3The Reclining Model 220
9.4The Character and Weight 225
9.5The Timed Pose 227
9.6The “Cool Walk” 232
9.7Clickin’ Them Heels 234
9.8Batter Up! 235
9.9Life Drawing 237
Chapter 10 Reviewing Animation Basics 239
10.1Timing 239
10.2Squash and Stretch 241
10.3Gesture and Line of Motion 246
10.4Anticipation 248
10.5Drag 253
10.6Follow-Through 256
10.7Easing In/Easing Out 261
10.8Moving Holds 262
Chapter 11 Advanced Animation Mechanics 265
11.1Silhouette 265
11.2Exaggeration (“Bad” Poses) 273
11.3Snappy Animation (Modified Timings) 281
11.4Circular Animation 283
11.5Successive Breaking of the Joints 285
11.6Overlapping Action 286
11.7Entertainment Value (Presentation) 288
11.8Acting, Not Action 290
11.9The Importance of Thumbnails (Planning Your Scene) 292 11.10Pacing 295
Chapter 12 Taking a Scene from Start to Finish 297
12.1Do Your Homework 297
12.2Talk with the Director 298
12.3Scene Planning 299
Contents
Trang 712.4Visualize 302
12.5Thumbnail 304
12.6Exposure Sheet 305
12.7Animate 305
12.8Examine 306
12.9Critique 306
12.10Revise 308
Chapter 13 Important Points for Every Scene 309
13.1Composition/Design 309
13.2Appealing Poses 311
13.3Anticipation, Drag, Follow-Through 312
13.4Weight/Timing 312
13.5Entertainment Value 313
13.6Characterization 313
13.7Character Evolution 314
13.8Storytelling/The Distillation of One Main Idea 314
13.9What’s Best for the Production (Don’t Grandstand) 315
Chapter 14 Additional Practice Scenes 317
14.1The Technique 319
14.2Life Drawing 321
14.3Scenes to Copy 322
14.4Scenes to Create 322
Actions 323
Walk Cycles 324
Scenes 325
14.5Where to Go Next 329
Chapter 15 Digitigrade Characters 331
15.1Bones 334
15.2Plantigrade Modifications 337
Chapter 16 On the Path 339
16.1Support 340
16.2Editing 341
16.3Watching Movies 342
16.4Other Studies 344
Chapter 17 Finding the Character 347
17.1Radiating Focus 349
Exercise 1 350
Exercise 2 353
Exercise 3 355
Trang 817.2The Psychological Gesture 356
Exercise 4 357
Exercise 5 359
Exercise 6 360
Exercise 7 361
Exercise 8 362
Exercise 9 376
17.3Characterization 378
17.4Character 379
17.5The Animator’s Trust 382
Chapter 18 Advanced Animation Tools 383
18.1Dope Sheet 384
18.2Dope Track 395
18.3Motion Mixer 398
Chapter 19 Facial Animation 411
19.1Two Paths 412
Facial Riggings 412
Morph Targets 412
19.2Endomorphs 413
19.3Expression Morphs 418
19.4Asymmetry 423
19.5Re-Symmetry 432
19.6Dialogue Morphs 434
19.7“Plussing” Morphs 443
19.8Morph Mixer 444
19.9Sample Workflow 451
19.10Recycling 456
Chapter 20 Timothy Albee’s Facial Animation 459
20.1Remember Yoda? 460
20.2A Separate Program? 461
20.3FA’s Interface 462
20.4Morph Targets and FA 472
20.5Integration with LightWave 474
Chapter 21 In Conclusion 475
Index 477
Contents
Trang 9Perhaps you’re one of those people who, as a kid, sat in a darkenedmovie theater watching a great animated movie and said to yourself,
“I want to do that.”
I know I was At the time, all I could do was draw my own
“flipbooks,” as there was very little written about the technique ofanimation The big breakthrough for me came when I discoveredsomething called an “Animation Kit” at Disneyland some 45 yearsago It consisted of a simple light board, some model sheets of Dis-ney characters, a booklet on “How to Animate,” and some punchedpaper
With this animation kit, I could finally create my own animation!After seeing my first pencil tests, I was hooked My fate was sealed
I knew this was what I wanted to do with my life
Of course, my first work was quite crude; so my next task was
to find a way to learn the skills it took to become a real animator
A generation or two ago, there were no schools teaching tion About the only way to learn “the craft” was to serve an oftenlengthy apprenticeship with a journeyman animator Slowly, underthis apprenticeship, the secrets of animation would be revealed at arate designed (no doubt for job security) by those who held the fewpositions there were for animators
anima-I was lucky in that anima-I was able to study under the great master
animator Art Babbit, who animated the queen in Snow White and Geppetto in Pinocchio Art maintained that an animator should be
something of a Renaissance man He should be well-read and bewell versed in the arts, including painting, drawing, music, dance,
and films In other words, in order to portray life, you needed to
understand life In 1980, Art disliked intensely the idea that
comput-ers might someday “take over” the animation business He said ifthey did, the operator would have to be an animator He was cer-tainly right about that
Trang 10The art of animation was brought to one of its high points ing the 1940s at the Disney studios by a group of animators known
dur-as “the nine old men.” They were revered by their underlings dur-asalmost “god-like” and have since been accorded the greatest ofrespect by everyone in the industry The performances they leave
us today are among our greatest cultural treasures Their work hasserved as an inspiration to countless young students of the craft.Any serious study of animation must include the works of thesemasters
Animation has changed much in recent years A great deal ofthis change is due to a resurgence of interest in it as a medium, andthe introduction of the computer as an animator’s tool Although thework of the early computer animation pioneers was revolutionaryand impressive, I believe it was not until experienced traditional andstop-motion animators learned to use computers that the CG indus-try as we know it today was born The responsibilities of the
animator did not change when animators exchanged their pencils formice and keyboards Now they simply had a very powerful assistantthat relieved them of the burden of drawing and could quickly gen-erate perfect inbetweens But it will always require someone withthe skills of an animator to bring a character to life, no matter whatthe medium
With all this activity, there is now a great demand for the edge that created the big CG hits of today There are a few goodschools that teach animation, but of course, the quality of instruc-tion is only as good as the instructors themselves And not all ofthem have hands-on experience in the field There is nothing likelearning from someone who has been in the trenches as the author
knowl-of this book has been for many years Until recently, there has beenrelatively little written about the actual hands-on, nuts-and-boltsprocess of creating an animated performance The problem I findwith most animation books today is they give you only part of thepicture Some books on animation have emphasized only the techni-cal side Other books talk only about acting Still others concentrate
on action analysis This book represents one-stop shopping for theaspiring computer animator Not only does it deal with all the tech-nical mysteries of such things as Inverse Kinematics, but it alsoreveals all of the time-honored principles of classical characteranimation
Foreword
Trang 11In my career, I have met only a very small handful of individualswhose knowledge encompasses both the technical and the artisticaspects of animation Such a person is a rare bird indeed, and Timo-thy Albee is one of these Tim takes you step by step through all thestages you will need to bring your characters to life You have here,distilled into one book, all the skills and knowledge you need tobegin to create your own performances.
Now the rest is up to you
Tom Roth
Animator, Hercules (Hades), Dinosaur (Yar), Stuart Little,
Shrek, All Dogs Go to Heaven, Scooby Doo
Trang 12Chapter 1
About This Book
This book is for anyone who has ever had a character in their heartthat they’ve wanted to bring to life with as much fluidity, power, andgrace as can be seen in the best animated feature films This is abook for anyone who has wanted to become an animator but hasn’tgone to Sheridan College in Toronto or CalArts in Valencia This is abook for animators who have progressed as far as they can on theirown and want to hone their skills to the level of feature-quality ani-mation This is a book for feature-quality animators skilled on othersoftware platforms who have a project that requires them to useLightWave
This is the book I wish had been available when I was startingout as a LightWave animator
This is not just a book on how to set up and point weight ters It is not yet another book that covers the same basics thatnearly every other book on animation presents as “all-there-is-to-know.” This book covers the complex animation mechanics that arelocked inside every beautifully animated scene but that are difficult tounderstand until someone shows you how It took many gifted peoplewith careers in animation going back over 30 years to show me what
charac-I hadn’t learned in school or in the books charac-I’d read charac-I’ve taught manypeople who’ve worked for me on projects ranging from films to videogames how to see, understand, and internalize these techniques andsubtleties It is my goal in this book to pass this information on to a
Trang 13much larger audience, and by doing so, raise the level of animatorsand the way others perceive animators all across the board.
Animation is an incredible art It encompasses so much cal and artistic skill that in my experience, nothing else comes close
techni-to the impact it has on the artist or the viewer We’re moved bygood animation in a way we can’t explain And there are those of uswho are so touched by it that it consumes us and we have to make it
a part of ourselves We give our lives to it And once we finallyunderstand how to breathe life into these ideas and archetypes wehave had deep within our own mind’s eye, there is no better place to
be than in the space that is created when you’re animating
When you’re working on a piece, time drops away And it’s notlike working on a painting where the characters never move You’reworking on a “drawing” that lasts through time; you’re drawing infour dimensions Your characters evolve ever so slightly from thebeginning to the end of your scene, and they begin to breathe life oftheir own This only happens, however, when you know the simpleand complex mechanics of animation so well that they become apart of you; you don’t have to think about them and you can just letthe scene flow out through you
We, as computer animators, have a much bigger challenge thantraditional animators Sure, the computer takes care of perspectivefor us, and we don’t need an army of inbetweeners and digital inkand painters to see our work in the smoothness of animating on
“ones” (a new image on every frame) and the beauty of brilliantcolor But we do have issues and problems that traditional artistshave never had to think about I don’t think it’s ever been on recordthat a pencil has frozen or crashed and erased a stack of drawings
— a day’s work — because the animator forgot to save Traditionalanimators don’t also have to be “technical directors” and understandhow to build setups that let them be creative, rather than fightingthe computer every step of the way They don’t have to figure outwhy even though their character’s hand is still flat on the table, hisarm is now sticking straight out behind him More often than not,
we as computer animators have had to learn how to cope with all ofthis on our own, even if we did go to school for it
This book is here to give you the tools you need to stop fightingthe computer It is here to let you learn and internalize the thingsthat make animation come to life so your evolution as an animatorcan really begin This is only the first step, but it is a first step from
Trang 14the point of view of feature-quality animation, and that is what willmake all the difference in the world.
Yes, this book focuses on LightWave, and the sections on acter setup show step by step how to use LightWave’s InverseKinematics (IK) to build strong, dependable setups you can use forany character you envision But even if you are using another pack-age, if it supports a strong, dependable IK engine, the informationwill help you all the same The buttons may be different betweenpackages, but IK is still IK What separates 3D packages in terms ofthose that are good for character animation and those that aren’t isthe solidity of the package’s IK engine LightWave has one of thebest — quietly and without hype (If you are using another softwarepackage, I’d suggest trying LightWave; you might just be pleasantlysurprised I’ve used all the major packages on projects from featurefilms to video games, and I keep coming back to LightWave I’veamazed motion technical directors with how much more powerfulthe setups on LightWave can be than on packages costing manytimes more.)
char-Everything else in this book will be directly useful to youregardless of what 3D software you’re using (even if you’re animat-ing on paper)! Whether you are a traditional animator or computeranimator, you must first and foremost be a good animator Under-standing the mechanics of animation, both the simple and complex,should be your primary goal The computer provides the tools; youprovide the force that drives them
This book is broken down into sections Each section deals with adifferent aspect of the character setup and animation process Ifyou’re like most folks out there, you want to learn as much as youcan about all parts of this gig That’s great! This book will covereverything you need to know to take your model, set him up for ani-mation, learn the controls that make him move, and get him movinglike a character that should be on the big screen
If you’re only interested in one aspect of this process, that’sokay too! In today’s high-end studios people are highly specializedand oftentimes an animator won’t know anything about modelingand is happy to keep it that way If your focus is on learning to
Chapter 1: About This Book
Trang 15become a better animator, and that’s it, the latter sections will giveyou all you need to know There are scenes you can load that haveall your setups and props made for you so you can jump rightinto bettering your skills as an animator.
If you want to be a better technical director and you don’t reallysee yourself as having to ever animate a scene, the sections you’ll
be most interested in are the ones close to the front of the book.Pre-bending, boning, IK, and point weighting are all covered there.Then there are those who are already masters at one aspect butwant to get a handle on the others This is a really good idea
because then you’ll understand the issues those on the “other side”have to deal with, and if you’re a hot-shot animator, you’re muchmore likely to treat a TD with understanding if you know what ittakes to get that character set up the way it is, and vice versa Foryou folks (and the people new to LightWave from another package),there are two things you’ll want to keep your eyes open for: NewbieNotes and Newbie Blocks
Newbie Note:
Newbie notes are short little blips that give bits of information
that you might not be familiar with, things to watch out for,
and the like.
Newbie Blocks
These are longer sections that will help you to get up to speed if youknow Modeler but not Layout, or the other way around, or if you’renew to LightWave from another package Those of you who know how
to get around inside these modules can most likely skip right overthese blocks Newbie Blocks are here so you don’t have to break yourflow of concentration by turning to the LightWave manuals There’s noway for me to cover everything in these blocks, just the basics It’s myattempt to eliminate a bit of the frustration I remember trying to make
an origami model when the book left out some important step because
“everyone” was supposed to know it already
Trang 161.3 The Models
This book ships with a CD that has models and test scenes on it.You’re welcome to use the models for your own work; that’s whythey’re there! (Not everyone is a modeler, right?) But if you do useone or some of the models, please give credit to the guy who builtthem for ya Doesn’t have to be much, just a passing nod — that’sall I ask
So, there are a couple of human characters on the CD for you tostart creating character interaction There are also some cartoonycharacters for you to squash and stretch to your heart’s content.(There’s also a realistic animal, if you’re feeling daring I have to tellyou, though, quadrupedal animation is enough for a book untoitself.) Use these and have fun! Create some wonderful animationsthat’ll look fantastic on that demo reel of yours! The exercises inthe book will show you how!
Chapter 1: About This Book
Note:
Notes, on the other hand, are things that everyone should watch
for Notes are things that might help you right away, or they may
be things that you’ll keep in the back of your mind for a time later
on down the road They’re bits of information that I’ve picked up
along the way that will probably help you too.
Advanced Note:
Advanced notes are for the hard-core group These are for people who like to pull things apart to find out how they work These are
for the folks who aren’t satisfied with just using something that
works; they want to know how it works and how they can modify it
to suit their needs You know who you are and these notes are for you.
Trang 171.4 The Exercises
This book is full of exercises, from life drawing in 3D to analyzinganimation Please take the time to do every one There may bethings you’ve already encountered, especially in the chapter on thebasics of animation, but treat each exercise as though it were ascene you’ve been assigned that will eventually be reviewed by adirector (and his entourage) Never knowingly leave anything wrongwith your scene Even if it is something rudimentary, like havingyour character getting up out of a chair or swinging a baseball bat,give that scene feeling, let your character have a reason for being inthat chair at that moment, and let that reason show through in theaction Like Degas, show a moment in time Let it seem that yourcharacter existed before the scene began and will go on after thescene ends In treating each scene like this, your animation skillswill grow further and faster than you ever thought possible
It is my greatest wish that you’ll use this information to becomethe animator you’ve always wished you could be Though I cannotpromise to respond to every e-mail, if you have a movie of a scenethat you’re particularly proud of, pack it up as small as possible(and still have it readable) and send it my way (TimothyA@
ptiAlaska.net); I’d love to see it If I can, I’ll make comments on itand get them back to you Hopefully, in the not-too-distant future,I’ll be watching for your name in the credits of a cool animatedpiece!
Trang 18Chapter 2
Inverse Kinematics, Forward Kinematics, and IK Booster
What the heck is a “kinematic”? Why would anyone care whether it’s
“forward,” “backward,” or somewhere in between?
Kinematics refers to the study of mechanics concerned with
motion Where 3D animation is concerned, kinematics defines theway in which you manipulate a system of hierarchical (parent/child)items
Forward Kinematics (most often referred to simply as FK) is the “old
reliable” way of animating It is labor-intensive, but there are no prises — everything that’s in an animation must be put there, onpurpose, by the animator
sur-With FK, if you wanted to make the tip of the character’s
“forearm” reach the null object (represented as the “+” in Figure
Figure 2.1 Forward Kinematics Here, you see a hierarchical set of bones that could easily be
a character’s bicep, forearm, and hand.
Trang 192.1), you’d have to first rotate the bicep and then the forearm, ate how close you got to your objective, and then refine.
evalu-As you can see in Figure 2.1, the tip of the forearm overshootsthe null I’d have to go back and tweak the rotations of the bicep andforearm again and again (and probably again)
As you can see, there are no surprises in this kind of animation
— everything that’s done must be done on purpose by the animator,and as such, it is a painfully slow way to work all the myriad of
bones that make up a character’s rigging (skeleton).
Inverse Kinematics (IK) uses an exacting set of calculations to figure
precisely the rotations that need to be applied to each item within ahierarchical system in order to have the system strive to have itspuller remain in constant contact with its goal
ges-Figure 2.2 Inverse Kinematics.
Trang 20“Standard” IK Basics
I’m saying “standard” IK basics here because LightWave’s IKBooster is as much an advancement on IK as IK itself was on char-acter animation back in the early ’90s It’s important to know howstandard IK works and is set up because I’ve found IK Booster to beput to its best use when it supplements standard IK, giving you thebest of both ways of working
Chapter 2: Inverse Kinematics, Forward Kinematics, and IK Booster
Note:
Not all IK is created equal! IK requires very precise calculations in
order for it to workdependably In this, LightWave’s precision
floating-point mathematics engine, which keeps its calculations
accurate to many places to the right of the decimal point, makes
it one of the best packages for character animation.
Other software may have great salesmen, but LightWave has
it where it counts, “where the rubber meets the road.” Thanks to
LightWave’s robust IK, which is dependable and predictable in
every situation, I was able to do nearly ten times the
feature-quality animation per day as is expected from feature animators
using other packages.
Figure 2.3 IK in action, driving the positioning for a character’s arm.
Trang 21We’ll be driving our character’s motion with bones eventually,
so let’s use them to explore a standard IK setup Bones in Wave need to belong to an object, so we’ll need to first create a nullobject to which they’ll belong
Light-1 Click on Items|Add|Null, and a requester window opens up,
asking what you’d like to name your new null object Press
Enter (or click OK) to leave the null object’s name “Null.”
(See Figure 2.5.)
Note:
You may want to change your viewport layout to allow for multiple views on your project at once (as opposed to the single viewport that is LightWave Layout’s default) I find this helps me get a better handle on items’ true positions and rotations in 3D space.
Under Edit|Display Options, you’ll find the Viewport Layout ting I’ve experimented with a lot of options and have settled on 2 Top,
set-1 Bottom as my current favorite.
Make sure you have one of your viewports set to right by selecting Right (ZY) from the view’s View Type list (This will let us more easily work with the bones in this simple example.)
Figure 2.4
Trang 222 Click on Setup|Add|Bone, and a requester window opens,
asking for the name you’d like for your new bone Accept thedefault name of “Bone.”
Chapter 2: Inverse Kinematics, Forward Kinematics, and IK Booster
Figure 2.5
Note:
Null objects are one of the handiest little things in 3D CGI They are
“placeholders,” treated by LightWave with all the respect of a “real” object that has geometry, without taking up any memory or hard
drive space Null objects don’t show up in a render or cast shadows (and like vampires, don’t show up in reflective objects either).
Nulls are super-handy when you want to have a “handle” to
move a bunch of different objects, lights, and/or cameras at the
same time, and they’re perfectly suited for the job of being agoal object in an Inverse Kinematic system.
Figure 2.6
Trang 233 You can add a second bone that is automatically set to be thechild of the first, automatically positioned at the exact tip of
the first bone, by clicking Setup|Add|Child Bone (or by
pressing the <=> key) Again, a requester window opens,asking for a name for this new bone And again, accept the
default name of “Bone.” This new bone will be our puller for
“Bone (2)” in the Current Item list (and in Sche- matic views and Scene Editor windows) When there are two similar items with the same name in a scene, LightWave auto- matically adds temporary, sequential numbers to the similarly named items These numbers go away if/when you choose to rename the item (which you can do by choosing Rename from the menu that opens when right-clicking on the item in a Schematic view or Classic Scene Editor window, or by choosing Items|Replace|Rename).
Figure 2.8
Trang 244 Use Items|Add|Null to create another null object, but this time, name the null Goal This will become the goal object
(target) of our simple IK chain
Chapter 2: Inverse Kinematics, Forward Kinematics, and IK Booster
Figure 2.9
Note:
If you’re not yet familiar with animating in LightWave, a hint to make your life a lot easier is to have Layout automatically create keyframes for you whenever you move, scale, or rotate an item (as opposed to having to press Enter or click Create Key every time you want Layout to remember an item’s scaling, rotation, or translation on a particular frame —keyframe).
Figure 2.10
Trang 255 Working in a Right viewport, move the null object you’ve justcreated and named Goal up and to the left a bit as seen here.
Select Bone (2) by clicking on it (you’ll find it easiest to select
items by clicking on the item’s node in a viewport set to
Sche-matic) Pressing <m> (Window|Motion Options…) opens the Motion Options window for the selected item Select Goal
as the goal object for this bone, and check Full-time IK.
You activate Auto Key Create byfirst telling LightWave that you
want Auto Key active by making sure its button is activated at the tom of the screen.
bot-Then you need to tell LightWave whether you want keys created for
all channels (scaling, rotation, and translation), even when you have
modified only one of those channels, or if you want LightWave to
remember changes only for the specific channel type that has been modified.
You make this choice under Edit|General Options|Auto Key Create Both settings need to be active in order for LightWave’s Auto Key Create function to be active.
Figure 2.11