This is an overview to properly setting up and animating a humanoid character walk cycle.

1. The first step is to adjust the pivot points of your character.
   Use the following diagram as a reference. (The green dots represent the pivot points)
   
   


2. The next step is to set up your humanoid’s hierarchy.
   Use the following diagram as a reference. (Arrows indicate Parent/Child structure)
   
   


3. The final step is to animate the humanoid walking. Using the following diagram as a reference, position your humanoid as shown, at the specified frames on the timeline (Be sure to depress the animate button first).
   
   The walk cycle setup should be done in the Left and/or Right viewports only.
   The only items you will need to animate your humanoid are the Hierarchy window and the Rotation trackball. The Move tool will only be used to animate the pelvis (aka: entire humanoid figure) of your character up and down – as the red lines show.
   

Give it a shot and feel free to submit your walk cycle to submittals@erain.com

Check out the Run Cycle Animation Overview here.

Cheers!

Last week I got my first build of Swift 3D V4 for the Mac installed on my machine. Several builds later, V4 is looking really nice (way to go Jeff!) and we will soon be launching the beta. Beta will hopefully be short, as it will simply be a bug finding mission since all the functionality was worked out during the Windows lengthy beta.

Will keep everyone informed as we progress towards getting Swift 3D V4 out there for our Mac customers to enjoy too.

Congrats to Futaba Hayashi! You're a proud new iPod owner. How ironic is it that Futaba is from the Big APPLE, NYC?

For the rest of you that receive our monthly newsletter, don't give up hope. You're still in the game.

Ever wanted to get that realistic smooth motion with your objects. Well, thanks to the "Animation Path Mode" you can adjust the easing of your objects Position. By adjusting your animation path keyframes and setting them to Corner, Tangent or Curve you will find that easing (and various types of easing) on the position property of your objects is possible.

Follow the diagram below for further explanation:

We have an open invitation to all of our customers to submit their work to be considered as a Swift 3D case study, and man do we get some gems. The most recent one was a video by Pure Water Technology that's about as real-world as you can get. If anyone else has something they think fits the bill to be a case stuy in the future, please drop us a link.

For all you folks who have received your coveted Swift 3D V4 boxes, you'll understand the signifigance of this press release. And for all you who have yet to gaze upon that shiny nugget of goodness, well... I guess you'll get it too. So much for my "I'm part of the cool club" angle. Here's an excerpt:

“The Swift 3D V4 Box offers ground-breaking advancements in the technology of software containment, merging high-end, minimalist design with cutting edge metallic materials only recently de-classified from the United States space program. When we heard about this new metallurgical substance we just had to produce some software that would fit well inside. I give our engineers a ton of credit for producing an application that really highlights this fantastic new box."

Read Full Press Release

...for a chuckle.

Come check out the Swift 3D v4 User Showcase, where Swift 3D v4 users show off their stunning work and provide the source files for everyone to download and deconstruct. Get some inside tips from “The best of the best” in the Swift 3D world:)

Swift 3D v4 User Showcase

Are you good at tracing images? Pshhhh, c'mon, everyone is!
I ran across this website the other day. This site has a massive collection of blueprints on cars, planes, humans, etc. Having these kind of references are very valuable for modeling because you can set up your scene to allow you to essentially trace your 3D model into exsistance.

(www.OnnoVanBraam.com)

Top

Side

Front

With these images, you can create a series of planes that line up on the x, y and z axes of your scene and place the images above, on the planes in your scene and your results will be as shown in the image below:

From this point, you can model however you want using the blueprints as a tracing guide.

Here are the steps to set up your scene with blueprints:

1. Click on Setup > Materials.
2. Select a Category from the list on the left side and then click on Add Material.
3. Type in a Display Name.
4. From the Pattern drop down list under the Color area, scroll down to the very end and choose Bitmap Image (the blueprint).
5. Navigate to the bitmap image you would like to import and click Open. A preview of your bitmap image will appear in the Color area.
6. Click OK to close down the dialogs.
7. Go to the Material Gallery in the bottom right of the interface, click on the tab with the category name you saved the blueprint to, and you should see your blueprint.
8. Insert a plane primitive into the Viewport.
9. Drag and drop the blueprint from the material gallery to the plane.
10. Position the plane as needed to use it as a guide for modeling.

Cheers everyone!

For those of you out there that are afraid to push the sign-up button for our Rainstorm newsletter, I just want to remind you that SOMEONE will be winning that iPod mini giveaway next week. Your chances are just as good as everyone else...unless you continue to procrastinate.

I'm growing tired of seeing it in Ed Wunsch's office and wishing it was mine, so sign-up and take me out of my misery!

As always, we respect people's privacy and will never rent or sell your email address.

In another stunning display of altruism, one of our star Swift 3D users has formulated a detailed response to the popular question of "How do you animate characters in Swift 3D?" Mark Rush (a.k.a. RUSHVision) points out some best practives and some technical tips that are sure to help out us commonfolk in the world of modeling and animation. Rush's tips are also strewn throughout the Advanced Modeler Tips document that may be of use to anyone new to V4.