(I know Vermeer is gonna kick my arse badly!! Wink )
Not really :p
I could advice to use wings better for the modelling side of things, but Blender is also good to go for that (not as good :p )
And anyway, you went accurate with the drawing reference, so, that's the good road. Next time to a more complex model , hehe. No, really I know youjust wanna practice rigging/anim. And btw, surely that sort of puppets is the pet kind you may be required to do from time to time for a video promo or intro at your company job. I think u did one in the past, if i remember well. But you were in the good side, modelling in wings
I know is only a first test attempt. Just two following steps in animation : move the torso, is natural some bouncing in walk, the torso if moves, removes the idea of body glued to some "air" point. Also, use constraints to empties (for example, there are other methods) to use this empties as "anclas" (spanish word) so that your feet stay glued to ground.(ik solver targets stuff) That way you move the whole armature without loosing feet position/rotation...
have a look again at the ring sample you downloaded from me of that worm for the ben's x exporter tests of 2.41. It's all there. The empties, the knees controlers. You can look at how constraints are set.Also, how skeleton is built.
A *very* basic sample, but drag the root, and see what I meant.
Indeed, for some reason , this important detail is not mentioned in usual tuts.. also, ghosting visual aid (you see in faded last frame/s silohuette) is of a very big help in other packages(but NOT enough to leave the foot/feet really glued to ground! )..I haven't checked much the new features, but I know they are in, and have had a taste of them.
You will also wish to add some knee orientation constraint, as once you added the empties as ik solver consraints fo rthe 2 bones leg chains, you'll wish to limit crazy rotation of legs (roll).Probably avoided wih the new limit axes feature for ik, and the lock axes. It's rapidly explained in the woman animation tutorial of the webs tuts you posted yesterday.
To be sincere I haven't played much with the new limiting option, but in other packages like XSI, is really good to have.
A good rig, in whatever the package, tends to accumulate loads of controllers and helpers, the idea is to force the character be easier to handle and faster, as when long frames animation, this becomes a must. Anyway, sometimes this rigs disallow control of other sort. I prefer the solutions where u can both IK and FK at any moment. IE, at jobs I tend to use character Studio or something superior (there are) , as is faster to handle with a tigh deadline. Anyway, I've handled XSI, blender, and max standard bones rigs, that are close to perfection, done in weeks even by good animators. I'm more of the practical/fast kind in that area, I get bored of polishing it, and finally just do a rig that works for essential stuff
You know, I'm a bit opposite to Blender's old ways of doing. I only do it the hard way if really really I need it.
