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Professional CAD/CAM tools built on Inventor and AutoCAD
Integrated BIM tools, including Revit, AutoCAD, and Civil 3D
Professional CAD/CAM tools built on Inventor and AutoCAD
Mirror the skeleton to create the opposite side, resulting in a complete bipedal model.
Type:
Tutorial
Length:
3 min.
Transcript
00:03
Mayer has a handy tool which will copy one side
00:06
of the skeleton over to the other side for us,
00:09
go to skeleton,
00:11
mirror joints and open the options.
00:14
If we select the clavicle,
00:16
you can see we added underscore L to the end of its name.
00:20
So we know this is on the left side of the skeleton.
00:24
What we can do with the mirror joints,
00:25
tool is tell it to also rename the joints it creates for us.
00:30
So here we have search for set to underscore L
00:34
and replace with set to underscore R
00:38
mirror cross tells mayor which plane to work with.
00:41
So here it's set to YZ. So it's going to mirror across the X axis.
00:46
You need to imagine the Y and Z axes are forming a wall.
00:50
So the reflection will be on the opposite side of that wall.
00:54
We also want the mirror function set to behavior,
00:57
but we will look more into that option shortly
01:00
if we apply that. Now
01:02
you see we have the right arm,
01:05
if I select the arms and rotate them,
01:09
you will see that the arm's movement is mirrored too.
01:12
So when the left arm flaps the right arm flaps too.
01:17
This is a much better set up for the animator
01:18
because it means both sides animate the same way.
01:22
It also means you can copy animation from one side to the other.
01:26
Let's undo that and see what happens if we choose orientation instead.
01:39
Now the arms are moving the same way which can be good in some instances.
01:43
But for the animators, it would mean more work.
01:46
Let's add the arm back
01:49
and we will do the same with the leg.
01:54
You will also see that the joint names have been updated too.
01:58
So they have underscore R on the end,
02:01
there's one more joint, we need to mirror and that's the eye.
02:05
We don't need to use a mirror joint tool though
02:07
simply because we want to maintain the same orientation.
02:11
If we do use it,
02:13
you see the orientation is flipped.
02:16
Whereas ideally we want both eyes to work the same way.
02:21
OK, let's undo that
02:25
and just duplicate this eye
02:28
because a joint's translate values are based on its distance from its parents.
02:32
We can simply invert the translate X value to move the eye across.
02:37
This will place it in exactly the right place.
02:41
If I set this to just be a minus number,
02:45
the eye moves across and maintains the same orientation,
02:49
all we need to do now is update the name.
02:53
OK. That's the orientations updated.
02:57
So let's hide the rotational axes. Now
03:01
select the hierarchy first.
03:05
Now go to display transform, display local rotational axis.
03:10
There we go.
03:12
Our base skeleton is looking much better now
03:14
and each joint will also rotate correctly too.
Video transcript
00:03
Mayer has a handy tool which will copy one side
00:06
of the skeleton over to the other side for us,
00:09
go to skeleton,
00:11
mirror joints and open the options.
00:14
If we select the clavicle,
00:16
you can see we added underscore L to the end of its name.
00:20
So we know this is on the left side of the skeleton.
00:24
What we can do with the mirror joints,
00:25
tool is tell it to also rename the joints it creates for us.
00:30
So here we have search for set to underscore L
00:34
and replace with set to underscore R
00:38
mirror cross tells mayor which plane to work with.
00:41
So here it's set to YZ. So it's going to mirror across the X axis.
00:46
You need to imagine the Y and Z axes are forming a wall.
00:50
So the reflection will be on the opposite side of that wall.
00:54
We also want the mirror function set to behavior,
00:57
but we will look more into that option shortly
01:00
if we apply that. Now
01:02
you see we have the right arm,
01:05
if I select the arms and rotate them,
01:09
you will see that the arm's movement is mirrored too.
01:12
So when the left arm flaps the right arm flaps too.
01:17
This is a much better set up for the animator
01:18
because it means both sides animate the same way.
01:22
It also means you can copy animation from one side to the other.
01:26
Let's undo that and see what happens if we choose orientation instead.
01:39
Now the arms are moving the same way which can be good in some instances.
01:43
But for the animators, it would mean more work.
01:46
Let's add the arm back
01:49
and we will do the same with the leg.
01:54
You will also see that the joint names have been updated too.
01:58
So they have underscore R on the end,
02:01
there's one more joint, we need to mirror and that's the eye.
02:05
We don't need to use a mirror joint tool though
02:07
simply because we want to maintain the same orientation.
02:11
If we do use it,
02:13
you see the orientation is flipped.
02:16
Whereas ideally we want both eyes to work the same way.
02:21
OK, let's undo that
02:25
and just duplicate this eye
02:28
because a joint's translate values are based on its distance from its parents.
02:32
We can simply invert the translate X value to move the eye across.
02:37
This will place it in exactly the right place.
02:41
If I set this to just be a minus number,
02:45
the eye moves across and maintains the same orientation,
02:49
all we need to do now is update the name.
02:53
OK. That's the orientations updated.
02:57
So let's hide the rotational axes. Now
03:01
select the hierarchy first.
03:05
Now go to display transform, display local rotational axis.
03:10
There we go.
03:12
Our base skeleton is looking much better now
03:14
and each joint will also rotate correctly too.
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