CREATION OF CONTROLS AND EXPRESSIONS.

We'll try at this point to create a few expressions to facilitate the animator in the animation process.
We'll add some controls to automate the walking process by keeping the walker in balance while moving the feet, so the only thing we'll have to hand animate will be the feet locators.

We create now new channels that will help us to control our animation better,
We select the ik root joint and then CTRL-A (or Window > Attribute editor) to open the attribute editor.
>From the Attribute editor menu we choose Add > Add attribute.
What we are going make is to add a channel beside to " translate usual " x, translate y... etc... We add the channels we'll need to manipulate the expressions:
We'll write an expression that will keep the cockpit centered between the two feet. But we need control to vary the balance so the walker can walk higher or lower, or loose balance when it gets hit. With these channels we will be able to go change the behavior of the expression...
In the Add attribute window, we give a name to our new attribute, like ahead, and we give the correct range (from -10 to +10, float, with 0 as default, for example).
When we press the Add key, in the channel box will appear our new channel...
These are the channels we're going to add:
Ahead
Rise




Now, before going ahead, we clean up our object's channels that we are not going to use in the animation. The less channels we can work with, the less errors we can make... the better will be our animation.
We choose menu Windows > General editors > Channel Control.
We select here on the left side all the channels that we want to remove from the channel box and press the Move>> key;
Remind that we are not deleting channels for the object, we're simply hiding them from the channel box. We can make them reappear whenever we like.



Let's work on the first expression, to keep the cockpit balanced always at the center of the feet.
but first, let's find a common way of naming things.(actually it is a good idea to do this at the beginning...)

Locator for the right foot: Rtfoot
Locator for the left foot: Ltfoot
cockpit ik joint: Body


This is what the expressions should look like:


Body.tz = (Ltfoot.tz + Rtfoot.tz)/2;

Translation along the body's Z axis is equal to the sum of the tz of the two feet, divided by 2.

This is too simple. let's then add a new variable, Ahead. This is how the new expression should look like:

Body.tz = (Ltfoot.tz + Rtfoot.tz)/2 + Body.Ahead;

We can now easily keyframe the value of Ahead, which we find in the channel box, to make the cockpit lean forwards or backwards.





Now let's keep the cockpit centered we the robot raises its foot.

Body.ty = (Ltfoot.ty + Rtfoot.ty)/2 + Body.Rise;

Also in this case, increasing the value of the Body.Rise channel will give a higher or a lower attitude to the walker's walk...



Ours supermegaRobot is now ready...
It walks, aims the guns...
But still needs something to be made...
Remember, we're still working with the low rez model. You can't think to compete with ILM if you have a walker that's less than 2 gigabytes in your hard drive.
We, in order to try to make competition the ILM have need of a robot at least 2 giga on disc...
So you can start working at the new superdetailed head model as we explain you how to relate it to the low rez model we've done.




This is a very hard step.
a. you put the hr head exactly where the lr head is
b. you parent the hr head to the the by selecting them and press the key P....
Now you just have to hide the head you don't need and that's it....



Just remember to sent us the picture of you and George Lucas having a cup of coffee together.....