�Going Up?! 3rd floor- Home apparel, Women�s clothing,
Children�s toys and iClone3.�
In
this lesson, you will learn about alignment so that a character can get
on or off an elevator or any other moving surfaces that you can think
of� like escalators, conveyor walkways, or my personal favorite� magic
carpets!
With this lesson, we
can create the up and down movement for our elevator. Then, create the
link between the elevator and the character. Now your character can go
up and down with the elevator. But wait, how do we get off the
elevator!?
Set
another unlink to unlink your character so that the avatar will leave
the elevator when needed. So let�s get started�
Move Elevator Up and Down
Since
the elevator has the motion itself. We will now create the move types (Upshift
and Downshift) in Move Command to make the elevator move up and/or down.
Let's start with the elevator moving up. Add
Move Command from the command drop down list.
In the Move Template floater, select "UpShift"
from the Type drop down list and direction "Upward".
Type sets the hot key combinations for when you are moving the
elevator in Director Mode. You can then use the WASD to control the
elevator in iClone.
Now you have defined the direction of the
movement. It is time for you to define the speed for the command
in selection.
Max Speed: defines the maximum
move speed (cm/sec). Once the elevator has accelerated to the
maximum speed it
enters into constant condition mode. Then it continues to move
at the speed defined in Max Speed value. The object enters
decelerate mode when the object reaches to its
destination or when you release the hotkey.
Accelerate: The object enters the
selected mode when the speed is smaller than the MaxSpeed
definition. It keeps to accelerate until it reaches to the speed
defined in Max Speed.
Decelerate:
When the object is stopped given the move command, the object
will begin to slow from whatever its speed was to final stop.
The Decelerate speed will define how quickly the object can slow
to a stop.
So
we have set the up motion, let�s do the same for downward motion. Add another move command for the elevator to
move downward. Using the "DownShift" as the Type.
Then, select the direction "Downward". You may set the same
speed for the
Down move command. Here you go, you have an AML contains up and
down movements.
Control the Character
The
elevator is moving, but where is my character? Set Operate Commands for
the character to get in and out from the elevator. The following is a
short step by step process of how to set the character to interact with
the elevator.
Get into the Elevator
We
have to first tell our character to get on the elevator, or he is going
nowhere.
Create an Operate Command for the character
to get into the elevator. Rename the command "Into_The_Elevator".
Lock Operate:
When this command has been checked, when the selected command is
in progress it denies all other commands from interrupting. This
includes the Move Command hotkeys. The lock is only effective in
Director Mode, especially when you are using the hotkeys in
Director Mode.
HotKey:
In Operate Command, the hotkey (DefStart) allows you to
Ctrl + Click the iProp to start interact with the target iProp.
This is only active in iClone's Director Mode.
ActionRadius: via defining
ActionRadius in Operate Command you can ask the character to
move into the target spot from any angle.
By
just standing the character on the elevator platform is not enough.
We want the elevator to actually carry our character. Therefore, we
must link our character to the elevator. Create a link clip to the
Operate Command which links the character to the elevator. Once the
character is linked to the elevator, the avatar will move up and
down with the elevator while you control the elevator.
Target Type:
Choose Rider. Rider means the character that is linked to the
elevator. Since the character now is effectively linked to a
parent prop, the property of the character changes to Rider. �$�
stands for the root of the character. When the character is
linked to the elevator, no matter where the character is, the
elevators movements will affect the character. Once the Rider is
unlinked from the object, it becomes a normal character, be able
to walk out of the elevator and the movements will no longer
effect the character.
ParentType:
defines the parent to the target in the target type. Since the
character is linking to the elevator, then elevator would be the
parent of the character. Once the relationship is set between
the character and the elevator, then the character will be moved
with the elevator.
Get out of the Elevator
So far in this tutorial
we have made the character to get into the elevator and then ride up and
down. I already alluded to the fact that in order for the character to
�get off� the elevator, we must not forget an important step which is
unlink the character from the elevator.
Once a
character is linked to its Parent Prop, the character�s property becomes
Rider, so here we need to select Rider as the target type for Unlink
Clip. After we have unlinked the character from the parent elevator,
thus the actor can walk freely without being controlled by its parent
elevator.
Add an Operate Command for leaving the
elevator.
Leave the same settings as the first Operate Command.
Create an Unlink Clip for the selected command. Once a
character is linked to its Parent Prop, the character�s property
becomes Rider, so here we need to select Rider as the target type
for Unlink Clip. Select "Rider" as the Target Type.
Rider defines the target type that the
character is linking to a certain iProp. So the iProp is the
parent to the character.
Now
you can link or unlink your avatars to any prop and then have your
avatar affected by that prop�s motion giving the effect of the avatar
riding that prop. Just remember, after your character gets off
something, you must also unlink him or he will keep on being affected by
the motions of that prop.
