Ball Toss - Part 3: Create a Motion in MikuMikuDance to Toss the Ball Accessory that we made using Google SketchUp and the 3D-RAD Plugin.

These next steps position the model as she gently tosses the ball up and down.

Before starting ... you should have the PREVIOUS steps completed to the point where your animation has the ball's motion saved ... and when you click Play you see:

Here we go:

We will be chasing the ball's Dummy Bone ... placing our hand around the ball at each of the ball's registered frames.

Move to Frame Zero and spend some time getting the model's grip on the ball exactly where you want it. You may find that you will want to move the model's right shoulder, arm, elbow, wrist and the fingers to get it "just right".

Here are two views of my Frame Zero position:





Advance the Frame Counter to the next frame where the ball's Dummy Bone is registered ... FRAME 3 ... and adjust arm, elbow, and wrist as necessary to stay with the ball.




Now advance the Frame Counter to FRAME 6 and, again, adjust the model as necessary. You may find that moving the Upper Body will give you some added arm length.




In FRAME 9 ... the ball should be airborne.:



In FRAME 15 you catch the ball. Move the hand into position to be under the ball:



FRAME 17 ... stay with the ball:



FRAME 22 is the end of the motion. See if you can copy the Frame Zero data into this Frame 20 so that this frame is exactly the same as Frame Zero.



NOW ... when you click PLAY ... you should see this:

In the Next Step we will be tossing the ball at Miku!

Here we will create this motion:

But First, you will need to have completed the animation as shown in the previous lesson.

This exercise is fun. We get to adjust the model as we chase the ball's motion

I spent some time getting the model to hold the ball realistically. Position the arm, elbow, wrist, and fingers as necessary. I used one of my standard hand pose files, RH_RelaxOpenRD, to give me a head start on the hand's position. You can download all of my hand poses HERE.

When you are happy with your FRAME ZERO, we are ready to move on.

Advance to FRAME 3 and move the arm and elbow to place the hand on the ball. Move the wrist if necessary ... and you can also move the Upper Body to add/subtract length/reach of the arms.

The next hard point is FRAME 6 ... make it look good.

Now we wait while the ball flies high ... and we move on to FRAME 15 to position the hand for the "catch".

FRAME 17 ... stay with the ball.

FRAME 22 is the end of the motion. I wanted to make  Frame 22 be in the same position as Frame Zero so that a Repeated play has a smooth transition from Frame 22 to Frame Zero. So ... move the Frame Counter to Frame Zero. Click any diamond to make it red ... and click V-Sel (Vertical Select) to make the whole column red. Click COPY. Advance the Frame Counter to Frame 22 and click PASTE to put that data into Frame 22.

Click PLAY and you should have this nice motion:

In the next page we will set up a complete animation that tosses the ball at Miku!

See you there!