Footwork Study (Page 3)

Chad Okamoto, Cislunar's graphic artist and animator created a new and more realistic skeleton from the hips down. All major leg muscles were added to the skeleton - from the knee to the ankle. Each muscle was drawn in a different color to make the muscles easier to see. The muscles were given a flexing motion.

We have included links to 6 movies of the 3D model constructed of the lower leg muscles and skeleton. Next to the link is the file size. The larger files take about a minute and a half on an ISDN line to download. You might want to download and save the files on your computer and use them with your computer's movie player software. The motion will look smoother on your own computer versus the web, set your movie player to "play all frames" and you can use the "loop" feature on your movie player to repeat the motion. If you view the movie from the web try using the "frame by frame" feature on the movie player to make sure you get all the frames.

Foot Flex Movie 395K
Foot Flex Movie 1.4MG
Foot Flexing Will Become An Unweighting Motion From The Ready Position

Heard the expression, "learn to walk before you run". We did the same with our model. Initially, Chad had the model stand on its toes. This foot flex was a precursor to the "unweighting" motion from the ready position in tennis. Next Chad applied a walking motion to the model. Even the kneecap slides over the other leg bones when bending - you can see this in the walking simulation.

Model Spins Movie 372K
Model Spins Movie 1.3MG
Model Can Be Spun Around And Viewed From Any Position

Walking Movie 378K
Walking Movie 1.4MG
Walking - Kneecap Moves Over Other Bones

Keep in mind that this is a 3D model versus 2D animations. In 2D animation you draw (or have the software draw) the different frames of the animation. In 2D animation when your character needs to turn from back to front, you must draw the character's back and front. Unlike the 2D animation, we only have to build the 3D model once. If we need to see the back of the character, the 3D model is turned so that you can see its back. Instead of drawing the character's action, different motion files can be applied to the 3D model. It's more like a computer marionette. The marionette is a 3D computer generated model and different motions are choreographed for the model to perform.