This animation was challenging in that after opening the window we wanted the character to vault or climb through the window. I opted to try a vault which I believe turned out well with the limitations of the rig.
As with all the previous animations, I started with the Idle pose. This is to give me a good base so when we come to assemble the animation in the trax editor, it can blend nicely between animations.
From the start pose, I needed the characters hand to slide under the window and pull the frame up. To do this I simply keyed the hands under the frame and set the keyframe tangent to Automatic to let the transition be smooth. I then keyed the curling of the fingers to more of a grip instead of open palm to add the effect of grabbing the frame.
From the start pose, I needed the characters hand to slide under the window and pull the frame up. To do this I simply keyed the hands under the frame and set the keyframe tangent to Automatic to let the transition be smooth. I then keyed the curling of the fingers to more of a grip instead of open palm to add the effect of grabbing the frame.
Next was the actual sliding of the window frame. For this I keyed the window opening at the speed I wanted and then placed the hands underneath the window frame when it had reached the top. This was done on the same frame as the window frame animation stopping. Automatic tangent meant the start and finish of these frames was smoothed meaning they were out of time with the movement of the window. To fix this issue I simply selected the frames of the hands and set it to a linear tangent meaning the animation was now constant between the frames.
This is where the animation became tricky. I needed him to grasp onto the bottom of the window sill and the side of the window frame before raising himself onto the window sill and through the window, essentially vaulting through the window.
I started this process by keying in the hands sitting where I needed them for the vault. However I found that the hands wouldn't rotate correctly as it was simply taking the quickest route to that location instead of thinking if it was accurate. Since the wrist wouldn't bend normally the way it wanted, I had to key it rotating its way back to the location. This fixed the issue but made the animation slightly more jagged.
I started this process by keying in the hands sitting where I needed them for the vault. However I found that the hands wouldn't rotate correctly as it was simply taking the quickest route to that location instead of thinking if it was accurate. Since the wrist wouldn't bend normally the way it wanted, I had to key it rotating its way back to the location. This fixed the issue but made the animation slightly more jagged.
After this I raised the foot onto the window sill so he was ready to vault through. I tilted his foot slightly as it would be slightly difficult to place your foot directly flat on the sill and to negate any clipping issues with the rest of the mesh.
Next, I took the hand from the side of the frame and moved it through the window as he was using it to balance himself. I also moved the head down so he could duck under the window frame. As with the jumping animation, this made the hands move out of position therefore needed relocating and re-keyed.
At this point, I needed the other leg to go through the window so I moved the foot to rest on the sill to still give the character some balance then bring it through with the rest of the body to come back into the sneak walk/idle starting pose so that Trax Editor blending can be done easier.