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[edit] PART IX - THE ARMATURE SYSTEM

As we have seen in Your First Animation in 30 + 30 Minutes Part II Blender uses Armatures for character animation. An armature, once parented to our character mesh, is just like a skeleton which will let us define a number of poses for our character along the timeline of our animation. An armature is made up of an arbitrary number of bones. The size, position and orientation of every bone in your armature is up to you, and you will find through this chapter that different situations will require a particular arrangement of bones for your character to work properly.

As you animate your armature you will find that it is better to organize several related poses in something called an action, which is more or less the same as in the real world. When we walk, we can imagine ourselves passing through several instantaneous poses as if we were in the frames of a moving picture, the whole process of the walk is an action in the end.

But there are actions and actions. As an animator you will need to acquire the capability of knowing how to split any natural movement or action into several simpler actions that will be easier to deal with. Working with simpler actions commonly saves time and work (and why not: money!) since these actions are usually reusable.

Once you have set-up your first actions you will be able to combine them using Blender's powerful Non Linear Animation (or NLA) editor, giving your character a living mood and natural manners.

In this chapter we will cover every single detail of Blender's functionalities related to Armatures, Actions and the NLA Editor. Furthermore we will see several armature set-ups that will give you a starting point for your own creations and ideas. Relax and enjoy.

就如我们在称为在 30+30分钟学会你的第一个动画的那一章中的Rigging那一节中看到的那样，Blender使用甲胄做个性动画。甲胄正如骨骼那样,是我们的角色网孔（Mesh）的父辈，可以用来定义我们的角色在动画时间线上的一系列姿势。

一个甲胄由任意数目的骨骼组成。每块骨骼的大小,位置和定向都由你来决定甲胄中是由你决定,而且通过这一章，你会发现：不同的情形将会需要不同数目的骨骼，这样你的角色才会正常的工作。

当你使你的甲胄生成动画时，你将会发现最好一些相关的姿势组织成一个动作，这和现实世界大致上是相同的。 当我们走路的时候, 我们可以想像我们自己的一些即时的姿势，就好像我们是在动画里面的一些帧里，整个走路的过程总的来说就是一个动作。 但是这里有好多动作， 作为一个动画作者，你应该有把自然移动和动作拆分成更易处理的子动作的能力。 处理简单动作一般能够节省时间和工作 ( 为什么不呢:因为钱!) 而且这些动作通常是可以重用的。

你一旦设定了你的第一个动作，你就能够使用Blender强有力的非线性动画(或NLA)编辑器来给你的角色生成活动的基调和自然动作。 在这个章节里我们将涉及到Blender甲胄、动作和NLA 编辑器相关功能的每一个细节。再者我们看将给你一个自己的创作的开始起点。放松，享用吧。

[edit] Chapters

• The Armature Object 骨骼物体
• FK, IK and other Constraints
• Skinning 蒙皮
• Posemode
• The Action Window
• Non Linear Animation 非线性动画
• Rigging examples

Redirects to fix

• Manual/PartI/Your First Animation in 30 plus 30 Minutes Part II → Manual/Your First Animation in 30 plus 30 Minutes Part II
• Manual/PartVIII → Manual/Animation/Deformations
• Manual/PartX → Manual/Effects and Physical Simulation