1. Let's create a wing that resembles the wing of a bat. The polygonal object will contain bones. Wing.lwo is the example included here.
2. Animate the wing unfolding through the use of a goal null and inverse kinematics. Wing.lws is the example provided.
3. The deformation of the wing object by the "magnetic field" effect of the bones cannot be loaded directly into Motion Designer, unlike the keyframe deformations of earlier objects in previous tutorials. Thus, we must use the MD_Scan displacement plug-in to convert such motions into MDD data. This plug-in takes all of the object's positional data throughout the animation and places it into a file that can be used by MD. To use the plug-in, first select the wing object (wing.lwo) on the Object properties panel and load MD_Scan under the Add Displacement pull-down menu. Select the right arrow button to specify the MDD file name (though you can do this later). Next, set First Frame to 0, Last Frame to 60 and Frame Rate to 1. Click OK on the panel and then click on OK on the second pop-up panel to tell the plug-in to start scanning.
4. MD_Scan does the opposite of MD_Plug; that is, it records the object's overall shape at every frame. Make a preview and end it when it is done. Now you must confirm the name of the MDD data with MD_Scan by opening up the MD_Scan panel again. You may now rename the .mdd file if you like by clicking on the right arrow button. Once you are happy with the name, click on OK to save the data. Wing.mdd is the example given.
5. Open up LW_MotionDesigner by clicking on the Plug-in Options button under the Extras tab in Layout and selecting it from the Generics pull-down menu. Select the wing
object (wing.lwo) from the Object panel, and switch the Target ON by clicking on "Target".
6. Load the MDD file you have just created by clicking on the "MDDFileName" area in the window.
After selecting the appropriate file, hit Enter.
7. Set the parameters
required for each surface on the Surface panel. Set Fixed to ON for
the bone section (bone) and set a value of 100 for Spring (the spring
coefficient) of the cloth section (the wing).
8. Set the wind and gravity setting on the Env panel to zero. The scene file of the settings
from 5 to 8 above is mdc06.lws. By loading this scene and executing
LW_MotionDesigner, all of these settings will automatically be in place.
9. In Motion Designer, hit "Start" to perform the calculation. If you are satisfied with the result, save the data to the .mdd file. Specify the filename by SAVE MDD button and save the data. Wx.mdd is the example given.
10. Go back to Layout and open the Object properties panel of the wing object. On the Displacement-map plug-in window, remove MD_Scan and select MD_Plug and then load the saved file.
11. Manipulating the time slider should open the wing. Now render as you desire.
This is the animation of only the effects of the bones before
the MD is applied.
After the MD is applied, the
polygons are triangulated and rendered. The wing moves against
the wind. However, since the polygons are rough, they do not look
very good when enlarged.
After MD is applied, smoothing
was implemented by SubPatching. Mdc06m.lws is the example for the final scene.