Creating the Tentacle animation
Go into the side view and create a curve
Rebuild the curve with more CV¡¯s, about 30 will do.
Next create a nurbs circle to the thickness you want your Tentacle to be.
Select the circle then the curve and extrude a surface using the following settings:
Tube
At Path
Component
Profile Normal
Next Duplicate the V curves and hide the extruded surface.
Select the curves and Loft them.
Ok now for the cool part, the Procedural animation.
With the Curves still selected scroll the time slider to where you want the Tentacle to be extended, go into the Inputs in the Channel Box and open the curvesFromSurface----, then right click on the name "Isoparm Value" and create a Keyframe with key selected.
Next scroll back in the time slider to where you wish the animation to begin.
Play back the results.
Congratulations, you now have the created the basic Tentacle animation.
Stage 2:
Creating the grasping Claw with Subdivision sufraces
Create a Polygon cube then go into "Subdiv Surfaces" then "Create Subdiv", you will notice that the cube turns into a sphere. Now right click over the sphere and select Polygon Mode from the popup menu, this creates an outline of the original cube shape.
Now right click again over the sphere and select "Faces" then select the top and bottom faces, in the Polygons menu select the Extrude Face
.
Pull up the Transform Handles in the Z direction then select the scale box above it to put the tool in scale mode, select the centre scale box, this allows you to scale in all directions and slide your mouse to the left shrink it down.
Then keep scaling and moving faces until your happy with your Claw shape.
Then keep scaling and moving faces until your happy with your Claw shape.
The next step is to Group the hammer, then press the Insert key on your keyboard and move the Claw¡¯s Group and the Claw¡¯s pivot points to the base of the hammer where you want it to hinge.
Then duplicate it three times.
The reason you group the hammer is to create a separate Transform Node to attach each hammer to the leading nurbs circle, we will do this now.
Select the group node of the first claw and the last circle in the loft, press F2 to get to the Animation menu set ¨C Animate ¨C Paths ¨C Attach to Path make sure the following parameters are set:
Time Range = Start.
Follow = On.
Front Axis = X.
Up Axis = Z.
World Up Type = Normal.
Inverse Front = On.
Select the Claw then in the Channel Box ¨C Inputs ¨C motionPath1.
Change the
U Value = .3
And Key frame it, then select the Cube1 child object, rotate it to get an open claw look and Keyframe the position (rotate -120 in the X direction).
You might have to move the pivot to the base of the Claw if you missed this step.
Select the last curve and cap it with a Planar surface
Now it¡¯s just a matter of Keyframing the rotation of the Claw.
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