Scene 1 - Golfer Hitting Ball

The first scene of my part of the animation was to have the Golfer standing on the golf green and putting his ball towards the golf hole. I started off by creating the scene for the animation. This meant placing the green in the correct position, adding the golf club and golf ball to the scene. I also added extra grass in the background along with the Golf Stand for the crowd. I then added the model of the man that had been created.

Scene photo

The next step was to place the man, golf club and golf ball in the positions that I desired. I then started manipulating the bones and therefore the skin to move the man into a position that a golfer would hold to take the shot. I then moved the golf club to sit neatly in the two hands of the golfer ready to then swing.

I then used the "Select and Link" tool to attach the golf club to the golfers hand. I had used this technique last year but was still not totally satisfied with how it worked completely so this was quite tough t set up. This meant that when I moved my hand, it would move the golf club in relative motions. I now needed to bend the neck over so that the golfer was looking at the ball like a professional would do.

I spent some time manipulating the individual fingers so that they wrapped around the club to make it look more realistic of him holding the club.

Linked fingers

I was now ready to start animating the golfer. I turned on AutoKey so that 3dsMax created keyframes for me. This meant that I could place the putter in the position at the end of the back swing. I moved the shoulders and arms of the golfer so that they were in correct position for the golf swing.

I used this same method for the next two keyframes where the club made contact with the ball and the reaction after the connection was made. I manipulated the bones of the golfer to make it look realistic for each part of the swing and took the timing of the swing into consideration.

I had to edit the position of the shoulders during the swing because a golfer rotates their shoulders. This was quite difficult because it would affect the hands and arms. I went through the key parts of the animation to ensure that it looked realistic.

The final part of the animation was to animate the head. As the golfer completed his forward swing, I wanted the golfer to lift his head and follow the ball as it went towards the hole. This was quite simple because it was just a simple rotation of the head that I had already moved into position.

Backswing

Contact

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