I’m about to start the final project for my masters degree at uni. I’ve decided to make a robotic sci-fi wolf (mixed with a tribal theme to give it some style). My intention is to make it fully actuated and realistic- no magically moving joints. I’ve identified a few gaps in my knowledge, I was wondering if anyone can answer any of these questions or come up with some cool creative solutions:
Where is the pivot point on the scapula? My best guess is the direct center.
Does the scapula translate like a humans does, or is it just rotation? How much translation/rotation?
3)Is the scapula affected by leg abduction/adduction? (Yep, I’m obsessed with the scapula!)
4)Does anyone know of a decent mechanical solution for a ball/socket joint? Simply doing a ball and socket tends to look a bit cheap and unstable. In a previous project I made a mechanical ball/socket joint by splitting it into three single axis joints, is this the best way to go?
5)Any ideas for mechanical solutions to the tail? I guess it could be done with a series of ball/sockets, but again that would look cheap.
Also, if anyone has any experience rigging/animating quadrupeds in general and knows any common mistakes or features which are really useful to have I would love to hear your advice.
the scapula of a dog is separate from the rest of the skeleton and does not attach like a human skeleton,
its entirely suspended by muscles (this absorb the shock while galloping)
for full rotation joints you could go for couplings (thompson coupling) or just simple universal joints, but they will always need secondary support to make the rotation work and stable (look at videos from darpa or boston dynamics although they tend to skip the entire balljoint setups in wrists and ankles and just go for stumps)
also for the tail it might be best to check on real robot examples
also make sure that the femur and the metatarsus are always parallel (but give an option for animators to change this
That video is perfect- it even shows the skeleton in motion at the end so it’ll help loads with the design. :D: I’ll do some research on those mechanical joints you mentioned too, nice one.
When you say that the femur and metatarsus are always parralel, do you mean from a side view of the animal when it is running etc? (Presumably this would be done by fiddling with preffered angles on IK chains, right?)
cool, i’ll take a note of it so I don’t forget when I move on to the development stage. After looking at a lot of reference I can see what you mean- it’s almost always completely aligned. I never would have noticed that by myself, nice one!
