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  • Published 17 Feb 2022

"Center of Mass" overlay, motion path, and snap

The center of mass is a crucial concept for smooth and believable animations. Many animations look "wrong" because the trajectory of the center of mass - which changes on the different positions the character might be in - does not follow a smooth or congruent trajectory.

Blender should have an overlay for it which we would turn on during animation. This overlay should show the current center of mass but also should have the option to show it's motion path.

One changes the pose, the center of mass shifts, we then adjust the position or tweak the pose to make the center of mass follow a correct trajectory or make the pose feel balance when static.

There should also be an operator that, without changing the origin, would "snap center of mass to 3D cursor".

I believe that with these tools, which I've only seen in Cascadeur, the blender community's quality of animations could be lifted en masse.

This could also be useful for "The Heist"?

A great explanation of Center of Mass for animation, youtube.com/watch

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Development Status: Open

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gabriel
17 Feb 2022

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