It took me hours to set the bow and arrow up to make a shot, I'd do a step by step if anybody's interested.



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I have been talking with Warlord about one of his characters that uses a bow. He fakes the draw of the bow by scaling in one direction. As I pointed out this gives the illusion of a bow bend but the bow string looks odd because it remains straight (as opposed to being pulled back).

I have a bow and arrow set in my Marketplace store (https://city.reallusion.com/ContentPreview.aspx?i=JICb963e6b8629b3c856) which is implemented as a morph prop thus allowing the bow to bend and for the string to be pulled back.
I'm also working on a crossbow which will be a bone prop to implement the bend (Morph props are great but they are a bit hard to use since the morph is applied using Face Puppet) and my Physics Enabled Cable to implement the string. But that one is still in the works...

The sample video animation, for my bow and arrow, is not the best but it illustrates how the morph prop allows the bow to bend and the string to be drawn back in the process...


In your video, because the shot happens so fast and the camera is zoomed out, it is not easy to see if the bow implements a draw (bend with string pulled back) or not. What technique did you use?


"We often compare ourselves to the U.S. and often they come out the best, but they only have the right to bear arms while we have the right to bare breasts"
Bowser and Blue, Busting The Breast

There are a whole bunch of Bow/Crossbow & Arrow motions available in Backstage for 100 DA points each, here's one example. They even have Bows, Crossbows and Arrows available. No real need to reinvent the wheel.

Gerry

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Regarding my post, it is not about the motion...It is about bending the bow and pulling the string. The example bow that you referred to seem to do this. From the looks of it it seems that it is a boned prop implementation that has perform actions to animate the bones. My version uses morphs instead. Warlords' implementation (with all due respect) does not do this (which is what we were discussing). Warlord's bow just stretches in one direction to give the illusion of a draw but since the string is not adjusted, the effect is not as credible. Again, no disrespect to Warlord, his character is, otherwise, very nice.

As to re-inventing the wheel, you are partly right and partly not. If all you are looking for is some bow motions, get the suggested pack. But if everyone followed that rule, we have one bow, one cross bow and our character wardrobe would be abysmal. Sometimes re-inventing the wheel provides new insight or new techniques to the table. And other time it just brings a better wheel



"We often compare ourselves to the U.S. and often they come out the best, but they only have the right to bear arms while we have the right to bare breasts"
Bowser and Blue, Busting The Breast

Just kind of kidding here but
No real need to reinvent the wheel

I cant imagine that statement, I mean ...... If I had to drive my car with these wheels I wouldn't be happy....at all LOL




Anyway, Snarp Farcle, I have ideas about how to do it but yes I'm interested in seeing your steps.
I find it helpful to see other peoples methods.
Also I do believe doing something myself even when its already been done is the best way to build my experience and knowledge


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That 3DStudioMax bow is very nice.   I'm not a 3D modeler and I have been struggling with various ways to do bow shots.  It's the pull back that is the important bit.  You can snap it back to it's starting point at release.  Much faster than the eye can see.

How would you export that 3DStudioMax bow to work in iClone?
Thanks,

Matthew

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That is what I was saying...that there are a number of techniques for getting the bow to bend (such the boned exampled or my morph example).

I suggested that he could either use those to create his own or he could use one of the already existing options in the Marketplace.

"We often compare ourselves to the U.S. and often they come out the best, but they only have the right to bear arms while we have the right to bare breasts"
Bowser and Blue, Busting The Breast

Here is my attempt
Took me an hour and a half to create the bow and arrow in blender, bring it into iclone animate it and upload the video to uTube


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GeForce GTX1080 TI 11GB
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Nice work. It took a few attempts to figure out how to do the string portion (when not using a Morph which was my solution with my bow). Finally I realized it can be done with a couple simple bones. So I used it for my crossbow with optional windlass. Here is the video. The video focuses more on the bow draw, release and reload than actually the flight (which seems to be what the original post was about) but I though that I would share anyway...





"We often compare ourselves to the U.S. and often they come out the best, but they only have the right to bear arms while we have the right to bare breasts"
Bowser and Blue, Busting The Breast

another nice effort Lord Ashes. Yes, morphing........that's how I did mine

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GeForce GTX1080 TI 11GB
Windows 10 Pro 64bit