A mug floating in front of the hand: fixing the handle grip and the mug sinking into the table
Fixed a mug that looked like it was floating in front of the hand and sinking into the table. I changed the math so the handle sits inside the fist, curled the fingers into a fist, and bent the elbow to pull the mug in front of the chest.
In 153 I got the mug's tilt under control, but zooming in near Garen's hand, it didn't really look like the mug was being held. I also noticed the mug was sunk into the table, so I decided to fix both.
Screens I built
The handle now sits inside the fist, and the mug always stands upright. For both Garen and Pelli, the front edge of the mug is at 0.17 m (inside the table's front edge at 0.22 m), the bottom at 0.64 m (above the thighs), and the tilt is 0°. It doesn't overlap the table or the chair either.
Rabbit hole: the mug floating in front of the hand
I had only placed the mug at the hand bone's position plus a fixed offset, and the handle position wasn't part of the calculation at all. The fingers were also half open, like in the original idle animation.
I now get the fist direction from the hand bone and the first finger joints, and place the middle of the handle's outer bar at a point inside the fist. I also curled the four fingers and folded the thumb over them to make a fist.
Rabbit hole: the mug sinking into the table
The tabletop (0.81 m) is at chest height for a seated SD body. So in a pose with the hand reaching toward the table, the mug goes below the top.
I bent the elbow to pull the mug in front of the chest. I actually put the mug in the hand for 192 combinations and picked one by measuring whether the front edge was inside the table's front edge, whether the bottom was above the thighs, and whether the thumb was on top.
Rabbit hole: the mug tilted again
I only aligned it once on the second frame after starting, but at that point the idle state hadn't settled yet. I changed it to align every frame, after the Animator.
Looking again at the "1.3° tilt over 100 frames" I wrote in 153, only a few frames had actually advanced during that one measurement, so it only reflected the first few frames. This time I measured while checking the frame count.
Next up
- The mug (0.28 m) is big compared to the SD hands
- There's no drinking animation yet