Animating characters with appendages

We often need to animate characters with appendages such as long ears, tails, antennas, a necktie, or even mesh-based hair. Their motion follows the body part they are attached to, usually at a different pace due to their soft and bouncy nature.

When the character stops its movement, the appendages continue to follow it and keep moving for some time until they overcome inertia. This nature is described by the Follow Through principle of animation, and is often applied as a layer of detail over the main action.

The appendages are often animated after the main body parts—as the torso or head—because it's easier to visualize and test their behavior after you have finished the main action. In this recipe we'll apply ...

Get Blender 2.5 Character Animation Cookbook now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.