Hello everyone...here's a useful tutorial for anyone creating a martial arts or ballet animation. There is a problem in the Blender system for movement, that feels like a scene out of the upcoming Minions movie. It is the Z-Quaternion curve, and what Blender likes to do is to rotate 180 degrees clockwise, and then rotate back to the original position 180 degrees counter-clockwise, rather than a fall 360 degrees.
I thought this problem would solved with 2.5x to 2.7x, but it still exists. So...I'm going to create a longer Full Round House animation, in which the first attempted roundhouse exhibits the built-in Blender solution, and then I will correct the Z-quaternion curve for a real-world 360 rotation.
I'm using 2.72a because my Windows 7 workstation graphics card can't handle 2.73a.
Here is the starting point, the neutral fighting stance at frame 1.
I'm using the very latest Makehuman 1.1 model, with a few of Manuel's new clothing designs.
The next step is the back knee lift (right) at frame 25:
This stance is quite sophisticated, so you need to see the right side of the model:
I'm sure all the intermediate moves have names, but I just called the next one Turn 130 (degrees). This is the first of the pivots.
The spirit of Bruce Lee is among us! These shots have a very classic 70s' feel to them.
This is the beginning of the actual kick; the 'strike point' is about 30 degrees farther into the turn.
I am soooo embarassed!
All I had to do was to track the root bone; when I came to the finish, I had to select root, then inverse select, so that I could reset my Ready pose, after having completed a 360 degree rotation.
This model is basically done; I will add shape keys to refine it.
http://www.geekopolis.ca/blender/completed_models/ellieTaeKwonDo1_272b.blend