Angular Momentum

This instrument is used for visualizing character's angular momentum and animating physically accurate character rotations.

Angular Momentum is represented as a circle around the character's center of mass with a green arrow that has several graduations showing the value of the momentum.

Angular Momentum visualizer can be enabled in the Visible menu:

1. Righ-click the Edit Mode selector:

2. Enable Angular Momentums:

Moment of Inertia

The diameter of the circle corresponds to the moment of inertia value (the circle gets bigger as this value increases and shrinks down with it decreasing, and vice versa). Greater value of the moment of inertia means slower rotation speed, and vice versa.

Moment of inertia can be influenced by changing character's pose.

Red Sector

The red sector on the circle represents character’s divergence from a physically correct position. The greater this divergence is, the bigger the red sector becomes.

Angular Momentum Ghosts

Angular momentum ghosts are disabled by default, but can be turned on by selecting Angular Momentum Ghosts from the Visible menu.

This option shows angular momentum values for every frame selected on the Timeline

Camera Projection Mode

Angular momentum can be visualized in several different modes. These modes are set in the dedicated part of the Toolbar:

(1) Projected On Camera
Shows the value of angular momentum projected onto the line that is normal to the camera plane. This mode is selected by default.

(2) Fixed Projection
This option "fixes" the current axis and shows the value of angular momentum projected on this axis.
The axis does not change when camera spatial orientation is changed. Because of this, the value of angular momentum is always the same in the same frame, regardless of the camera angle.

(3) Whole (default)
This option shows the full value of angular momentum without projecting it onto something.

See Also

Ballistic Trajectory