This post is about current progress in illustrating tracking concepts…
Finally the initial idea … After two years of learning skills, etc.
This clip comes the closest yet to demonstrating the essential goal … And is really just a starting place.
From here? Refining how the foot behaves, illustrating more concepts of tracking.
What’s different about this clip?
“Deformation” is making the surface of an object look and flex like the real thing. There are several ways.
Previously the feet were just mesh objects, moved by animation, with Rigid Body physics applied. The deformation was done with shape keys. This method was chosen at that time because the software used, Blender 3D, could not apply Rigid Body physics to objects parented to an armature(bones).
The latest version of Blender solved that. So this mesh foot object has Rigid Body physics applied and is controlled by an animated armature.
That’s really, really good because the methods used with a Blender armature do a much better overall job of deforming the foot than shape keys do.
Stacking Sand 