What I am going to make is a chain, swing or a clock pendulum or whatever its just to show the basics behind animation in Blender 2.5
AS YOU WILL SEE IN THIS TUTORIAL ANIMATION IS VERY EASY
First thing get rid of the CUBE hit the HOTKEY X and select DELETE, then go into FRONT VIEW and select 5 NUMPAD to go to ORTHOGRAPHIC VIEW
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Then select SHIFT A and select ARMATURE and then SINGLE BONE
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Here is the ARMATURE we added so just scale this up some to ur liking, then TAB into EDIT MODE and hit R 180 to rotate it until its pointing down
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next move the ARMATURE to the top of the screen like this shown above, then grab just the bottom tip of the ARMATURE and EXTRUDE down on then Z AXIS almost to the RED LINE as shown here below, then just select that bottom piece as shown here and hit W then SUBDIVIDE you just created a new ARMATURE
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then move to the lower left of the screen and select, lets say 2 NUMBER OF CUTS and here you will see two new ARMATURES.
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Now go to the bottom and where its in EDIT MODE change that to POSE MODE as shown below. then we are ready to start ANIMATING NOTE SURE YOU ARE IN SOLID
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At this time select the AUTOMATIC KEYFRAME INSERTION its that RED BUTTON at the bottom of blender
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Then grab the TOP BONE and you will see it is outlined in blue as shown below. then just rotate it almost parallel to the line of the first bone as seen below
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then go to the bottom of the screen and drag it up a little and drag the GREEN LINE lets say to 20 FRAMES as seen below
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then rotate the BONE to the other side but not as high, due to gravity and a realistic effect as seen below
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then go again to the bottom of the screen and move that GREEN LINE again 20 more FRAMES as shown below
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then rotate the BONE to the right but not as high as the first BONE and repeat the above process over and over again until you have the bone straight down like seen below. NOTE: use 20 FRAMES FOR EACH MOVEMENT ON THIS PARTICULAR ANIMATION BUT YOU GET THE IDEA.
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Then run a test by hitting the PLAY KEY at the bottom of the screen.
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Now restart the process for the Next bone, first select the hotkey I and select LOCROTSCALE, then this time make each movement 10 FRAMES, then rotate the BONE, and as you can see below the difference in the 2nd BONE,
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At this point play the ANIMATION and you will see the movement is more fluid, and just repeat this for the remainder of the BONES until you have the look you are trying to get. NOTE : on the 3rd FRAME move it 20 FRAMES and about mid point move the FRAMES only 10 FRAMES to gradually slow the movement then rotate the BONES to where you want them, and to speed it up move the final BONE with the 3rd BONE in the rotation so they are moving together.
Then the end result will look something like this but with movement, and of course you can continue to add more animation to it to make it slower, or faster or whatever you want? At least you get the point.
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