I use some software that I wrote using (of all things!) some CAD software called OpenSCAD. When I first started trying to make these diagrams (years ago now!) I tried a bunch of different 3D products (Daz, Strata, Blender, Unity, etc.), but I really needed something that was easily "programmatic" -- where I could define a movement once and then reuse the movement repeatedly. As crazy as it sounds, CAD software -- specially OpenSCAD -- turned out to be the easiest solution. For example in OpenSCAD you can draw a cylinder with a single command, whereas other products would require that I write a bunch of code to define a cylinder first.
So each figurine in the diagram is made up of "bones" -- and "bones" are made up of simple cylinders and spheres.
It takes hundreds of lines of code to define a pose-able figurine, but once I have one, I can write more code to define the basic taekwondo movements:
Then once I have the basic taekwondo movements, I can combine them to create poomsae:
From there I get a 3D diagram that I can paste into PowerPoint and mark-up, finally resulting in a diagram like this:
But at the end of the day, that entire diagram is nothing but an ungodly number of cylinders and spheres arranged with ridiculous complexity!
This is what the beginning of Bigak looks like:
include <../Mannequin.scad> // this defines a figurine
include <../PoomsaeDesigner.scad> // this defines taekwondo movements
my_fn = 32; // defines how smooth the round surfaces will be
// $vpr = [27, 0, 359.8]; $vpt = [24.809, -10.5613, 23.4784]; $vpd = 3378.83; // defines the viewplane
// BIGAK
// Across the beginning bar of the poomsae
position_grid( 0.0, 0.0) GA() { closed_stance("gold") overlapped_hands("gold"); } // ready
position_grid( 1.0, 0.0) DA() { left_walking_stance("gold") left_high_block("gold"); } // 1
position_grid( 2.0, 0.0) DA() { right_front_stance("gold") right_elbow_uppercut("gold"); } // 2
position_grid( 1.7, 0.5) DA() { right_tiger_stance("gold") right_elbow_side_strike("gold"); } // 3
position_grid( 2.7, 0.5) DA() { left_front_stance("gold") right_punch("gold"); } // 4
position_grid( 3.8, 0.5) DA() { RIGHT_FRONT_KICK("gold"); } // 5
position_grid( 5.0, 0.5) DA() { LEFT_SIDE_KICK("gold",120); } // 6
position_grid( 6.3, 0.5) DA() { RIGHT_ROUNDHOUSE_KICK("gold",120); } // 7
So to diagram one of Kukkiwon's new poomsae I have to:
- Take good notes while watching a YouTube video frame by frame
- Scratch my noggin and make a best guess when the video is unclear
- Hope that every movement in the video is one that I've already defined
- But if it's not, then I have to go back to the code and define the new movement
- Then figure out how to lay out all the movements in a diagram so that they'll be as clear as possible
- And finally write about 50 lines of code (for a 50 step poomsae) that defines: (a) the movement, (b) what direction it's face, and (c) where it's positioned in the diagram
- After that, I save the .png image, paste it into PowerPoint, and add notes.
Voila! Simple!
