[3_2_25]

Here's my take of the scene where Straw Bear, trying to cheer up Woot, says "I think your color is rather attractive - I've never seen a pea green monkey before." I figured it might be amusing to have "I've never seen a pea green monkey before." be interpreted as a left-handed complement.

3_02_25_take.mov

I can't tell if Woot's acting is overdone...

[3_05_27]

Ok, I've made a few minor changes...

• Scarecrow's dialog is more pronounced towards the second half. (I agree that in parts it looked like he was mumbling... though it looked ok in the action window)
  
• Scarecrow rolls his eyes slightly less.
  
• Tinman overshoots his final position.
  
• Scarecrow's chest and right shoulder move more to indicate a transfer of weight.
  

I haven't yet offset their hands coming together because that seems like more work and I'm not sure I can get the timing right without having to redo lots of later animation.

 

3_05_27_take.mov

[3_05_27]

Tin Woodman was curled up sulking so in this scene Scarecrow helps him up while saying "This love thing is getting rediculous!"

3_05_27_take.mov

One useful thing I learned was how to update keys at the beginning/end of constraints so their position doesn't pop when the constraint turns on/off: Delete the constraint enforcement control point, wiggle the time-slider around and re-type the original enforcement value.

[3_5_48]

I've tweaked things a little, such as concentrating the eyebrow movement towards the start, slumping the body a little more and adding a bit of a tilt. It's kind of hard to see Ozma's body slumping since it's towards the camera. I also tweaked Ozma's head-shake a little so that I'm happier with the stop...

3_05_48_take.mov

[3_5_48]

In this scene, Ozma shakes her head sadly in confirmation that Woot is stuck as a green monkey.

3_05_48_take.mov

I'm not sure if I did a good enough job of having her confirm Woot's fears. Also, I had trouble figuring out how best to (not) move her head when she stops shaking it- I've mitigated this by having the scene end right after she stops.

[3_2_14]

Here's my take on 3_2_14... in the previous scene, everybody was discussing what Woot could think about to take his mind off of hunger. In this scene, Strawbear suggests thinking about "where does straw come from".

3_02_14_take.mov

I think Strawbear was supposed to be climbing up the mountain while talking, but I had trouble doing that... any upward movement in the beginning combined with Strawbear's head tilt to give him a strained rather than thoughtful look.

[3_05_38]

The reason it's left free swinging is because Tin Man was so distracted staring at Tin Girl that he forgot to shut it.

 

I'll see if I can modify Tin Girl's movement to shut it with her hand as she hugs him.

 

Edit: It turned out that there wasn't enough time available in the animation for Tin Girl to gently drag her finger across the heart door (and it'd be too much work for me to add the time - I've already spent a couple of days on this) so I've just made the heart door swing shut. I've also made Tin Man smile a little more.

3_05_38_take.mov

[3_05_38]

Here's my take on "TIN WOODMAN waits expectantly. TIN GIRL smiles at TIN WOODMAN and they embrace." It's based on 1_04_17b.

3_05_38_take.mov

This is the first time I've animated two characters interacting to this extent. I've concentrated on getting the collision between Tin Woodman and Tin Girl to look ok, but I'm a little worried the timing may be too slow. I guess I'll just say it's artistic license to make the scene more dramatic.

[Ozma: "How sweet!"]

Ok, I made her mouth close slightly faster at the 't'.

 

Also I rotated her hands slightly to make her pose look more like she's adoring tin-man and tin-girl. (before it looked more like she was praying or something)

 

3_05_21_take.mov

[Ozma: "How sweet!"]

Here's my take on Ozma saying "How sweet!"

3_05_21_take.mov

When I first animated it, I didn't realize Ozma was holding a wand (it was synced with the other hand, so I didn't see it until much later), so the way she's holding it is sort of an afterthought... Hopefully it works, though.

[2_11_17]

For this shot, Tin Owl flies around moping about how there's no windows with which to escape Yoop's castle.

2_11_17_take.mov I was having difficulty finding a camera movement that would give a good shot of Tin Owl's "acting" without inducing nausea in the viewer.

 

...heh, that description didn't quite come out how I intended.

[2_15_08]

Thanks for your kind words! I haven't done much animating before learning A:M (with the possible exception of some textmode games). It still takes me forever to tweak things until I'm happy with them and I always have to act out the movements to get a feel for how the characters should move. Perhaps by the end of TWO I may be?

[2_15_18]

After Tin-Girl tells Tin-Owl to get the apron, he swoops back and pulls it off of Mrs. Yoop before she grabs him. (this is a combination of 2_15_17 and 2_15_18)

2_15_18_take.mov

I haven't yet animated the apron... I figured I'd use Mrs. Yoop's built-in apron for the first part, and only animate it for the second part. I'm waiting for more info on the apron before I animate it.

[2_12_03]

For this scene, Woot, Straw-Bear and Tin-Owl look at eachother confused after hearing Tin-Girl speak but not seeing her or knowing who she is.

2_12_03_take.mov

I had fun with Woot's facial expressions.

[2_15_11]

Here's my take on Mrs. Yoop storming out of her room.

2_15_11_take.mov

I had fun playing with the camera. I chose to have it look upwards at Mrs. Yoop to give the viewer a sense of how tall she is, and had it thump with each footstep to give a sense of her weight. Also it rotates around her somewhat to make her look like she's moving faster than she is.

[2_15_08]

This is the scene I did for 2_15_08 where Mrs. Yoop angrily says "You!" in response to Tin-Owl's "Hoo?".

_2_15_08_take.mov

Although I tried to get the blanket's shape as close as possible with poses, I had to tweak it with muscle movement a little.

[2_15_04]

Here's what I've done for 2_15_04 (Straw-Bear and Tin-Owl sneak up to Mrs. Yoop's room):

_2_15_04_take.mov

I decided to use this scene to practice mixing multiple actions and messing with constraints. The amplitude of the Owl's wingflaps are controlled by an action's blending. Also, since I wanted the pack to move with the model bone and rotate around where the owl was holding it, I constrained it to a null and constrained the null to the owl. I also made another version of the Strawbear tiptoe animation that has a stride-length (the original wasn't compatible with stride-lengths).

 

I wanted to have the Owl land, but I didn't have enough time.

[2_3_84]

Well, that's what making a muscle pose requires...it's just repeatable when it's a pose.

I had assumed that it'd be easier to tweak things with a pose; for example, if I look at a frame and decide I need to puff up the loon more/less, I can just modify a slider instead of manually going through all the control points for that frame (even with a magnet tool, that seems like a lot of work)

 

It worked, now it works a little better. I also found another small thing to tweak that I'll add to the installation rigs. I updated the Generic_Loon.

 

Hope that helps, Steve.

Thanks!

[2_3_84]

For the foot indentation, I would just use muscle movement. It's only needed once, so it doesn't need to be part of the model.

I don't have much experience with non-pose muscle animation, but I'll try that. Thanks!

 

The body deformation could be done using the underlying nulls or some muscle movement...I would experiment on that to see what would best suit what you need.

I can't figure out a way to use the nulls to cause the body to puff up. As far as I can tell, they're better suited towards bending/flexing the body than making it fat.

 

Using muscle movement for puffiness sounds like a lot of work... (don't I need to manually adjust the control-points?) I'd prefer to use a slider to do most of the work, and only use muscle movement to fine-tune problems arising from the pose.

 

As for why your pose slider isn't working, if you made it correctly it should work fine...what exactly are you doing? Are you adjusting the slider in the "Pose Sliders" menu? Or are you adjusting it in the "User Properties" of the model?

I wasn't aware that the two menus had different effects, so I didn't pay attention to which one I used. Which one should I have used?

 

I just realized that the "Head size" pose should have the "FACE Interface - Master" bone resizing instead of the "EyeAimerBone". I started to correct it, but the model was saved as a v14 model...I need to download the latest Beta, so, if I fix it, I'll fix it tonight (meaning, someone may beat me to it). I thought I added head resizing to the rig when I added hand and foot resizing, but I apparently overlooked it...I'll put it in the next version.

It seemed to be working pretty well when I used it.

 

Why is the left leg doing the kick when it's the right leg that was just jabbed and would be the most logical and obvious part of Woot's body to react with an instinctive, defensive and violent kick?

I couldn't at all imagine the right leg doing the kick. Upon being jabbed with a thorn, I think my reflex would be to pull my leg away from the thorn. Kicking towards the loon with the right leg would just jab the thorn deeper into Woot's leg instead of hurting the loon.

 

For a while I was stumped about how to have Woot kick the loon without further injuring himself ... until I remembered that Woot has two legs. So I had Woot pull his injured leg away from the loon, and counterbalance it with moving his left leg forward, inadvertently kicking the loon.

 

Plus, as the "target" of the thorn jab, the audience will have its attention largely locked on the right leg. With that the focus of attention plus the speed of the scene, they might not see the left leg doing the kick. Then they'll get confused when the loon goes flying.

I see your point, but I don't know what to do about that. Do you know of a good way to have Woot kick the loon without getting the thorn stabbed further into his leg?

[2_3_84]

(I decided to start a new thread because I had accidentally typed an 83 instead of 84 in the title. The original thread is here.)

 

I've been working on the animation a bit more, this time concentrating on the loon puffing up... (note: the loon doesn't yet puff up as much as I'd like)

2_03_084_take.mov (suggestions/critiques are welcome - but please note that I haven't yet fixed collisions or animated TW or SC)

 

I had a few more issues...

 

I've tried apply exercise 12 to make a foot-indentation pose slider for the loon. It seems to work great in the pose slider edit window, but when I try to use the slider in the actual choreography, nothing happens. Similarly, the spherical and head-size deformations don't have wide enough ranges to emulate the animatic closely. I tried to modify the slider ranges, but it was still effectively capped at +-100. Any ideas for how best to have a foot indentation and a large distortion?

 

I'm having difficulties doing the timing of the kick and the scene. Anything more than 10 frames looks too slow to be a kick. But 10 frames doesn't seem like enough time for the viewer to comprehend what's going on, or to have the loon accidentally toss the thorn in the air. (10 frames also seems too fast for the loon to look shocked/yelping) How might I improve the timing?

 

I'm a little bit confused about when the loon actually pops... I had assumed that it was supposed to pop in 2_3_85 (due to the animatic), but from your description it also sort of sounded like the loon popped in my scene. Adding to my confusion, there's two different scripts on the wiki - one script where the loon pops immediately, and one script where it pops after being kicked into the air (this latter one appears to be closer to the animatics, but it's an incomplete page).

 

Is this scene closer to what you had in mind? (assume the loon will puff up more)

 

Thanks for help and clarifications!

[2_3_83]

Your interpretation of this scene is quite different from the animatic... Did you use 2_03_83/movies/_2_03_83.mov as a reference?

I've watched the reference movies, but the camera in the choreography showed both Woot and the loon, and I didn't know if one pre-empted the other or not, so I thought it was ok to have the camera on both Woot and the loon. Also, though not sure, I had been going under the assumption of an involuntary flinch and thought it might be easier to understand that it's an involuntary flinch if you see Woot pull his other foot away from the thorn and clench his hands in pain right after being pricked.

 

In the next version I make, I'll try to get it closer to the movie reference.

 

In the animatic, the camera is a 3/4 on the Thorn Loon. Did you watch 2_03_82/movie/2_03_82-take.mov? Woot was stuck with the thorn in that scene. In this scene he is only kicking and the Thorn Loon is popping. I would imagine the thorn will fly out of frame as Thorn Loon distorts and pops like a balloon.

I've looked at the 2_3_82 thread and its movies, and I originally tried to position Woot and the loon somewhat similarly to where Woot gets pricked.

[2_3_83]

I just realized I misnamed this thread... For some reason, I keep wanting to call this 2_3_83 instead of 2_3_84 (the correct name). Could a moderator change the title to 2_3_84? Thanks.

[2_3_83]

Hi, I'm new to TWO. I've been assigned to animate Woot kicking a loon after being jabbed with a thorn:

WOOT kicks out instinctively - into the LOON'S puffy stomach. LOON Ooof-

This is what I have so far: 2_03_084_take.mov (only Woot's and the loon's general positions are blocked out)

 

I had several questions...

 

I'm not sure how to interpret "instinctively"... Is the kick supposed to be an accident resulting from an involuntary flinch? Or is the kick intentional (but not premeditated) in response to being jabbed?

 

I'm having difficulties positioning the loon well... it seems like either his nose clips into the ropes, or he's too far away for Woot to easily kick in the stomach. Any ideas for what I might do?

 

Is it ok to only create the animation from the perspective of the camera, or would it be better to do an animation that looks ok from most angles? (for example, is clipping ok if its not noticeable to the camera?)

 

Is it ok to move around the camera somewhat? Also, I've noticed that originally the timeline went from 4 to 8 seconds... am I supposed to keep the original range (for sound syncing purposes or something?) or can I start the scene at frame 0?

 

Should I rely on SVN to store multiple versions of the project, or is it ok to add new project files with suffixes like _v00, _v01, etc?

 

The Woot proxy model doesn't seem to have a driver to turn the FACE nulls on/off, and it looks different from the Woot I've seen in other shots... am I supposed to replace the Woot proxy model with another?

 

Thanks for any help!

[Splines and 5-point patches]

Thanks for the info! I probably should have clarified that the foot wasn't modeled using Hash patches, but it's helpful to learn that Hash patch modeling is different from subdivision modeling.

 

I do have one more question... On page 128 of TAOA:M, it says:

Avoid attaching hooks to a spline that makes up a 5-point patch! Or multiple 5-point patches next to each other!

But the Giraffe exercise has you create two adjacent 5-point patches and there don't seem to be problems... How many adjacent 5-point patches is it ok to create? (I tried creating a long strip of 5-point patches, which seemed to work ok) Or does it depend more on the geometry than the number of adjacent 5-point patches?

[Splines and 5-point patches]

I was wondering what is considered good spline and patch design in A:M. So far I'm up to exercise 11, and it seems like TAOA:M always has 2 splines running through each control point - as a result, 3-point and 5-point patches are necessary. I have an acquaintance who is very experienced at modeling, and he claims 5-point patches are a bad habit and should be avoided; according to him, models should be made entirely out of quads to prevent creasing. However, he works with LightWave, so I don't know how applicable that advice is to A:M.

 

Here's an example of a foot he modeled: (copyright oDDity)

Although it's made entirely out of quads, that seems to necessitate occasionally having an odd number of splines meeting at a control point. Is that ok to do in A:M or is it generally frowned upon? Also, is it ok to have more than 2 splines passing through a control-point? Thanks!