itsjustme

Jeff Cantin's website is here, he also has a video in A:MFilms here. Mark Largent's tutorials are here. Hope that helps.

Looks great, Marcos and Mark!

You just have to stop trying to model like it is polygons, Mike...it's a tough transition for some. It takes a little more thinking...I approach mechanical modeling and organic modeling totally differently. For mechanical modeling, Rodger Reynold's tutorials explained it best for me. The biggest eye-opener would be the Modeling Edges and Corners tutorial. Hope that helps.

I was hoping to have something to show by now, but it has been slow-going recently...I'll have to use a "stay alive" post for now. I've been re-doing the ceiling in the Break Room, testing different lighting for the Break Room and re-tweaking the face on the generic character. I've also got what I think is an answer for a problem I was thinking through on one of the rig updates...which I'm trying to work my way toward installing. I'm hoping to have something to show in the next couple of days.

Great stuff, Chris!

He still has scars from the experiments...not a way I would go, but some people might think it's worth it.

If it's the white-haired Sasquatch, it would be v13.

Very cool stuff, Robert!

My replies were deleted purposely. I thought the forum might have hiccuped or something.

No. You have the entire skeleton which has been reparented to a set of installation bones for easy positioning (the opposite of TSM2). The added positioning bones are named with a convention that causes the install plugin to delete them and reparent the bones for the actual rig. Once the plugin deletes the installation bones, constraints for installation need to be deleted, then the constraints for the actual rig imported.

I guess i don't get it. What do all these extra bones facilitate? Very strange...Mark's response disappeared for some reason. The hierarchy of something like the Squetch Rig is a lot different...there are sets of bones for IK, FK, geometry, etc which are co-located, but independent. In order to move and resize them together, you would need to re-parent them to an installation rig.

Happy Birthday, Rodger!

Congrats to Marcos, Robert and Nancy! Great work by everyone in this one.

Congrats, Jason!

I added an update to the break room...here.

Okay, I'll dust a few things off in this thread and then post an update. Here's the soda machine and approximately where it will be located in the break room. I use these renders to find things that need fixing...the break room tabletop edge looks like it could use some tweaking in the shot of the room. I'll be going back and tweaking the modeling on everything just before I texture each object. At this point, I may see about lighting the room so that I can get a better idea of how things will end up looking and give some thought to the textures. Lots more to do, of course.

I like that, John!

Get well quickly, Rodney! Hope to see more from your project.

Great stuff, Steffen! Thanks for your hard work.

I was just showing how to set up a hierarchy that the InstallRig plugin could use...the Poses to position a rig or animate a rig are another issue. Yes, I first built a functioning rig that I could break down into an installation rig. The squetch stuff isn't necessary, I was trying to answer questions about the plugin and putting some squetch capabilities into a rig at the same time...I had gotten a lot of questions about both at the time. The plugin won't make any bones, it will just delete the bones I added for making an installation rig (the ones with "INSTALL" in their name), parent bones according to the hierarchy following "INSTALL" in the name (which also includes the ability to set "attached to parent") and unhide any bones with "geom" in their name. The constraints on that leg would be for the rig once it's installed...you would have to make some Poses for the actual installation. It probably isn't the world's greatest tutorial...I don't remember how much time I actually spent making it, but it didn't take very long to do. Hopefully, Mark and I can make up for the shortcomings of the tute.

In the Squetch Rig...yes. The 2008 Rig has a slightly different installation method. I'm only really sure about how the Squetch Rig is set up, any specifics about the other rigs I would have to refresh my memory.

I have a tutorial on making an installation rig in A:M:Films...it's here. The plug-in just deletes any bone with "INSTALL" in the name, parents bones according to the hierarchy following "INSTALL" in the name (which also includes the ability to set "attached to parent") and unhides any bones with "geom" in their name. For the Squetch Rig, the installation rig positions the rig, that gets exported from an Action, the installation Poses are deleted and then the appropriate "FINAL_IMPORT" model is imported to install the character controls. It is slightly different in the 2008 Rig and LiteRig. Hope that helps Robert.

Looking at a mountain is very intimidating...looking at the small hill you're climbing on that mountain isn't. Small goals add up to bigger projects. Any small thing you work on can give you an idea. Those ideas can be cobbled together into something very eclectic and more interesting as a result. When I'm stuck, I work on things that I know I'll eventually need no matter what the project is...a set of nuts and bolts, chairs, tables, light bulbs, etc. Then, those small things can be used to make more objects (there are bolts, nuts and screws on tons of objects). Building a library of such things is very helpful and keeps things moving forward during lulls in motivation. I think your funk will be short-lived, Mark. I'll send some positive energy toward your brother and hope he has a speedy recovery.

Hopping around a little, here's some casters that I needed to model for a cart (which will probably be in the background of the first Bertram short). I realize it's not much, but, these kinds of odds and ends eventually add up...and it keeps me from bogging down on one thing for too long.

Happy Birthday, Gerald (GAngus)!