itsjustme

Happy Birthday, Sebastian (thefreshestever)!

Those differences will be in subsequent exercises, Rodney. However, the first exercise has already demonstrated that I need to get a handle on the most basic stuff...general physics as it would appear in the Timeline window F-curves. The next exercise will use a soccer ball, but part of it will use a more extreme squetch than what would be typical so that I can get a better handle on the F-curves of squetching an object...it won't be a real-world soccer ball in every part of the exercise. I'll call my shots on the subsequent exercises so that it is clear what I'm trying to accomplish.

No problem. I'll probably be en vacances by then, so I may not get to looking at it until next week. Probably for the best, I'm thinking I should spend a few days on this anyway. Hopefully, it will mean a better finished exercise...we'll see. Have a great Thanksgiving, Robert!

Is there a way to zoom while maintaining a 1:1 aspect ratio in the Timeline? I can get close using the grid as a guide, but I'm thinking there is probably an easier and more accurate way. I ran out of time this evening, so I'll have to post the update for this tomorrow night. Sorry for the delay.

I would agree. For arms, legs, fingers, etc I tend to use eight CP rings.

Very helpful, Robert! Thanks for taking the time to critique this. Animating is a weak spot for me and this illustrates how much work I need to do. I'll re-tweak these and update the post tonight.

I'll do some more tweaking. Thanks, Mark!

Your opinion would be very appreciated, Robert. I went ahead and posted a basic first exercise here. I thought about waiting, since it is so simple...but then decided that if there were a fundamental error in the most basic stuff, I should find out before making the same mistake in the more complex exercises. It's not much at this point, but I know I shouldn't skip ahead if I expect to get any benefit.

My instinct was to wait until I had a lot more of these done, but, I figured that it would be silly if there was a fundamental error in the more basic stuff which ruined everything more complex that followed. So, I'll post the first round of really basic ball bounces that I've been messing with. The goal is to work my way through basic exercises in an attempt to improve. Constructive critiques are encouraged (I am trying to get better)...thanks in advance for any pointers. This set of four starts with a ball drop without any squash and stretch, then a small amount of lateral movement is added, then squash and stretch is added and finally some roll is added. Once I'm pretty sure everything in these is working, I'll kick out another set. The ZIP file includes the model, Actions, Choreographies and shaded wireframe renders (everything is animated at 24 frames per second)...my thinking is that it will make it easier to find problems with what I'm doing. 01_ball_bounce_no_squetch_no_distance.mov 01_ball_bounce_no_squetch_with_distance.mov 01_ball_bounce_with_squetch_with_distance.mov 01_ball_bounce_with_squetch_with_distance_and_rotation.mov bouncing_ball_exercises_01.zip

I hate having to post a "stay alive" for this thread, but I got extremely busy the past couple of weeks. I did some CP Weighting on the guide bones to make sure my modeling was working on the generic character and made some modeling fixes (around the hips for better bending and upper arm to get rid of a "Michellin Man" effect). I have also done a few animating exercises to get myself a little practice (just some bouncing ball stuff which I'll expand upon over the next month or so, I'll post all of it when I get things to a point where I need some critiques) and did some modeling that isn't finished yet. I have never gone through all of the exercises I've seen with bouncing balls and I felt like it would be a good thing to do. I'm going to try to get something in a state where I can post it in the next week...could be several things if I'm lucky.

Incredible model, as usual, Stian!

Jeff Lew also has two inexpensive tutorials called "Animating Power and Weight" which are very good...they are here (part one) and here (part two).

You might have to contact Emilio Le Roux about an early version of sweeper.

Great stuff, Mike!

What image is on the CD? That would determine whether you can use v13 with it or not. If it's a white-haired Yeti, that would be v13, if it has a mostly silver Tinman with Scarecrow it is v14...the green Tinman with Scarecrow is v15. Hope that helps.

Happy Birthday, Steffen!

Nice start on the truck, Dan!

Fantastic, Rodger!

Nothing to be nervous about, Roger. As long as it gets the idea across, it has done its' job. Looks like it will be a fun project!

Nice, John!

Great stuff!

Happy Birthday, Steve!

Very cool, Ed! Thanks for sharing.

Incredible image, Rodger!

I'm not sure what kind of look you're after, but I would check as many reference photos as possible. I found a couple with a quick search here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, etc.