itsjustme

It's been too long since I last posted an update...so I'll post a "so far" on the set I'm building tomorrow. I would do it now, but it needs some cleaning up at the moment. The set is helping me improve at mechanical modeling (which I haven't done very much of in a long time).

Great stuff, as usual, Mark!

The 2008 Rig is here. The LiteRig is here. TSM2 is here. If you have any questions, there are several people on the forums that will be able to provide answers. Good luck with the installation, Remy!

I don't have much time tonight, so I won't post a model update this evening. I started by looking at the legs...there were a few bones out of place. I'm assuming there are some similar problems with the arms. Even if you get the 2001 Rig installed correctly, it has some glaring problems with versions of A:M that use constraint "baking"...which is anything later than v12. My advice would be to use either the 2008 Rig, LiteRig or TSM2, Remy.

What you have so far already got a laugh out of me, Mark! Great stuff.

Very cool, Mark!

He's a winner, Paul! The only critique I have is the fan on top of his head doesn't have any thickness.

Hello I'm coming back, I was out. Here is a new half smurf. I do'nt understand the problems with the hands and the palm. My smurf hands are the Rabbit's hands!!! Do you mean the Rabbit is not a good model??? This is strange. I'm joking of course. Can you say me if I'm now ready to start rigging. Remy I didn't have a lot of time, so I just did a quick re-working of the palm as an illustration...I would still do a lot more to the fingers though and some more tweaking to the base of the hand. There was a lot of unnecessary bias tweaking, a couple of dead-end splines and was kind of spline-heavy in the palm area. It's a lot closer...and you could rig him, but there would still be areas that would create some obstacles. Of course, that is just my opinion...you might be satisfied with the results. ------------------------------------- EDIT ------------------------------------- Colin Freeman has some tutorials that you might find helpful here (free). Barry Zundel also has some tutorials located here...he recently reduced the prices on them.

Very cool, William! I had never read the John Carter books, so I listened to the audio version of "Princess of Mars" on Librivox...it held up surprisingly well (excluding a few mentions of how some of the devices worked) for something written in 1917.

I spent a little time making a cigarette butt receptacle. Then, I wanted to texture it, but I wanted to use lighting similar to the set it will be in...so I decided to make a sky dome for it. I didn't want to use any of the sky images I've seen and figured I could just hand paint a few scattered clouds and decal them onto the dome. The clouds aren't great and this is just a quick turnaround clip of the inside of the dome to check it, so the curvature of the dome is apparent. Also, here is an image of the cigarette butt receptacle before texturing. sky_dome_05_19_2010.mov

Looks great, Mark!

There are several places that I think will cause you problems, Remy. The face could use some re-routing of splines and some spline reduction. For the mouth, I think you should use some concentric rings. I included an image if Bertram's mouth showing the concentric rings and circled a place on the Smurf mouth that is definitely not the way to go. The hands bother me as well...I think I see where you were going, but I think you have too many hooks in the palm that will cause creasing. He's getting better with every update, lots of progress.

I'm not sure I understand the question, but I'll try to answer. You can select a named group of points and then translate them using the "Properties". You can select the points you want to align and then scale them in the "Properties" to 0% on the axis you want, in this case the 'X' axis, then you can translate them in the "Properties" of the selected group to where you want them. Hope that helps, Remy.

Since posting the latest version of the rig, I've done some work on adding Mark's suggested improvement to the arm geometry bone rolling and a fix for some bone flipping when rotating a limb more than 90 degrees with bowing turned on (Mark pointed that out too). I think I've got everything working without problems, but I'll do some more testing before I post another rig update. I've also done some tweaking to Bertram's face and am trying my hand at a tree...I want to start forcing myself to get something on the actual project rolling besides the rigging.

Very cool, Will!

He's looking better, but there are still plenty of things to improve upon. First, as Robert mentioned, the elbow spline rings could be more separated. Then, I would add a couple of rings at the wrists, a ring between the elbow and wrist, a ring between the shoulder and elbow, possibly a ring on the thigh and possibly a ring on the calf. You will want to re-work the face if you are going to do any animation. The mouth would work better with a couple of concentric rings...this video might help. You can also look at some characters from TWO if they are available, or you could look at a few things on Squetchy Sam...the latest version is in this post. Most of Sam isn't too bad, but the hands aren't something I would recommend copying...he was made to use as few splines as possible. The best hands I've done are on Bertram...there are some images of them are in this post. The feet will need some re-working if they are going to bend at the toes...for every place that bends, three spline rings are generally helpful. I've also attached an image pointing at a couple of things I saw on the Smurf. Hope that helps, Remy.

Very cool, Luis!

First, there are a lot of problems with the modeling that need to be taken care of...non-continuous splines, dead-end splines, flipped normals, each joint not defined by three spline rings. In general, the modeling isn't really ready to be rigged...I have attached an image with a few of the problems marked. There are some great modeling tutorials here, here, here, here and here. Second, the 2001 Rig installation instructions are here. Hope that helps, Remy. Watch the tutorials I listed, they should answer your questions. If they don't, I can recommend a few other tutorials.

First, there are a lot of problems with the modeling that need to be taken care of...non-continuous splines, dead-end splines, flipped normals, each joint not defined by three spline rings. In general, the modeling isn't really ready to be rigged...I have attached an image with a few of the problems marked. There are some great modeling tutorials here, here, here, here and here. Second, the 2001 Rig installation instructions are here. Hope that helps, Remy.

The Smurf model wasn't embedded in the Project, so I couldn't check it for you, Remy. If you use "Project/Embed all" and then save the Project, the model should be included. If you are trying to use the rig that is in the Rabbit, it is the 2001 rig. Instructions for installing it are in the "Show Some Backbone" video on this page. Hope that helps.

Better and better, Carl!

Very cool, Robert!

Fantastic, Stian!

Great looking robot, Ludo!

I like it a lot...a lot more efficient, adjustable...just plain smarter all the way around. It'll be a great improvement. Thanks for spending time on this, Mark!