itsjustme

Looks great for the time spent, Robert!

I still have a few things to track down in the tail rig (which will also work as a snake rig or tentacle) that didn't "take" when I copied some constraints, but I slapped together an Action that shows some of what it can do. Everything I show can be done on all axes, I just didn't have a lot of time. The resizing and translating of sections can be done both manually and automatically...I show the 'Y' auto translating (it can also do 'X' and 'Z') and both the 'X' and 'Y' auto resizing. The paths can be manually reshaped using the null controllers and the automated translating and resizing can be done from any position (it was just easier to see the auto resizing with the tail straight). There are seven settings, one non-path and six path (three non-auto and three auto). After I've tracked every issue down, I'll put together a demo showing how the controls work and send the rig for peer review. Here are some videos of the Action I made from two angles and two render modes. tail_demo_bird_11_30_2009_H264_.mov tail_demo_bird_wire_11_30_2009_H264.mov tail_demo_side_11_30_2009_H264.mov tail_demo_side_wire_11_30_2009_H264.mov

Great stuff, Steve!

Looks great so far, Robert!

That looks great, Mike! Very impressive results with those decals.

Yessir, it is for that and also to keep the origin of each leg from being affected by any squetching.

Hopefully, what I end up with will be worth the long wait. If you have the time, it would be very helpful if you could point out my mistakes, Mark...a peer review would be a good thing before releasing it. I'm thinking I'll have it at a point where it can be reviewed in a couple of days, barring any unforeseen problems. At that time, I'll post a video showing what it can do as well. Then, once it gets through a thorough review, I'll post the tail rig by itself and then start trying to integrate it into the Squetch Rig.

Looking great, Tim!

Select the CP's, then scale them to "0" on the axis you want them aligned. Hope that helps.

I figured I should mention how the tail setup is going. I've made a lot of progress, but there may be a couple of minor (I hope) tweaks that still need to be made. Today I went through some attempted animations to see if I can get a handle on the workflow required to use the rig...it'll take some more practice for me to get it sorted out, but I haven't run into anything that wasn't operator error. I'll spend a couple more days knocking it around and then see if I can finally show something.

I would temporarily rename "Head_Geom" to "head", install FACE, then rename it back to "Head_Geom".

I'm sorry you feel that way, Mark...I think you've done nothing but great work.

Looks great, Will!

Looking very promising, Mark!

Very cool so far, Al!

He looks great, Michel!

Looks great, so far, Tim!

Great, as usual, Stian!

Great to see you working on this again, Mark! Sounds like a fantastic set of controls.

Fantastic (as usual), Rodger!

I found a couple of things that might help with car paint here, here and here. Hope those help, Tim.

Great stuff, Robert!

Very generous contribution, Al! Great job too.

Thanks, Al!

I think explorations in unconventional directions is where you get the best stuff...at least that has been my experience. I'm sure you could make cloth into something that would pass as a liquid...have you thought about using hair? I haven't tried it, but it might give you something usable. Several things about hair make me think it could be worth trying...you can use an image to shape the hair into whatever you need, forces can be used to move the hair or it can be groomed in Poses. You could also probably use hair for a flickering flame using an image sequence...that one I'm going to eventually try.