itsjustme

First, if you only have 2MB of RAM, that would be a very old computer. I'm guessing you have 2GB of RAM. A faster processor and more RAM will always help. The amount of RAM in your video card only affects the speed of your realtime rendering, not the final render. Keep in mind that a lot of things affect rendering times...hair, reflections, refraction, raytraced shadows, Ambient Occlusion, Subsurface Scattering, materials, number and type of lights, etc. For 32 seconds of video, assuming 24 FPS, you're getting about 6.4 frames per minute (even less per frame if you're using 30 FPS)...less than ten seconds per frame. I've seen some frames take several hours, so that doesn't sound too bad to me (depending on what your scene is composed of). Hopefully, my math is correct...it's not my strongest subject. Getting a "polished movie look" depends on a lot of factors...materials, texturing, lighting, good modeling, etc. Using multipass on your renders does tend to improve the look of the render (and increase render times), but it's only a small part. Hope that helps.

Very cool model, Eric!

Looks great so far, Mark!

Wow! Once that is dirtied up a little, it will be perfect. Incredible, as usual, Stian!

I finished updating the audio on everything last night, so now I have tutorials for how to use the controls for the legs, arms, hands and spine finished...total running time is around 33 minutes. Once I get the face rig updated, I can work on the videos for the neck, face and on-character switches.

Since my last post, I did a lot of work on the face rig update, but it still needs a lot. I got to a point where I needed to do some thinking about the setup, so I decided to work on a couple of videos for the tutorial. I put two more videos together, but I did a lot better job on the audio on them than the previous videos, so, I went back and re-recorded everything else...I'm much happier with the new audio. Tonight I did the re-recording and clean-up on the new audio, tomorrow I'll edit it into the previously made videos...at least that's the plan. Then, it's back to the face rig update...I think I've got a few of the problems worked out, at least in my head they work. Once I get the face rig update done, I can knock out three more videos for the tutorial, update Bertram's rig with the latest updates and then finish the gut rig using Bertram...which will make it possible to put together another video for the tutorial. Still a long way to go, but I'm slowly chipping away at it.

Looks great, Steve!

Nice work so far, Paul!

If you have the v13 disc, v14c wouldn't work with it. If you have the v14 disc, I think v14c is here. Hope that helps.

You can temporarily rename "head_geom" to "head", install FACE, then rename it back to "head_geom", or you can just add a "head" bone and constrain it to the "head_geom" bone. Or you could do a search and replace in the FACE installation models making "head" change to "head_geom". Hope that helps.

The standalone versions of the FACE controls should work with any rig. The installation assumes that there is a bone named "head". Hope that helps.

Fantastic images, Robert!

Nice hands, Stian! I think Robert's recommendation about the thumb placement is the way to go.

Happy Birthday, Stian!

Very cool latest look, Tim! He keeps getting better.

Very cool, Mark! Extremely good job. You could put another character impacting the ground horribly in the background...maybe with the bungee cord landing on top of him like it broke? Maybe too much work to add it...not as easy as just adding a sign.

I started this week by adding the eyebrow controls to the Quad Rig, that prompted me to add some controls for moving the brows around the face (the eye sockets already had that ability). I then added that ability to Squetchy Sam as a step toward adding it to the biped rig, which prompted me to bring a few more parts of the face into the setup...so, lots of testing and thinking about what can be pushed. I added the ears, nose and mouth to the setup with some adjustable automated movement and then added some manual movement controls. Then, since it was easy to add and might be necessary when moving the brows around, I added a setting that unhides the eyebrow control bones...so they can be animated using either the FACE controls, Pose sliders for the FACE controls or directly. I'm still working on the setup, but here's a quick video clip showing some of the testing. I didn't do any scaling in the test, but that should be possible as well. Sam's face could use a little more CP Weighting tweaks and there's still a lot to work on. I'm thinking it could turn into something to add more toon movement to facial animation using the rig...we'll see how it pans out. face_test_05_29_2009.mov

I use Virtualdub, Quicktime Pro, Audacity and GIMP...although if I do any serious messing with OpenEXR, I'll probably use a Linux version of Cinepaint (there presently isn't a Windows version). I have also used SUPER, but the conversions I made using it gave older versions of Quicktime problems. As for codecs, for lossless editing, I use the Camstudio lossless codec on AVI's and for final versions to be posted somewhere, I use H.264 encoded Quicktime files. Hope that helps.

I think Paul answered the question...maybe it could use a little more explaining to be clear. Everyone has different codecs on their computers depending on what they have chosen to install, so, the "default" that A:M chooses might be different for you than anyone else. That being said, Paul suggested that the "Animation" codec might be what A:M would choose on most computers for Quicktime video because it is one of the codecs that are automatically installed when you install Quicktime. Generally, I don't render to a video format...unless it is for a quick test. I render everything out to TGA's or OpenEXR and then use another program (you could also use A:M) to turn the still images into a video file. The reasons I do that is so that I have the ability to process the individual frames, it's basically lossless and if something goes wrong with a render, I don't lose the entire animation. Hope that helps.

I had a pretty busy week again last week...I think it's a trend. This week I had a little time and got the opportunity to do a lot of work on the Quad Rig, which also added some fixes to the biped version. I've done a lot of tweaks, but a short list would include improving eyelid bone placement, improving mouth bone placement, added ankle fan bones to the Quad Rig (I haven't ever needed them in the biped rig, so I'm still debating whether to add them there), updated the chest_IO and stomach_IO Poses, changed the stomach_IO Pose in the Quad Rig to a mid_section_IO Pose because of the normal differences in anatomy between a quad and biped, updated the on-character chest and stomach/mid_section switches (placement, parenting and such) and added eyebrow bone controls to the Quad Rig. I think I might have a normal upcoming week (as far as I know right now), so I should be able to get a few more things added to the Quad Rig and maybe get a video or two recorded...if things go right. Then, I can get back to Bertram's gut and shoulders.

Looks good, Mark!

Happy Birthday, Paul!

The Foot Gizmo is for hand-like feet...like a monkey would have.

There are Foot Gizmo versions of the Squetch Rig that could be adapted for the 2008 Rig...it would take some editing though (deleting non-Foot Gizmo Poses, bones and Smartskins and re-parenting for the feet bones in the 2008 Rig).

If your "headphones are not on"...wouldn't that be a problem? Or are you using speakers? I know what you mean though, if I can't figure it out it must be that someone else made a piece of crap...because, I don't see how I could possibly do anything wrong.