thefreshestever

just downloaded the mac-version, put the hxt-files and the tsm2 folder in my am15 hxt-folder, started a:m and got the message "unable to load plug in" for all 3 tsm-components... any ideas?

thanks... ben: i´m not sure if it has to be physically right since it´s not supposed to be close to reality, but i´ll definately tweak the thrust again, i´m not 100% happy with it either... eric: this isn´t a finished scene of the video later, just a test render with a moody night sky in the background to tease the provider so we can make a deal... i really don´t wanna spend too much time on it before i know if they like the song and the idea for the video... i´m not totally sure about the storyboard yet, i think at the beginning he will fly up a tree wich is in front of her window just admiring her, and she doesn´t notice him at all... i´ll definately add flashback- or dream-sequences wich both of you mentioned, there will be a lot of room for cheesy stuff like heart-trails and such... i´m not sure about the end though, i want her to notice him but i don´t know how he´s gonna get her to... any ideas???

here´s a little update, tweaked the arm movements a bit, corrected timings and optimized the yet-pack flames... the next step will be to send this clip, the complete song and some stills of the characters to the provider to make a deal with them... i really hope they like it so that i can start working on the video.. rodney: thanks for the tip about setting the frame rate in the pws, it´s working now... scenetesting_lower.mov

nice... but i think robert is right, the whole hip-section looks a bit weird to me too... i´d suggest moving the crotch down a bit and making the thighs a bit thicker at their upper area.

little update and a multi-camera-version... kung.mov kung_cams.mov

hope you´ll enjoy... crits welcome. kung.mov

animated the action for the boybot singing the hook yesterday an did a testrender... here it is, still some tweaking to do though... one question: is there a way to set the framerate to 24fps AFTER i did a animation with 30fps? i have the problem that whenever i start a new project my default frame rate jumps back to 30 even though i set it to 24 in the preferences... in this case i totally forgot to switch it back to 24, and i recognized it not until after i made half the animation. aaaaaarrrghhh... so it would be very cool if i could covert my action to 24fps, it would save a lot of frames for rendering later... scenetesting_bot.mov

anything further would be pure speculation, i think it´s the best to post your model here, so someone can take a look at it and maybe tell what went wrong...

nice model, reminds me of disco-stu from the simpsons... i don´t really know if i understood your question right, but you don´t need to "rig" the targets to use them... in the 2001-rig they´re already there... they have no cps assigned, there are just other bones constrained to them so parts of your model like the wrists or the ankles will follow them... ps: where are his hands? you should model them FIRST, and then do the rigging... hope that helps...

done... boy that was easy

thanks to all... yeah after reopening my project all the error-named folders were gone... i really like how tsm works, but i´m missing some nulls for animating comfort.. i´ll try to add some, can´t be that hard

thanks rodney... that was the problem... even though i have a bunch of "error loading string" named folders in my relationships-folder it works now... they should have mentioned it in the manual at least, no way i would have figured it out by myself...

hi @ all, i´ve tried to rig a character with tsm2 the first time, everything worked fine and i was very impressed how easy it is to install... but when i made an action to test it, my character didn´t move at all... the bones moved, but the character didn´t... (yes, i´ve assigned cps ..) only my additional bones made cps move, eyes and eyelids... i´m using v15, can it be that it only does work properly with older versions of a:m since the development was discontinued before v15??? thanks ahead....

looks pretty cool, keep goin... if you haven´t got a name for him yet, i have one: butthead

here´s an update with the girl included... i´m not sure if they´re cute enough yet, but i guess facial expressions will achieve a big cuteness-jump... hope so.. i guess i´ll give tsm a shot for rigging, never used it before...

your modeling skills are just amazing, as vern said, every spline where it has to be, unbelievable... i wonder where the parts are you´re not satisfied with, i guess i´d have to look for hours to the wireframe renders to find them i really like the bike itself too, very stylish ride... btw, i did vote for it!

thanks for the replies guys... vern: i know what you mean, but i think it could work even though the song is only 99% crap and not 100% as this stuff normally has to be.. eric: i like the idea that he can fly, i´m definately going to add a jetpack... and also the hearts, that´s the kinda corny stuff it´ll need to have... maybe he could hover up a tree, sitting there and lookin at his beloved girl through the window or something... thanks. ken: yeah i WAS inspired by rustboy... rustboy was essentially responsible for me regarding getting into 3d in the first place... i love the look of his movie, it´s so fantastic! too bad there were no updates since 2 years or so... did he give it up? i hope not... i just started modeling the girlbot, i think i can post an update tomorrow.. again... thanks...

yeah that´s the thing: if the realease timing will be as expected we could benefit a bit from the wall-e hype

hello hashers, yesterday i started a new big project, i´ll need your help here the next few weeks, technical and motivational i guess here´s the thing: a friend of mine wich is a music producer came to me with a veeeery cheesy and catchy song and asked if i could make a 3d-video for that so we can sell it to a big provider for mobile-phone ringtones here in germany... at this moment the no. one hit there is a music video with a little rabbit and his carrot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9muADLVPjq8 ... this thing even did it to the top10 here... unbelievable... so we thought, hey, why not try this by ourselves. i already talked to the provider, the conditions are really good, never would have thought that: they give you about 50% of the money made with the downloads, and when a record-company want´s to make a deal to push it further (we hope that this might happen) they don´t even raise a claim to participate, so all would be between us and the record company... sounds not that bad, right? the song he made is really crap, but extremely catchy, couldn´t get it out of my mind for days when i heard it the first time... but still it´s even 10 times more sophisticated than the song with the little rabbit (don´t really know if this is good or bad, )... the hook is with a vocoder-voice, so we thought: hey, let´s make some robots. here´s a short overview about the story: there will be a cute little old-fashioned rusty robot-boy who´s in love with that shiny sexy modern robot-girl... he tries to tell her what he feels, but he´s beware of the fact that he´s not playing in her league at all... you see where this is going... here´s a short example af the song (there will be some "rap"-parts between the hook, wich will have the function of narration, so the robot will only sing the hook...), and a first render of the rusty robot-boy. i´m really proud because it only took 4 hours to model and texture him and he´s already almost exactly how i wanted him to look like. at this point i´m not sure about the scenery of the video, should it play on a little planet in space, or a futuristic city, or in a park???... i really don´t know yet. any help here would be appreciated... please tell me what you think about the idea, the song and the character so far... thanks guys... doyouknow_snip.mp3

great modeling, texturing and sense for detail eric...respect! from this aspect i certainly would have considered voting for it, but it would have been against my credo, i just don´t like weapons at all... but hey, i voted for your landscape entry 2 months ago...

Wouldn't it be cool if there were a plug-in that could create any rig? TSM2, Squetch, COGS, AM2001... whatever? And face rigs too? And you could even mix parts from different rigs? Like the spine from TSM2 and the arms from Squetch? And you'd never have to reset a compensate? That would be cool, wouldn't it? you´re kidding, right? if i would never have to reset any compensate in my life again... hmmmmm... sounds tooooo good to be true... do you have any timescales in mind? i´d bite my own ass if i´d rig my next character a week before the plugin is going to be released... THHHAAAANNNNXX!!!!!

you´ll have to choose the allocation of your cps wisely, seems you just assigned some cps to the wrong bones... other than that you can rig a simple character like this without any use of smartskins... do a search here in the forum for cp-weighting, that will propably help a lot. my rule for rigging is: accurate cp-assigment, then cp-weighting and as last instance smartskin.

don´t know about leopard, but had no problem to get a:m running in tiger... i guess you´ve already tried to re-install a:m? if the problem remains just write a short e-mail with the description of your problem to hash, normally they respond within a few days.. a hint from mac user to mac user: save your projects regularly, especially before hitting the rendering-button, a:m likes to crash sometimes you do that. hope you´ll get it running soon, have fun!

ok, took a few hours this weekend and made one by myself, that really was fun... you can barely see the squashes and stretches, but they are there ... i realized that i´ll have to do some more short body-mechanic exercises in future.. thanks again for the idea... divetest_low.mov

looking good so far... what bothers me a bit is the gaining of the speed as his arms follow... i think before his arms are raising it´s a bit too slow and after that it´s a bit too fast... with this timing it looks a bit like he would have some dumb-bells in his hands... but very nice idea, have to try it by myself sometime... thanks!