Howitzer
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Posts posted by Howitzer
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Thanks Rodney. I manually placed the ball in the hand of the knight. And every other frame I keyed the ball into his hand. When the hand sped up before letting go, I keyed the ball every frame, and I also opened his hand up so the ball wouldn't travel through his fingers.
You have to give some of the credit to the Hash Inc people, they made a really easy to use system for animating, and were kind enough to include characters to learn with. I don't know any other program that has such a complete set of props and characters to use.
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I have completed Exercise 3, I'm very thankful for the video tutorials and the free models included with Hash! Other programs don't give you anything but a quick start guide. Part of the reason I got A:M was the community. You guys are awesome. Maybe by the time you start the next community film project I'll be ready.
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Before now I didn't have an understanding of A:M's action system.
Actions are quite useful aren't they.
Combined with Pose Sliders and Choreography Actions they make for an extremely powerful and versatile workflow.
Best of all, you get to tailor the solution to the task and use what works best for you.
Of course one of the most compelling reasons to use Actions is to collect animation for use and reuse later.
Actions excell in cases where cyclic motion is required.
Develop a habit of storing your Actions with the Resources they are designed to work with too of course.
You'll get some strange things going on when using Actions on characters that weren't designed similarly.
Example: The tutorials from TaoA:M use characters with the 2001 rig installed in them. The Actions use that rig. Applying the Action to a character with a custom rig will produce varying results based on its design.
Exercise 2 and 3 demonstrate how multiple characters can use the same Actions and Poses when a little planning in advance is applied.
There are as many benefits to standardization as there are also reasons to push for more change and variety.
When in doubt you can always add a layer of Action (either via Action or Choreography Action) over the top of a cyclic action to add more variety.
Note: As many animators move into more fully formed and expressive animation they often set aside these basic Actions in favor of creating everything from scratch every time. There is no good reason to settle for one method or the other when both can be put to great use at the appropriate time. Actions are great timesavers and help us create more animation and tell more stories. The requirements of the story and needs of the animator will dictate.
Ok, I assume you can bake actions... if so, wouldn't be useful as a sort of last bit of tweaking to get things looking perfect? A variation here, a smoother transition there, etc? You know, for more natural movements?
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I just completed Exercise 2: Chorus Line. Before now I didn't have an understanding of A:M's action system.
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Heya! Thought I'd go ahead and start the Tao studies.
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Started this project with what software? You must have quite a bit of modeling experience? This is looking very good.
Max. I'm going to have to backup a little though. I've only just realized some things and I have a ways to go before I'm ready for this. I will be starting the TAO training shortly.
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Neat! The comedic delay between the point where he lets go and the point he goes splat might be slightly too long. (heh, I just realized someone already said that) Very cool though, he looks like an awesome character.
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Hello, I started a short film project called Gravity as a new years resolution back in January. I am now continuing the project in Hash from where I left off. I have a storyboard, a story reel, a character design, the actual character model, and the antagonist flying saucer. Neither the model nor the saucer have been converted yet, but I'm going to show them anyway.
I'm still very new to Hash, so your crits will be very much appreciated.
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Just checking in here for the first time in a few weeks. Great work! This is all coming along beautifully!
I'm curious though why you went with TSM instead of the Squetch Rig? I take it the TSM install is more automated in some respects?
Awesome work you've got here. I like your characters, this is going to be a sweet film.
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Heh, some of you I've seen before.
Animas, I watched your short way back when I was first interested in Hash.
Robcat, you're on CGtalk
I knew Tralfaz from the Anim8or forum (I recognized the name, but only now did it just hit me. You had the Jetson's dog avatar and modeled the Jupiter 2 - as well as a Starwars ATAT!)
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Thanks Phatso, you hit the nail on the head. I enjoy repairing computers. There is a lot of money with that, so maybe I can do that for a living. I already do it on the side. Few things make me happier than making an expensive computer functional again. It's a puzzle you get paid to do.
As for Splines, I was always interested in them. Max's implementation of them isn't the greatest though... Why different model types can't have the same tools as each other in Max is beyond me.
KenH, while I would love to make a living using Animation Master, I think it would still be ok if I didn't. If all I was interested in was the money, I would have given up a long time ago. What I need is a small fast easy to use program that won't give me a headache if I try to make a film with it.
John Bigboote, your avatar is awesome. That girl looks insane! And you're right about Max. While I program a little and make models - I'm not really that interested in making games. I'd rather make useful programs. A while back I made a program for importing morph targets into Anim8or. I made a Maxscript to help me model in Max. And currently I'm working on a budget managing application for my own personal use. I'm not the best programmer by far, nor do I think I should do it for a living, but it still comes in handy.
Hiya Tralfaz! Glad to see a familiar face.
I've been eyeing Animation Master for a long time. I finally decided to buy a year subscription of it, and I'm glad to be here.
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Forgive me if this is the wrong place to post this, but I am currently trying to make up my mind about Animation:Master. I have learned and used Maya PLE, Max, Blender, Lightwave, and others to varying degrees in my quest to figure out what to use. Every commercial program I have touched has a demo version, and Animation:Master does not. So I am left only to some videos and this forum for answers.
I am primarily a subdivision modeler, but my career in that is going no where. From this computer I have seen great modelers go unemployed after years toiling away in the best art colleges and producing work far beyond my capabilities. I'm starting to realize that the market for modeling specialists is saturated, and my circumstances make it unlikely that I'll ever find work doing it.
Then there are the programs... Besides Lightwave - I haven't found one program that didn't give me a headache when I try to do everything in it. I'd like to make my own shorts, but I never quite make it to the animation stage before I peter out and do something else. It seems so interesting and fun, and the few times I did animate, I enjoyed it no matter how immature the result was.
Currently I'm using Max because my school has a license. The school I go to doesn't have an animation or modeling course... it has a virtual reality lab for research. Currently I am cleaning up a model brought in from Cad so that it can be displayed in realtime on the Cave. I am lucky enough to have a job and go to school at the same place... but my major is Computer Science.
Computer Science-Game Curriculum to be precise. It's the closest thing they've got. And while I do enjoy a little programming, it's annoying to realize after spending thousands in loans that you're studying something you really don't want to do for a living. Sometimes I can ignore it say otherwise... that maybe programming is the right choice for me... but really that's just the money talking.
That's probably TMI.
Anyway, I'm curious if there are any former polygon modelers here - if many of you are making a living doing 3d animation - and if you think it would be a good choice for me.
My website is http://wookieebuddha.com on it is the work I've done. Very little animation - though I'd love to learn how to do it.
Exercise 4: It's a Pitch
in TaoA:M and the A:M Technical Reference
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Here is a deviation from the Exercise. I'm not very happy with the throw, and I'll continue working on it until I am.
thom_and_ball.mov