sprockets Shelton's new Char: Hans It's just donuts by ItsJustMe 3D Printing Free model: USS Midnight Rodger Reynolds' 1950s Street Car Madfox's Pink Floyd Video Tinkering Gnome's Elephant
sprockets
Recent Posts | Unread Content
Jump to content
Hash, Inc. - Animation:Master

shaunf

*A:M User*
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    320

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by shaunf

    Lip sync test: Mark III

    in Work In Progress / Sweatbox

    Posted

    Thanks for the comments and suggestions. Re: the eye movement, (aside from the already identified 'odd' movement at the word 'rank'), the idea was the she was talking to two or so kids sitting in front of her, so she started off addressing them (looking from one to the other), she then looked up and to the left almost rhapsodising about how happy she is that they might be dissenting giving her the opportunity to give them more manual labour, (the big glance to the left doesn't work, but I'll sort that one out). She then looks down at the kids she's talking to again, again looking from one to the other.

     

    I guess that doesn't come across very well?

     

    I'm still to put in the cheek movement (squinty cheeks, etc etc) and eyebrows. I'll work on that this evening.

     

    Thanks again for the suggestions. I appreciate it! :)

    Another bug walk and lip sync

    in Work In Progress / Sweatbox

    Posted

    Hey Hey!! We're all making bugs. :D

    I like it Graham. Perhaps to make the face more expressive, shift the eyes more to the front add some very basic pupils, and model in some very basic eyebrows. Its a fine balance. If you make it to human, it looks creepy, if you make it too bug like it looks odd. You're on the right track though I think.

    Furniture

    in Work In Progress / Sweatbox

    Posted

    Great stuff John. Your attention to detail is really nice and the bevelled edges of the models make a difference as compared to just peaking the corners. All the corrugations on the seat are modelled or are they displacement maps? (I now you have a passion for displacement maps... which is why I ask...)

    New Character/prop/thingy

    in Work In Progress / Sweatbox

    Posted

    Squish/spray my ant?? After all the work I put in??? :D

     

    His exoskeleton has a very slightly plastic look to it

    I thought about texturing him properly rather than just using group properties, but he's such a small thing on the screen there's no real point spending much time doing that as it would go unnoticed.

     

    I have seen the Mantis Parable. I like the guys attention to detail, and his textures are quite special. Yet another inspiring animator to watch I reckon!

    New Character/prop/thingy

    in Work In Progress / Sweatbox

    Posted

    Hi everyone,

     

    Well, the school holidays end and so does my productivity. Before I get back into the nitty grity of teaching students, I thought people might be interested in the latest 'character' to use the term loosely. There is a little test animation on the below link

     

    http://www.shaunfreeman.com/ant.htm

     

    ant_large.jpg

     

    I rigged this guy by hand using Billy Egginton's setup, as it seemed easier given he has SIX legs? It took a while, but I am happy with the result

     

    In any case, peoples thoughts or comments would be greatly appreciated!

    Caterpillar

    in Work In Progress / Sweatbox

    Posted

    Might I get a shot of your bones ...uh ... his bones that is?  A wireframe that shows his bones that is.
    The bone structure is very straightforward. Its just a straight IK chain of bones, with two bones per segment of the caterpillar. As I'm not really going to have her doing much more than munch on leaves, (that may change...) there's not much point putting in a complex constrained bone structure.

    Have you thought about how it will "walk"? that was one of my problems. Coming up with a way to have each set of feet "stick" to the ground while the others moved and the body sort of ripples. Probably some sort of constraint system that you turn on and off maybe?

    I'm not planning on getting her to walk really (basically due to the complexity of the constraints setup I would need to use, so the problem doesn't really crop up). If anyone had any thoughts about how to constrain a caterpillar easily however, I too would be interested in knowing about it, as I wouldn't mind having her shuffle along a branch if it was quick and easy...

     

    Re: the caterpillar type, its based on the pupae of a Hercules Moth, one of the largest moths in the world with a wing span of ( I think) about 24 cm. I picked it because:

    1. Its Australian, and I'm setting the film in Australia, hence I needed an Aussie species

    2. Both the caterpillar and the resulting adult are absolutely spectacular, and hence conducive to good viewing! :)

    BTW, I've finished the adult moth also, and I'm quite happy with the way she turned out. I'll post a little clip of her shortly if people are interested.

     

    Re: specularity, Vern summed up pretty well. They tend to be velvety looking animals rather than slimey looking...

     

    And for the record... she's not going to be munched by any of my birds... :D

    Caterpillar

    in Work In Progress / Sweatbox

    Posted

    but does this mean the caterpillar will be less of a character and more of a "real" caterpillar? Or will he be a character with a unique personality?
    Thanks for the compliments Jim! Re: the caterpillar, he is going to be more of a real caterpillar, and is more to set the scene of the film than anything else. He has an important function, but its not crucial to the main storyline...

    Did you just smartskin it like crazy? Because it looks like it would easily fold in on itself.

    The modelling and texturing took a little while. The actual rigging of the caterpillar only took half an hour or so. No smartskin at ALL!! I basically added the bones, increased the cp falloff for each bone, right-clicked in the modelling window and selected 'compute all cp weights'. Once I'd done that the caterpillar was ready to go! I'm LOVING these new cp weights and the control they give you!!

    Guess school holdays will help Cuckoo is along
    OOOhhhhh yeah!! Gotta love the school hols!.

     

     

    Thanks for taking the time to comment peoples!

    Facial rig test: Using Victor's ideas...

    in Work In Progress / Sweatbox

    Posted

    RIghto, here's the same animation rendered in shaded and wireframe mode. Its a little small, but you can make out the individual bones I think. Tell me if its not clear and I'll render out a larger one.

    http://www.shaunfreeman.com/animation.htm

     

    As a newbie rigger i must tell you that when i looked at all the bones in cuckoos mouth i nearly puked.

     

    Modernhorse, its really not that bad. It looks messy but only because there is one bone assigned to each spline in the mouth. Hence, lots of bones. Actually constraining it to move with the jaw, and also creating poses getting the correct movement for different lip shapes was not that much of a problem...

    Facial rig test: Using Victor's ideas...

    in Work In Progress / Sweatbox

    Posted

    I watched it half a dozen times or so to see if there was anything that stood out and the only thing I caught was that her bill bounces or quivers open and close ever so slightly after she is finished saying "Vietnam."

     

    Thanks Paul! With regards to the above, I stuck that little quiver in as I saw myself doing it when I was trying the clip out in the mirror and I thought it looked more realistic when I had it in.

     

    Although I used Victors ideas, due to the different shape of the head and mouth I had to adapt the idea a fair bit ffor it to work.

     

    If people are interested I'll post the same clip with the bones in view so you can see what they are doing?

    Facial rig test: Using Victor's ideas...

    in Work In Progress / Sweatbox

    Posted

    I'd be interested in hearing more about this mouth rig vs. your previous method and in what ways the old system wasn't getting you what you needed. By chance is there a test of the old way we could see

     

    Previously I just used basic muscle motion poses. I did this by having poses for each spline, and then used these poses to create other poses which made up the mouth shapes. The downside to this is that you need to create poses for every conceivable mouth shape, and due to the additive nature of the poses, they may not necessarily work well together. Using bones and cp falloff, I can assign bones to single splines using the bones falloff (only available with v11.0, you can't assign bone falloff so specifically in the earlier versions of A:M) and it allows you to just assign bones using cp falloff. They then work in all directions.... up, down, left right. So that takes away a huge number of steps. It also ensures that they all work well together, so that when I use a number of poses at the same time, I can still get a uniform mouth shape.

     

    Thanks for the comments so far!

    Facial rig test: Using Victor's ideas...

    in Work In Progress / Sweatbox

    Posted

    I've been following Victor Navone's development of his facial rig closely, and using a similar system have been able to rig my latest character much more efficietly than in the past. I've completed a small test (no laughing ..... after Victors effort I'm almost embarressed to post it...) with some detail on the bone structure on my webpage.

     

    cuckoo_mother_bones_small.jpg

     

    Click here to go to my webpage, then click on the 'The Cuckoo, Animation' link.

     

    I'd be interested in peoples thoughts..

     

    Cheers

×
×
  • Create New...