Dale_The_Bold
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Posts posted by Dale_The_Bold
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I asked a similar question (Walking and Waving, then Continue Walking) about a year ago and I got this helpful reply from John Bigboote:
I would make a walk-cycle action, then in choreography set the choreography action to 'add' instead of the default 'replace' then animate the waving action there, and you will be able to see how the 2 actions interact. Copy and paste the keyframes from the 'normal' arm and hand positions at the end of the wave and the walk cycle should remain uninhindered.THEN- you could save THAT performance as an action, bring it back in the chor and continue to add to it. Build it up.
Thank you again, John.
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Rotoscoping for animation generally means that you have a some video footage of a person doing some action, and you've converted that into an image sequence that A:M can import.
What are the formats that A:M can import?
I was just thinking of trying this method and happily found this thread.
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"Lucy---You got some spline-in to do!"
That....was hilarious. I laughed out loud and then read it out loud, in Ricky. I nominate this as the new A:M user saying of the year. I will probably say it to myself the next time I have to do some modeling, er, spline-in'.
I must be just the right age (34). I grew up watching Lucy reruns and I was there when Xbox happened.
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I then spent 1 day 'Frankenstiening' other body parts...
Excellent verbing of the word "Frankenstein."
Also, good job on the model.
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That's not a bad girl voice, though. I've tried it myself for scratch soundtrack purposes and there is something elusive about it that is more than just "pitch".
Most men struggle with doing a realistic sounding female voice. Well, most never dare to even try it, so you get cool points for that. It usually ends up being just a falsetto.
I read a tip on a site years ago that helped me discover that elusive thing. I have recorded some adult female voices that were completely convincing without any retouching (but getting a kid voice sure is a new challenge). As weird as this may sound, to achieve a female-sounding voice, you start by impersonating Marvin the Martian:
"Oh goody! My Alludium Q36 explosive space modulator!"
With that as the foundation, you can raise the pitch a little at a time and then adjust the inflection. Women do talk in a sing-songy way, with a lot of ups and downs, almost as if they are actually singing. That's one of the hard things about nailing this kid-voice. Kids have more of a monotone, and I think I just have to find that small range and stay in it.
You can actually feel the voice "settling" in the upper vocal chord, and it doesn't feel strained like the falsetto does. Your Adam's apple disappears while doing it, too. I think the magic happens when the vocal chords are relaxed, but the sound is still coming from the upper region.
I move around a lot when I do this stuff. I usually throw my shoulders back and prance around like a princess when I do the girl voice, LOL. I think a lot of voice actors do that to step into character. The footage I've seen of a lot of them has a lot of hand motions and expressions as they portray the character. The advantage is, of course, that no one is looking.
It's something to practice in the car or in the shower. That's what I do. I had to wonder the other day, even though my windows were up, if the car next to me at the stoplight could hear me saying, "If I were a bow on my head what color would I want to be."
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Much of it, however sounds like an older girl, a later teenage girl rather than a 10 year-old. There's a breathy quality that children have that is missing.
I think you're right. Young kids do "push" their words out a little more than older kids. This recording was my tenth try. The early ones sounded completely like an adult woman. It sounds better when I do it louder, probably for that very reason. If I push the words out more, they will probably sound more like a kid.
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i pitched it 200 cents up... maybe 100 could be enough if you worry about the mickey-mouse effect...
Thank you very much for that.
This is what's so great about the Hash Community. Lots of help, quickly.
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Is that your real voice, Dale, or did you digitize it?
That's my real voice with no retouching at all. Well, not my normal speaking voice, lol. I'm 33 and male. So it would be a downright catastrophe if my voice stuck like that.
There are a few points in the pitched file that become a tiny bit Smurfette-like. Usually at the deepest part of the vocals, like the ends of sentences. I would be a little concerned about that.
How much of an adjustment was made on that file? (Whatever the "units of pitch" may be).
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Thank you for the reply.
I see a lot of views, only one reply. I would appreciate more responses, good or bad.
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This is my attempt at doing the voice of the main character of my current project. She is an approximately-ten-year-old girl who reaches the age of early 20s by the end the project, so her voice should change a little between the beginning and end of the story. I figured, by doing the voice myself, I could change the voice as needed. Self-directing is easier than telling someone else exactly what you need. (also, it makes it less daunting to do multiple takes).
I thought I would post this test (or self-audition) here on this site to get the opinions of my fellow animators, whose opinions I trust.
And, yes, I borrowed, verbatim, the dialog from Jason Osipa's animation from the book on facial animation (and this site, it's in the A:M Films section). The book is called Stop Staring, and I recommend it. (It is available at Amazon and at Barnes & No-Bull).
DIALOGUE:
Pink or blue. Pink or blue. Oh, I just don't know. If I go with the pink one, I'm all, "Ooh, look at the little girly girl in pink." And if I'm blue, then it's like, "Hey look at the boy girl. Why don't you go do boy stuff, boy girl!" Okay, just think it out. If I were a bow...on my head...what color...would I want...to be.
Yes, this is me, as a little girl. Please be honest, but also kind.
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I have put together a long scene and I'm having issues rendering it. The clip is 57 seconds long. When I render 10 second clips of it, it turns out okay. But, when I render the whole thing, using final render settings, the image becomes a negative and the top and bottom are swapped (kind of like the old TVs with the "rolling" picture, only locked into a half roll). The preview screen as it renders is okay, as I check it periodically throughout the day. I am rendering uncompressed.
Is there a specific setting combination known to render this kind of result?
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What-the-heck-is-a 'hybrid cat lady'???
I think there might have been one of those down the street from me...when she moved out the humane society was there with nets for a week- then they had to raize the house.
I guess it means a Cat-Lady Hybrid, kind of like BrundleFly, as though a lady took a cat through the teleporter and they merged. I am amused by the notion, though, of a lady with a house full of hybrid cats.
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There is this clip on YouTube. Don't know if you have a way to capture that audio.
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Eureka! That was the setting I needed to change. Thank you for your help!
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After many hours of tinkering with this, I discovered that it is not only overriding all frames after the assignment of a single keyframe, but all frames prior to the new keyframe. In other words, if I move his hand at all anywhere in the middle of the timeline, it makes the hand start in that pose and stay in that pose for all frames in the entire choreography, regardless of where I make that keyframe.
So, in order to have the character wave, I would have to animate the hand waving, but then go back and manually keyframe every step he takes on his walk path. I could create a wave action and simply add that, but there are other subtle things I want to add to the choreography, just as a little turn of the head as someone crosses his path. But, to do that, I would wipe out all head movement in the walk cycle.
A:M didn't do this prior to the upgrade. Is there a setting I have to adjust in order to add extra, one-time movements to a walk cycle without wiping out the entire walk cycle's keyframes on that bone?
Or maybe as setting that would make A:M convert the walk cycle along the path to a series of keyframes? Then I know I could fine-tune bones as needed along the walk path and add all the subtle adjustments I want along the way.
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I have an elaborate choreography with several different characters walking and talking, one is even flying. As one character walks near another, I want him to wave hello to the other. But, when I try to apply the keyframes for the hand, that hand removes itself from the walk cycle and no longer swings by his side, from that frame on. Is there a way to throw in this quick series of keyframes and then return that hand to the walk cycle?
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you have to add nose hair!!!
And a big ol' booger that flaps in the breeze.
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What does it say about this crowd that even without a body, our thoughts gravitate toward bodily functions?
Because we know what's funny.
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at my age, I have a lot of brain farts of my own
With my diet, I have a lot of the regular kind.
I'm still rigging him so he'll be moving soon. If anyone has any comments or suggestions I'd love to hear them.I'm picturing him with a little rocking back and forth as he walks, making the liquid slosh around. (What liquid is that? All of these brains in jars and I've never thought to ask what they're floating in)>
Since he wouldn't have biological vocal chords, I suspect that he would speak electronically. I would find it amusing if his voice, every now and then, let out a random, low-pitched "brrrrrnnpt!" sounding like an electronic fart, kind of like the sounds R2D2 makes.
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I love the tie. Is Mr. Fart headed to a formal event?
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How dense is the skirts mesh? Denser equals better for SimCloth collision-detection. I find that square shaped patches (uniform) help too.
The best way to get going in an advanced feature like this is to conduct some rudimentary tests for your own experience. Drape a cloth mesh over a box, ball or other more complex shapes. Experiment with dense meshes versus not-so-dense meshes.
There is no 'for dummies' guide...it's a very advanced feature and to try it on a moving figure means you will have some experimenting.
HERE is a 'simple' draping experiment I finished recently for a TV spot that proves A:M SimCloth Collision-Detection DOES work (on a static object at least)...this used an EXTREMELY dense mesh.
Wow. That video clip is amazing. I didn't know that it was capable of working that well.
I found the problem. I had been having a problem where the top of the skirt and the top of the legs shared CPs. I created a separate object I called "Upper Legs" just to keep a gap between the starting position of the cloth and the deflector. Basically, I ended up with upper thighs that weren't deflectors, so the cloth passed through.
Good advice, everyone. Thank you. I may have to keep this thread in Favorites, just for reference.
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Have you seen this tutorial - perhaps this might help (not sure)?
That helped a lot. I had seen it a long time ago, but only scanned it. It's helpful having something like that while working. I printed it and now have it with my collection of helper guides I have put together.
It's definitely better. The ten seconds I added prior to the choreography allows the cloth to settle, eliminating the splinophrenia (crazy splines). I'm still getting a sneak peak at my character's undies, but the interaction is much better (I've greatly increased the density of the spines in the skirt). It's still an issue, though. I'm hoping a glance at this will give someone a "eureka" moment.
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I created a character wearing a robe. I gave the character bones. I set the lower section of the robe (the hangy-cloth, skirty part) to the default settings for cloth. I then set both legs to be collision objects. As a test, I created a ten second choreography of the character lifting his left leg. When I right-click and go to Simcloth Simulate, the cloth geometry goes all wonky and I get the following message.
System found to be unsolvable. Possible causes: forced intersecting geometry, very sudden movement, or other setting...
I also created a character wearing a skirt. When I do the same animation, and apply SimCloth, her skirt constantly wiggles around, as though there is wind (which there isn't), but it does move when her leg pushes it, even though it is wiggling around the whole time. Even without and character movement, her skirt splines dance around.
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Zombie thread! Sorry for digging it up from its grave, but I found this while searching for the same answer, then discovering the answer in A:M, so I'll bump the thread just to help other members.
To instantly reveal all of the child bones, it is the asterisk on the Num Pad. This, for me, is even more handy than holding the right arrow key.
My latest short done in AM
in Work In Progress / Sweatbox
Posted
That was cool. Well done!