Mechadelphia
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Posts posted by Mechadelphia
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I'm wondering...
Is anyone here in the A:M forums also in the Philadelphia Pennsylvania area and may be interested in meeting up to discuss all things Animation Master?
There used to be a group here years ago called the MAAM (Mid Atlantic Animation Master user group). We don't meet any more and it seems that all of the members of that group, except for me, no longer use A:M or have moved on to other things.
I think that it would be nice to actually meet other A:M users face to face again. It was pretty cool back then and I think that it could be pretty cool now even though it would not be the same group of people as before. I could go over some rigging stuff and maybe some modeling stuff too but I'm also interested in meeting other A:M users out there and learning about what they are up to as well.
If anyone here is in the Philadelphia area or close by and you may be interested in meeting up then let me know here and let's see what we can work out.
Thanks.
Edit (April 7th, 2018):
It looks like I may be the only Philadelphia area Animation Master user.
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Thank you Rodney.
You certainly answered my questions and I appreciate the details that you shared.
Take care.
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So when I look at different users on the forum I see there they are associated with a group.
I remember what the "Hash Fellow" and "Film" groups were about from years ago but what do "A:M User" and "Craftsman/ Mentor" groups denote?
Is it related to post count on the forum or is it something else?
Thanks.
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Thank you!
...I haven't gotten far into my research yet but I did start playing with the finger controllers etc. to refresh my memory there.
I almost feel like I've asked this question before so... apologies if I have...
What is the preferred way to create basic hand gestures with the Saucy rig (fist, pointing, etc.)?
I believe what I'm looking for is to create a pose set that collects a bunch of standard hand poses from which to initiate further refinement.
This may open me to accusations of being lazy but... I am... so I plead guilty.
To continue in this same vein my thought is to have a resting hand pose that is roughly that of the character holding an (invisible) baseball (see attached image).
I'm guessing I can get at this functionality through an Action (or set of Actions) but I'm curious if such a thing as a pose collection might appropriate to add to a rig such as the Saucy Rig.
...And now I'm off to investigate more...
Added: I'm reading back on your documentation especially as it relates to Steve's Hand Gizmo.
Thanks much for the update!Rodney, have a look at robcat2075's post about poses (watch the video). He specifically covers something called "draggable poses" which may be a good way to go for that.
You can use that approach to create a large variety of hand poses and it would be very quick and easy for you to set up and use.
Something else I like over all is your addition of Notes/Credits in the User Properties.
That's a nice touch.Thanks.
In the earlier versions of the Saucy Rig, those credits and thank you notes were actually included in the rig file too except that they were buried deep in the relationship folders where maybe two or three people that I could think of would ever dig deep enough to see them. I can tell you that if they found those notes then they certainly were not expecting to find them
.I wanted to put them front and center for this version so that is one of the reasons why I made the "Notes" folder.
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Hi Everyone.
Alright, I have posted the new rig(s) at my website with some brief notes about what's new.
You can download the file from there and check out the notes thats I have there at the moment.
I will update the notes to include more detail soon but I just wanted to get the update out in the meantime.
If you have already installed Saucy Rig version 1c or earlier then you do not need to reinstall everything from scratch.
I will update my page with a video about the process soon.
If you have any questions or need clarification on something about the rig then just let me know.
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Hi Everyone.
It has been quite awhile since I have posted in this forum but I wanted to let you know that I have an update coming soon for the Saucy Rig.
It is primarily a major fix for the behavior of the IK legs. The knees have a tendency to get a bit wonky when rotating the pelvis control. That problem was caused by the way that I parented some of the bones but that is fixed is in the new rig.
I also have 2 additional rig types that you can swap in in case you may prefer a different way of controlling the body (you'll see...)
I also made a few minor tweaks to improve the usability a little bit.
Anyway, I will let you know when I post the new rig file(s). I am hoping to post it by this Wednesday or Thursday.
I want to thank everyone that has tried the rig and I thank all of you that have complimented me for it. I really appreciate it.
I have not read all of the post yet where some of you have had trouble. When I post the new rig I will also answer those questions if they have not been answered yet.
If you have any questions in the meantime then please let me know here.
Take care.
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Thank you nemyax.
This is very well done and very useful.
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Steve,
I Iooked at the model with the rig and and found an issue but it was not the one you described as far as I could tell.
I fixed (reset) your model's rig though (I fixed your model's version 1c rig but then I put version 1.5 in it after).
I'm not sure about what caused your problem but make sure you follow the install tutorial directions exactly, particularly with which "User Properties" to set to "Not Set" after export from the Action window.
Anyway, you should find the file in your e-mail shortly.
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...Snip. Just e-mail the model to me and I'll take a look at it.
Hi Steve,
I wasn't kidding. Just send me the model so that I can look at it.
I can't determine what the cause of your issue is by looking at the video.
I will look at it and then let you know what I find.
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Hey Mack,
If I want to add fan bones and other things such as weights and possibly smart skin......When is the right stage to
do this.
I'm guessing it would be done during the initial bone placement and assignment stage, but I just thought I'd ask first
Thanks,
Kevin
Ooops .....had two additional questions...
1. Is there a "Best" version of A:M to install the rig in??
2. Is it able to run Motion captures(BVH's)???
Thanks so much.
I'll chime in before mack can...
Weighting and fan bones can be implemented at any point, I usually do it POST rigging... I am always in a constant state of re-weighting my CP's... you get it just right, then try another completely different action- reweight!
Best Version? I'll leave that for mack- but since it is a newer rig, I would stay current in my A:M sub and use the latest that comes thru the mill unless you and others see problems.
Most any rig can use BVH's... it's just a matter of constraining the rig to the BVH bones...
Hi detbear,
Matt is correct; you can do all/ any of that work at any point during the process.
Matt says he does it towards the end. I do it at the beginning. It can work out fine either way.
Whatever you are comfortable at any given moment with is the right way for you.
Right now, I recommend using v18 when setting up the Saucy Rig becuase of some added features that make things a little more easier to work with. You can use v17 though and probably v16 as well but I have not tried it with v15 or earlier.
I don't know anything about motion capture so I am not able to help you with that right now.
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Hey Mack
When I run the install rig portion in the action, i seem to have movement in the bones after I save the model. When I reopen the model in an action or chor the leg bones move on the z axis. Any thoughts?
Notice the rig around the top of the leg in after has shifted when I open the action file
Steve
Hi Steve,
That is somthing that could happen in version "1b" and earlier of the rig.
I fixed that issue in version "1c" of the rig and that version has been out since January 12, 2015.
(I'll paste the notes of the changes to the rig in my first post of this thread).
If you are using version "1c" then something else else going on with it. Just e-mail the model to me and I'll take a look at it.
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Thanks Robert.
I went to learn a little more about Maya at its website.
I'm not sure what to say about it yet aside from I find it a bit expensive. If I were making a living from using it then I would find the price reasonable. What makes it so "ghastly" to you?
I think that I will start a reel with my own rigs that I have made in Animation Master to start off with and then later I will add more to it along the way once I get better with using additional software.
I've been doing more research into this kind of work and I get the impression that it is not a very stable line of work because of the amount of temp jobs that I see and layoffs that I have read about in the past.
I will still keep reseaching the topic and continue to develop my skills in the meantime.
I will also have a closer look at Barry Zundel's web site as you suggested.
Thanks again.
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How does one get a character rigging job?
I've been giving this some thought for awhile and wondered what may actually be involved in finding a character rigging job.
I am not nessesarily talking about getting a job with one of the more well known studios; I just want to know in general terms what kinds of things are involved in the process.
What are some of the aspects involved in making oneself an attractive prospect to potential employers? What kind of things do you need on a resume? I imagine that we all need to start small and then work our way up along the way.
I find plenty of information on various websites on information about finding character animator jobs but I don't find much on character rigging jobs.
What I have noticed with job postings from various companies that produce animation is that most of them specify needing to have knowledge of Maya Well, I don't know much about Maya at the moment but I guess if I really get serious about this then I'm going to have to study it.
Also, I imagine some kind of rigging demo reel would be nessesary. Is such a thing used in that line of work? What kinds of things would go into it? Since it not hard to grab someone else's work from the internet and claim credit for it how would one prove that they created the rig or rigged the character(s) in the reel? How does one demonstrate that they have the abilty to rig well?
If you have any experience in this area I'd appreciate your advice on the matter.
Thank you.
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Hi Heiner,
I’m glad that you are happy with the rig.
There is no reason not to add additional bones if you want to or need to add them.
You may find it an relatively easy process.
For the Saucy Rig, I add fan bones directly to the geometry bones hierarchy of the rig. Take special care to not alter the parent child relationship of that pre-established hierarchy. You can do the same with your own face rig or other customized setups if you want.
By putting your customized setups in the geometry bones hierarchy, even though they may not all have CPs directly assigned to them, those setups will stay with your rig if you ever decide to use a different version of the Saucy Rig (I have updates ready but I need to finish writing directions and record a brief video for it).
If you were to incorporate rig customizations into the Saucy Rig’s control bone hierarchy then Saucy Rig updates would likely overwrite those custom setups.
For staying organized, I recommend using your own naming conventions for your custom bones and nulls when adding them to the Saucy Rig. That will help you easily sort out your custom setups from the default ones when working in the project work space.
So basically, add anything to the rig that you like but I suggest just adding it to the geometry bone hierarchy rather than the control bone hierarchy.Good luck.
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Hi Bryan and welcome to the A:M forums
It stops working. You can resubscribe anytime you want and it will work again but as long as you do not have a running subscription, it will not start.
The non-expiring version is 299 Dollars and will get updates of one major version (like v18).
After that you can use v18 as long as you want, but you will not get any updates from v19.
See you
*Fuchur*
If I purchase the never expiring licence for the current v18 can I use that licence to also run the previous v17 and v16 as well?
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I am using the regular OBS rather than the multiplatform release (I did not notice that there were two different versions before I downloaded the regular version).
My tests yesterday were saved as .flv and, as you suggested, the regular release does not have a conversion option so yesterday I used Handbrake to do the conversion to mp4.
For some reason the files save as .flv by default but I learned today that you can change it so that it saves its files as .mp4. No conversion needed
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That's a great update!
Did you code it yourself from scratch?
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Thank you Rodney for posting this.
I had not heard of this software before you posted this so I downloaded it and tried it out. It is working well for me so far.
I have been using CamStudio to record my video tutorials but I am going to use this OBS for my next ones because it is outperforming the version of CamStudio that I use in just about every area that I use it for.
Thanks.
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Here is a test that I did with the "Saucy Rig"--Mack Chappelle rigged this Hyena with it. (Thanks Mack!) The only problem that I had was that I constrained the Axe to the IK controller for the hand, but when animating the the controller didn't stay with the hand. So I had to manually position the axe to stay in the grip of the hand (which was a pain). The finger controllers are not as easy to use as TSM, but worked as designed.
It took a lot of fiddling to position the torso, using the controller and the chest bone....
Hi William,
You're welcome!
You could have constrained the axe to the hand's keying assist bone or its geometry bone. The IK control is outside of the main skeletal hierachy so that is why you had to make so many tedious adjustments every time that you moved it.
I have a minor update for the Saucy rig coming out soon. One of the additions is an option to use the Setup Machine style body/ torso controls.
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Thank you for the videos.
I found them very useful.
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Paul,
The settings that I use are slightly different than what you posted here.
Make sure that you delete all of the extra bones on the left and right side that were created by the plugin before running it again.
Here is a screen shot of what I am using:
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Paul, will you please post a screenshot of your settings from the mirror bones dialouge window?
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Hi Douglas,
I looked at your model.
You did a good job actually.
You only forgot to right-click on the folder “Rig Installation Settings (Use only during skeleton install process)” and then select “Not Set” from the drop down menu while in your model window (not the Action or Choreography window).
If you do that now and save the file then the rig will behave as it should.
In IK Mode on your leg, the bones are not supposed to be visible. Use the the Nulls at the feet to position the leg.
The three bones that are visible on the right leg in your picture came from you running the Mirror Bones plugin. For some reason it generated those extra bones. You can delete them since they have nothing to do with the rig. Those bones start with the prefix “LeftGEOM…”
There are a few other minor things that you should have a second look at as far as your rigging of this model. For example, you missed assigning a few CPs to the pelvis bone. The CP assignments for the feet and thumbs could use some adjusting but overall you did a really good job.
If I have some time this weekend I’ll post a brief video of me going through your model and making adjustments so that you can see exacltly what I am talking about. -
I have another problem after I do all the things in the saucy rig vid. This happens to my bones in the model. Right leg bones are gone.
It looks like you skipped a step or two but I would need to see your rigged model in order to show you how to fix it.
Can you post your model file here so that I can help you?
(Solved) Are there any A:M users here in the Philadelphia PA area?
in Open Forum
Posted
Thanks Robert.
I will certainly do that in the meantime. I just need to catch up on that post to see what i will need to be able to participate.
Still, it would be nice to meet other A:M users who may be in the area. Virtual meetings are truly a great thing to me but if the meeting participants are local then I would love to sit down with them in person.