Mechadelphia
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Posts posted by Mechadelphia
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Hello everyone,
I have a a few questions about Constraint Switching in a character.
I am rigging a character who needs to have several differents constraint set-ups.
Why might one chose to set up constraints with a Pose Percentage Slider versus a Pose On/ Off switch and vice versa?
(For example: Switching from FK Arms to IK Arms and back. Which pose storage method might be the best to use? )
If I need to switch the constraints of a character in the middle of a shot, would the switch be apparent to the audience in the character's perfomance by a sudden pop in its limbs?
I am unsure with how to proceed with my set ups for this particular character at the moment so I would greatly appreciate any input that you may have to offer.
Thanks.
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rodney, we couldn't have done it without you!
...literally! ' ' )
-jon
Yes this forum has been a great resource for many of us and it took the whole community to make it that way.
But there is one question that has been on my mind for quite some time now:
Why is Rodney not a Hash Fellow? Based on his above and beyond contributions to the Hash forums (and thus, the Hash community), I thought that I would have seen his name in GREEN by now.
I'm not saying this becuase he has a heck of a lot of posts here; I'm saying this because his posts almost always seem to be mature, informative, relevant, and help to keep things on track here on the forums.
I prefer quality over quanity any day of the week but with Rodney you get both... every day of the week.
So thanks everyone and thanks Rodney...here's to 50,000 more posts and beyond.
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i bought a:m like 2 months ago and after the 1st month mirror mode died on me even on freshly copy/flip/attached models! i've checked the pivot and i've contacted the hash support staff but to no avail won't somebody please help a struggling 15 year old animator in distress?!?!
Hi Pancho,
When you say that mirror mode died on you, are you saying that it did work for you at one point and now it does not?
Hmmm... Let us know if you are still having trouble.
I had trouble figuring out how to get the Mirror Mode to work too when I first got into AM.
A solution for you should not be difficult to work out.
I posted a response to Morphy asking about Mirror Mode. Hopefully it can help you too.
Click Here to see if this can help you.
Good Luck and don't give up.
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The reason I ask is because I currently do not have a website or anything like that.
OrangeMaster,
You can do a search on Google for free image hosting and you'll find list of companies who will host images (not nessesarily web pages) you upload on a webserver for free.
People who use forums like this do it all of the time when they post images since many of them don't have websites either.
Generally, you upload your images to their server and the server informs you of the url(s) that you need to link to your hosted images
I am contemplating using Image Shack for this very thing (http://www.imageshack.us/).
I have not used them so I can't recommend them to you.
Make sure that you compare services before deciding since some have better offerings than others (ie: some allow more bandwith usage than others do).
If you try it out anytime soon let me know how it works out for you.
Good Luck
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Thank you Pat (and Bill too)
I am studying your setup right now as I type.
I really love learning about these things and your setup help to make things much clearer to me.
Oh, thank you for your fan bones tutorial as well.
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Hi Amar,
Nice work so far.
Since you are looking for some criticism, I would like to give you a brand of criticism called constructive criticism.
First off, I have attached a modified image (I hope) of two areas of your model that caught my attention.
1. The Head Mesh:
Overall it looks fine. Since I don't know what kind of athstetics that you are aiming for I won't offer many comments in that area.
I did spot a 3-point patch in the mesh near the front of the ear. The top portion of the attached image offers one possible way to solve that situation with 4-point patches and hooks it if you desire to remove it.
Also it looks as if you need to flip the normals of one of a 5-point patch in the ear itself. I pointed to that in the image as well.
2. The "Bottom Heavy Area":
Like you, I have no problem with "bottom heavy" areas and that is not a problem on this model.
I would say that there may be a problem with the model being "bottom high" at this point in the modeling process.
Here is what I mean:
If you look critically at the view of your figure's butt in relation to the torso you may find that it is not quite flowing with the rest of the body's contours.
The top of the woman's butt should flow into the small of her back and that transition should occur below her navel (maybe about 3/4 of the way up from her crotch... but of course you can use use your artistic license).
Now you did mention that you are working in that waist to hip area now so maybe you that is something that you have already addressed. In the image I attached I have made a crude representation of a possible alteration you can try with that.
3. The Costume:
Nice drawings by the way. They are all nice costumes.
If I had to pick only one I would pick the third one (the one with the shorts). The shape of the figure in that drawing also seems to be more in line with the figure you are modeling.
But if you have a script that you are working from the story could possibly help determine what kind of costume would work best for you.
Well I hope that helps you out some Amar.
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Hi Rich,
I certainly am from Philadelphia (born and raised)!
As for my forum name:
I just happen to love the some of the various mecha designs seen in Japanese animation and I also find a lot to love about Philadelphia.
Anyway...
Unfortunately, I am not near Philly right now because I am out of the country at the moment.
Coincidently, I am due back in mid-August.
If I am in town when you all meet then count me in for sure.
I've been waiting for an oppurtunity like this.
I'll keep you posted though on whether or not I'll be able to attend as the meeting date draws closer.
Thanks and I hope to see you all August (or whichever date is agreed on).
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Rich and Don,
There is a newly added forum for User Groups in the "Resources" section of the forum.
I think that addresses your very good idea Rich.
So why don't you go ahead and get the Mid-Atlantic Animation Master Usergroup thread started?
I'll see you there
Good luck
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Good News everyone!
I was able to get the "Mirror All Smartskin" to work on my model with the Hash 2001 rig!
David, I tried your suggestion and adjusted my mirror mode tolerance. And that did the trick.
I had my tolerence set to .49' initially so I lowered it to 0 to test it.
When I did that it still did not work but it did create new drivers for the mirrored side's bone in the relationship drivers folder in the project workspace (it did not do that before).
Smelling blood
, I raised the mirror mode tolerance to .25' and that nailed it and the "Mirror All Smartskin" worked!(Maybe different skeleton and meshe combinations sometimes require different settings than others. I don't know it's just a thought)
Excellent! I am going to check to see if I'll need to iron out a few wrinkles in my settings but I think that this Smartskin hurdle of mine has been cleared.
Case thankfully closed!
Thanks again David and Mike for that advice.
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Hello Mike and David,
I really appreciate you both taking the time to reply to my posts.
Thank you.
I'd like to respond to a few of the items you mentioned in your posts:
Symetrical Model: As far as the possibilty of my model's mesh not being symetrical enough. I did not think that was the problem but just to be thorough I did look into that but my mesh is fine and I did build it with those kinds of things in mind.
Keep in mind, I did state that during my trouble shooting, I was able to get the "Mirror All Smartskins" function to work on my character's mesh but that was only with a very simple alternative skeleton that I quickly made up to test the problem.
When the mirrored smartskin worked that way, I had not adjusted any modeling tolerances. I will try adjusting the tolerances though tommorrow as you suggested David to see if I have any luck.
I have yet to have the "Mirror All Smartskins" work on any mesh that I've tested with the Hash 2001 rig.
David, I only mentioned looking for a way to "manually" copy and flip smartskin in the spirit of ingenuity... in efforts to find a workaroud in the meantime. There's also no copy flip attach bones button either but it can be done flawlessly in a few "outside of the box" steps.
Fanbones vs. Smartskin: I am fairly certain that I will incorparte fan bones into all of my organic models of my models. But I will still to use the Smartskin to tweak what I feel needs fine tuning. I like the options that smartskin offer me so I don't see myself discounting it entirely in favor of fan bones.
Also, I learned while reading David Rogers' book that smartskin is not just for muscle motion anymore. You can also drive other animateable attributes other than control points. I tried it out some already and I want to use some of that functionality and be able to mirror that functionality on my model as well.
Third party options: Yes, I have read about The Setup Machine. I have nothing against any of those types of solutions but I am the type of guy who likes to work under the hood of his own car rather than take it to a mechanic. The same goes for my modeling. Besides, the Anzovin's did not have a Setup Machine when they first started. They learned the rigging, made some mistakes, became better at it, and even made some innovations as a result.
I can't learn about rigging in the way that I want to if I have a Setup Machine rigging for me.
But my problem is not the rigging part. I can do that already. Right now it's just getting that mirrored smartskin to work with the Hash 2001 rig.
I'm going to go rest and I'll see if tomorrow brings me closer to a solution.
Thank you again for your replys.
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I tried to come closer to solving my smartskin and rigging problem. This time I tried rigging the Thom model from the CD but I have still been unsuccessful so far.
I also tried to find a way to "manually" copy and flip smartskin settings but I was unable to do that. Apparently there was a way to do that in the pre version 9 days before the nature of smartskin relationships were enhanced.
On a side note, I did manage to dig through the Raf version 3 rig and I found out which bones actually attach to the model's geometry.
The naming conventions of the actual Raf rig don't use the "Left" and "Right" standard on the geometry bones that the "Mirror All Smartskin" function needs (according the html technical references).
So as a test on the Raf rig, I renamed a few of those bones to conform to the "left and right" naming convention. I tried to mirror some smartskin that I made up for it but that did not work either.
The bright side to all of this for me is that I am actually becoming very comfortable with digging through these sophisticated rigs. I would not have been able to tell you that about my rigging knowledge a few weeks ago. I'll be able to apply what I'm learning about this now in my future projects.
Eventually, I may just build my own skeleton from scratch but I'd hate to run into whatever situation is preventing me from using the "Mirror All Smartskin" function on my own rig as well.
Since the Hash 2001 rig is already "ready to go" for my needs I would prefer to use it right now (after I get past this mirror smartskin hump). That way I can move on to character animation sooner and save my own custom rig building explorations for later.
Again, if anyone has any suggestions about getting past this rigging and smartskin challenge, please let me know.
Thanks again.
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Hello everyone.
This is my very first postI am hoping that some of you out there will be able to help me resolve a smartskin challenge that I am having.
I am not new to using Animation Master (though still learning cheerfully) but I am just learning about custom rigging and adding constraints to my own characters.
I bulit a model and then rigged it with the Hash 2001 skeleton and that process worked out just fine. Then I added a smartskin to right side of the model and I completed that with no problems as well. Then tried to mirror the smartskin from the right side using the "Mirrior All Smartskin" option in the model context menu. After I did that, the opposite side (left) of the model did not recieve the mirrored smartskin.
I used action windows to confirm whether or not the Smartskin was working on my model.
What have I overlooked in reference to mirroring Smartskin with the 2001 rig?
Can the "Mirror all Smartskin" option actually be used with a rig like the Hash 2001 rig?
Here is how I have troubleshot my situation so far:
I am currently using version 10.5r on the PC.
I built half of the model and then used "Copy Flip Attach" to complete it.
I added the 2001 rig to the model, made the nessesary adjustments, and then added the smartkin to one side of it.
After I was unsucessful with "Mirror All Smartskin" I wondered whether my problem could be my model.
Since I had never actually used the "Mirrored All Smartskin" before I decided to create simple model and skeleton (and I really do mean simple) from scratch to see if it would work that way under the simplest of circumstances.
I made the simple model and skeleton, rigged the model, and applied smartskin to half of it.
Then I selected "Mirror All Smartskin" in the model context window of my simple model. And that worked! I was able to see the newly mirrored smartskin work for the simple model and skeleton and I also saw the mirrored smartskin properties added to the appropriate folders in the Project Workspace.
Hmmm...
I decided to copy the simple skeleton that I just made and rig my actutual character with it just to see if I could get the "Mirror All Smartskin" function to work.
When I added the simple skeleton to my actual finshed model and tested the smartskin and mirrored smartskin, it also worked!
How about that? Unfortunatley, that simple skeloton I made won't cut it for me in animating like the Hash 2001 skeleton will.
So can any of you offer any possible solutions for this scenario? Have I overlooked something?
I have already refered to the following sources for help on overcoming this challenge:
•The ARM
•Eggington's 2001 rig notes
•The Art of Animation Master and (the video tutorials that compliment it)
•David Rogers' Animation Master 2002, A complete guide.
•and versions 10.5 and 11 of the online A:M html reference.
As a footnote: I was going to try to see what would happen with the mirrored smartskin if I rigged my model with the Raf (v3) skeleton but I have not been able to figure out which bones I am suppoesed to attach to my geometry yet. If I figure it out I will post my findings here.
I thank you in advace.
Constraints: Pose Sliders Question
in (2003-2004)
Posted
Thanks Ken for your reply
Maybe I should change the scope of my question here.
When I take a pre-exsiting rig for practice and switch from FK Arms to IK Arms in an Action Window, the arms don't remain where I positioned them (Once I switch between FK Arms and IK Arms using the pose sliders). The models actually start to get a bit mangled.
What I mean is that the arms jump to new positions and the keyframes that I set look differnt now as far as the arms are concerned.
I know that I am making some serious mistakes but I don't know what they are.
What am I overlooking with this type of set up when I am animating?
Here is a practical example of what I am trying to accomplish:
Suppose I have a model of a basketball player.
I want to animate the basketball player to LEAP from the foul line and do a SLAM DUNK all in one shot.
From the point where the basketball player LEAPS into the air to just before he JAMS on the rim, I want the model's arms to be FK Arms.
When the player GRABS (slams) the rim and HANGS for a moment or two I want to switch the model's arms to be IK Arms (using pose sliders) as his body SWINGS around while his hands firmly grasp the rim.
Once the player lets go of the rim to land, I want to switch the model back to FK Arms.
(In my case I have been practicing using the Washer model from David Rogers' book A:M 2002 A Complete Guide and one of the Anzovin demo rigs from the Anzovin web site)
If anyone can help or point me in the right direction I would really appreciate it.
Thanks