Parlo

Justin - wow. Those are specific! I've always been confused over the tilt of the hips. Richard Williams says "normally the belt line is down with the foot that is down and up with the foot that is up" - which has only made my brain hurt more. The push from the back foot, and the weight of the passing foot leads me to think that you've hit a nail on the head. Anyhow. I've done some alterations based on what you've suggested - mainly to see whether or not I've sorted the hips. The arms, hands and fingers are yet to be really broken up, but i've shifted those skewed hips, and revisited alot of the timing - (organised keyframing all the way baby!) It's quite a bit shorter now... which is a blessing. I'm going to take apart the back-steps when I next get a chance. Thanks for the great critique! I'm tempted to woo hoo, but I'll save it for when the clips finished. QT - Sorenson3 - 900kb

Really, really strong - The running made me laugh alot. Great stuff!

Thanks for the plethora of Wooo Hooos. I've rediscovered arms (and torsos, heads, hands and fingers). Thought that I'd here to keep the clutter to minimum. New clip with an adapted version of the "Proxy-Boy" model. All that's left to do is a bit of tidy up and strengthening some poses. I've been playing around with different combinations of overlaps and breakdowns - there's so much micro detail to be had tweaking these. All crits welcome. Bring 'em on. QT - sorenson3 - 900kb

Guys - major apologies - due to circumstances beyond my control I wasn't able to make Saturday, and I wasn't able to get online either (need I say 'BT') so it all went a bit wrong. I'm sorry if anyone was inconvenienced by this. So... The good news is that the London Bridge venue is a go (the burgers are enjoying great press - they're that good). All we need to do now is find another date and give it a second try.... I'm also slightly worried about the lack of a laptop. It seems like they aren't as popular here as they are in that place across the pond. (You know the one - the place with the funny caps and their own version of cricket.)

Thanks again guys! Rob - I'd say 12 hours in 6 shifts of 2. This isn't that accurate of course cause the "go away-come back" nature of that, means that there's a lot of think time inbetween that you wouldn't get doing it straight through. I was much stricter with myself this time in terms of what I laid in on each pass. That helped me manage it in such short chunks

This is great Will. Now all we need to do is constrain this beast to a human model's back (with or without the badly protected glass microchip) and we've got ourselves a Super Villain! I can't wait to see how this fella is going to move. This is surely gonna be one of those "thank goodness for proxy models" situations.

Thanks Justin! There's nothing like a WOOO HOOO to give that feeling of a job well done. If only there were more WOOO HOOOs in the day, the world would be a better place! WOOO HOOO

Thanks guys! - I did consider doing more with the shot but didn't want to get bogged down by what was just meant to be a short exercise (I did that with the War of the Worlds clip and, though it has it's moments, I've resigned that one to the "I learned a lot but now I can't bear to look at it" part of my hard drive). The amount of stuff i've learnt from moving this guy around has been immense... and I still like looking at it. Double word score! If Ball chap is going to do anything else, I think that there may well be more than one of him and they'll be a lot more chipper! Soon, but I've got to let sleep back in for a while first.

Thanks I used soft reflections for the first time and that really helped give it the look it's got. Go here for info on v11's soft reflections. Lighting wise there are 4 lights: One off-white Klieg Key light, from the far left @ 120%, supplying the shadow (z buffered, high rez but softness of only 3%) and specular. This light is very low to the ground plane so that it creates those long shadows. The rest are all in the Ball Chap's light list only - 1 purple Sun fill light, from the far right @ 65%, no shadows or specular 1 orange Klieg, from behind the camera @50%, no shadows or specular 1 light blue Sun, aiming directly up from under the ground plane @70%, no shadows or specular - this gives a nice amount of "ground bounce" light under the ball The icing on the cake is an edge gradient material on the ball that only effects the ambience of the surface. This means that the outer edge is @100% ambience. This gives it that backlit look.

...another spare-time "Ball Chap" test... this one is a little less perky. QT - Sorenson 3 - 900k

ooohhh, you've made Ball Chap sad. Thanks for the comments guys. I'll post new bits and pieces when they're done. Ball chap will ride again!

nice walk moots! Though I haven't got the time at the moment to push this chap to the limit, I've made another little rig tweak. I realised that having the upper body bone in the centre of the ball was making it harder to get good motion from it. So I moved it! This gives a much better point of rotation... and allows you to really suggest pelvic movement.

Great stuff David. I especially like his jump back to standing with the one leg. Really nice work! Balls rock.

I've been having alot of fun with the Ball-man kindly modelled and supplied by Pesto - Here I've done a very short little run and stop test with him (though I'm still not totally happy with the "catch"), and am gonna try and do one of these every week to keep my eye in. QT - Sorenson3 - 176Kb Any crits would be more than welcome... Embrace Ball Chap! Get in tune with your inner orb!

David, What's the codec? I'm having trouble viewing it.

24th it is then. We'll need to find a suitable location and be sure that atleast one of us is in possession of a suitable laptop/notebook - I myself am not. I'll probably be able to get hold of a conference/rehearsal room in Southwark at no cost. It's just 4mins walk from London Bridge station. There's food and a bar there too. I'll look into it. So is it LAMU or LAAMU? That's the most important question.

Stronger anticipation poses wouldn't make it more snappy, they would just help to strenghten the animation. In fact, if the speed of the moves was kept like it is (so a move from a more extreme pose to another would in effect take a little longer to accomplish) it would strengthen the laconic feel and not weaken it. The brow didn't read for me. The slightest tilt of the head will help this considerably. If it is done with a little overlap too, even better. Looking again I noticed that a little overlap could be applied to the head throughout. At the moment the head and torso appear to pivot left and right together. Delay the head a bit. Do it at the current speed and it'll reinforce his mood. It's a really good piece, and the tone is a really hard one to achieve. Animating someone under-acting is HARD. It's making me want to cook up some chilli....

I like it! Here's a few suggestions: - You could really push the anticipation poses alot further... coil him up more before he bursts into song. This will give him much more life. Make him sing with more passion. - When his brow goes up reacting to the tomato being thrown, tilt his head to (our) left too. This will make the change in expression alot stronger. -I'm not quite sure what happens at the end before the guitar swings in. If he is reacting to the lack of positive reaction from the audience, it might help to have him step back from the mic, tentatively. Looking forward to the final version.

I've quickly made a very simple model to show how the basics of this rig works. Here's the project file - Right Click me and "Save target as..." This is a good starting point for anybody wanting to experiment with a rig like this. Be sure to read through Victor's Thread for more info. Stuff to take note of in the project file: 1)The use of a pose to control other poses (AKA "nested poses") - The Top_Lip_UD pose does just this. This is good reference for anybody interested in this concept - face rig or no face rig. 2)The rotation of the centre bone in the L/R poses cancelling each other out. 3)The use of CP weighting - Right click one of the CPs and select "Edit CP Weights. Take the rig apart, make the bones visible one at a time, look at what each relationship does. All the basics are there. I'll add some more detail when I get the time - I'm hectic on another A:M project at the moment so it might not be for a couple of days.

I really like the idea - and you've executed it stylishly! Can't wait to see more.

Interesting idea Amarillo - I think I understand it The only problem I can see is that it would be a case of modelling something one way - then adapting it in a pose. This can be fiddly. If you wanted to make a perfectly geometrically smooth model, this might be an answer. The keying of a bones scale through it's rotation means that you can have a CP hug any contour. What's so great about all these techniques is that they are constantly developing. What has really made this viable as a method for rigging a mouth is the advent of CP weighting in A:M. Now that this feature has been made even more easier to use and adjust, I expect that the bone-rig is going to evolve alot faster.

And - THE MAGIC NUMBER!

dj_jonnyg - I've started a page of details on the rig - here - scroll down for some QTs with bones. I'll add to it when I get the time. Let me know which specific areas need the most detail. I worked the rig out by going through Victor and Shaun's threads with a fine tooth comb and doing some experiments of my own. I've added a couple of things and simplified others. However the basic principles remain the same.

Thanks again guys. I'm really pleased with how appealing he seems to be. I conciously sat down to try and create a likeable and personable character! Dj - It's hard to know exactly what to show you of the rig - do you want stills of the bones in the model window, a movie of the "Hey..." action done with the bones visible, or both? As I said before, the rig is something that appears very complex when you just look at it. But once you start to get a feel for what the bones actually do... it becomes very clear, very quickly. AMAR - Once I've finished Kevin, I might just have to adapt the rig and try and make my own version of Sweetums!

This is a great start - but I'm sure that there must be more of us.... May I provisionally suggest a Saturday late in July and see where that gets us?