Parlo

Yeah, there's a touch of 80's synth pop about him too. I don't think this will be his permanent hair style.. but it definately gives him cause to wonder what happened! I did another render last night after tweaking some of the settings. Here's the new clip - QT - Sorenson3 - 800kb

Thanks for all the positive comments - I've done a quick test with hair. QT - Sorenson3 - 703kb I just made a group on the top of his head and applied a hair material to it, did a little bit of tweaking and grooming and rendered the result. It's come out pretty darn well for an early test. I need to properly shape the placement of the material, and vary the density more but it shows that he definately looks good with hair!

Thanks! I almost wore out my copy of Jim Henson: The Works whilst working on him. I also wore down my credit card buying alot of the orignal Muppets series on DVD. I was a massive fan as a child and still am to this day. Though I stopped being scared of Sweetums a while back. He is a comic character but I also want to try out a wide range of stuff with him. He's not got the lightest of meshes but I wanted to be able to have a lot of options for creating expressions... Which brings me to Jim's comment: I'd say that it was equally suited to both types of character. With the work I did earlier this year (with the long faced guy) I felt that, whilst I got good enough result, I didn't get enough shape and texture to the movement of the mouth. The beauty of the bone facial rig is that it genuinely allows you to model ALL the motion of the mouth. There are no longer any concerns about additive poses. I liken it to programming or coding the trajectory of every CP - you set it up so that you have complete control over each CP's range of motion. The bone method means that most of the work in making the movement organic is done for you by the bones, and this makes it a managable approach. Once that's set up it's just a matter of tweaking to get the result you want. For a realistic character you can maintain as much or as little of the original sculpting as the mouth smiles, purses, gapes or pouts. Imagine for example you've got a character who's teeth and mouth are shaped like the end of your index finger - the corners of the mouth are either side of where the last joint is, and the lips form an elongated arc round to the tip. In other words the lip's shape is very narrow and very deep. You can rig the corner of the mouth so that as it moves in towards the middle of the lips, it automatically clings to these contours - it's just a matter of keying the scale of the bone along its rotation. Now whenever you move the corner of the mouth it maintains that shape. This is the beauty of it. And once the tweaking is done, all the deformation is there. Keying in the mouth shapes for that short test was a piece of pie because I never had worry about the ill effects of one pose laid on top of the other. In short, it's an almost 100% unbreakable rig. Yep, I tried it without but porcelain was the best way to get the "fabric coverting shaped foam" look I was after. Lol, thanks! I've been on the phone with a friend whilst typing this reply and I quoted your comment to him. He's yet to stop laughing. Suffice to say I can be a real meany if I wanna. But after working with the "long faced guy" for a while I felt that I needed to do something bright and breezy. I'm really pleased that he seems to have an instant appeal. This bodes well! Yep, and I need to do alot more work on it. As I said I'm keen to get him fully rigged first, the hair is just a nice bonus. I'm hoping to get a good dishevelled feel to it. Thanks for all the replies and compliments guys - they make me wish I had more time to dedicate to him. But rest assured you'll be seeing alot more of him.

Kevin is new character I've been working on. Here's a very short and very rough little animation to test his facial setup - the brows are yet to be rigged. I fancied a change in style and wanted to go for something more cartoony so I set about building my very own muppet. This has been a tinker project for the last month or so with other things taking up the majority of my time so progress has been a little slow. I managed to decypher and implement the bones facial rig that Mr Navone and Mr Freeman have been flaunting. For anyone wishing to give it a go I can only say that: a. it's an absolute beauty b. once you start to build it, it becomes very clear, very quickly. It's far less complex than it initially seems. Kevin will eventually have hair. Below is an early test to to see the kind of look I'm after. Once I've got all his controls nailed, I'll fix his mop-top. As usual all comments very welcome. This isn't something that's going to progress at anything resembling any speed, but it's always good to get some feedback.

I don't know if I'll have enough time to get anything organised in the immediate future, but it would be good to see how many of us there are in or around the London area interested in a meet.

I'd rebuild with the basic 5 point patch finger method (see below)... then work from there. 5 pointers are far more versatile than they used to be, and will give you a much smoother mesh than having more than 2 splines connecting at a control point.. Nice foot by the way!

Awesome - I love the style and the story has it all! If I was wearing a hat, I'd take it off to all of you. I'm really looking forward to the Director's cut (and if you don't do a version with a commentary I'm gonna sulk)!

Sharky, Check out http://www.keithlango.com/ - Tutorials - Principles for LipSync Animation Article The basic idea is to simplify the sounds... don't shape the mouth for every sound... concentrate on the vowels. I actually don't like the sync in this piece anymore. I think I over did it. It's a very difficult thing to get right. If you make the rest of the face and body carry the emotions and story, the lip sync is easier. Hope that this helps. These concepts are hard to describe.

Jim Talbot made these. He not only rocks, he defines the concept. Flatten Tutorial Features Tutorial Eyebrow Details Tutorial Eyelashes Details Tutorial If you listen very carefully, as Jim talks you can hear the choir of angels in the background.

Lovely work Shaun - or should I call you Speedy? I'd take a look at the phrasing. The head gesture for "Oh, my little ankle biters!" could do with being one clean move ("oh") and a hold through to the end of the sentence. This would make head shift on "Do I.." stronger. I'd also love to see some wobble on the beak on the "oh". If you can actually make any sense of the above, feel free to ignore! It's a great character and she suits Mrs Doubtfire to a T.

The final (and I mean final) versions of both Coffee? and No-One... can now be seen on A:M FILMS. The project files are now closed and have gone to their last resting place - the archive on my other drive.... Now.... what's next?...........

Thanks guys, igeek - the breathing thing is something that I've been looking into but haven't been able to get to look right. I'm trying to concentrate on strong poses and transitions at the moment and adding that kind of movement has just made all of these seem 'fuzzy'. I know exactly what you mean though and will be trying to intergrate into any future stuff. It was just giving me a bit of a headache. Pequod - it's interesting that you compare this clip to "No-one.." in the way that you do. I personally prefer this one because it's so much shorter! Also because it has a more snappy and cartoony feel to it - it's more immediate and somehow doesn't demand as much attention. The other one was much more about reducing something down to being as subtle as I could get away with. In that sense I don't feel that the 2 characters are the same in both clips. The contrast between the 2 is a bit of a dilema for me in regards to my reel. I've done a final version which should be appearing on A:M Films very soon (along with a final version of "No-One...). There is a tad more movement in the fingers and thumb but I've done nothing with the coat tails for this piece. I'm actually going to give his body a bit of a make over in the next few weeks. I want to try and distance him a bit more from his uncle "Jack" Thanks again guys!

It's gorgeous. You couldn't give us a better idea of scale by putting Clay in there could you? It would help to get a better idea of the environment. It's beautiful render though, and a very interesting style.

I'd like to take a look Animus, but I'm on a Divx free machine at the moment. Perhaps you could try compressing with quicktime. Here are some QT pointers - - Use the QT pro 'Export' fuction. If you haven't got QT pro I really really recommend it! - Use Sorenson3 at a medium setting. - If there is audio, make sure that it is compressed and try reducing the quality to reduce the file size.

Thanks again guys - I've actually spent a little more time on the lip sync - I did say that it was 'fine for now' after all! Ken - Just as soon as this last render is done I'll send you the info. Marciel - I first tried modelling this character in another package back in 2000. He's been around a while and has been through a lot of changes. He was orignally intended to be a "monster in the night" but I've become so fond of him that he has developed a more neurotic and sympathetic character. When doing the Coffee clip, I noticed a strange resemblance to the actor Alan Arkin and since then he's taken on a more versatile character! However, the next piece I'm going to do with him will take advantage of his scary looks...

Great Job Robo. I really love the movement of his knees. The fishbowl looks like its beign pushed from side to side by his nose rather than the subject of a tricky balancing act. But hey! I'm always extremely impressed by what you achieve in such a short amount of time.

I think I better go back to bed already. What's the point? The day has already peaked! :) Thank you all so much! The walk took a while to get right, and I wish the texture of background made the camera move look clearer. Maybe something to fix if I can face opening the project again. And as for A:M films.... as soon as the submission form is up, I'm there.

Thank you all! Your positive comments really mean alot to me guys. Seems like those late nights and drowsy days have paid off. It's from a 1970's concept album based on "The War of The Worlds". It was an LP that was hanging around at home when I was a kid. I used to play it in the dark and scare myself senseless. The voice is the late great Richard Burton (though I do get the feeling that he's recording his bit between heavy drinking sessions!). LOL - Well... now that you mention it... I am considering a section towards the end. It'll need a bit of pruning and maybe even some advanced editing but....er... I'll keep ya posted.

QT - Sorenson3 - 3.6mb - 46 seconds This is the final version of the "War of the Worlds" clip I've been working one. It's finished, though there are a few transitions and holds that I'd still like to sweeten up so I suppose it's really FFN (fine for now). A big thanks to everyone that's followed, inspired and advised on the WIP thread. I've written a tutorial on Proxy models off of the back of it, so it's been a worth while experience.

Ross - - you've got some really nice movement there! Can't wait to see more from the tubby fella.

Rodney - I don't think that I've made myself clear in that last section - I need to go back and rework it. The gist is of it is, that it's best (in any circumstance) to rename the in "Shortcut to Proxy" when you put it into a choreography. Now, the rename option is only available if the model is embedded. So if your Proxy is not embedded, what you have to do is: 1 - embed it 2 - rename the shortcut - in my case just to "Parlo" 3 - unembed it Now, when you constrain another object to the model - for example if you want to have the model hold a sword - the constraint will refer to "Parlo" and not "Shortcut ot Proxy". This means that when you switch between the Proxy and the Beauty models, the constraint will be uneffected. Hope that this makes more sense. I'll be finishing off the tutorial later today (rewriting my lunatic ramblings in the last section). Gazz - I'm more of a Large Shish with extra curry sauce man myself. Once in a while, when my brother is around and we're feeling the need, I go for the mixed grill kebab with a bit of everything and digestive half-life of 3 years! I probably will give it a stronger ending at some point. As for a background, I'm going to need to add some texture in there so that the camera move is more obvious. I'm not quite sure what to use though. I'll be posting a FFN (fine for now) final render in the showcase forum later on today.

Alas, it seems that you've exceeded your bandwidth - I can't view it.

I've added a second page to the tutorial - there's just one more thing left to cover. Robo - How long? I'll have to add it up but I know one thing. Too long! However, after the initial spurt of activity it's mainly just been dipping in for an hour or so. Looking back, and having learnt from it what I have, I know that I could do it now in far less time. It's over 40 seconds of character animation though, so I'm pretty pleased that I stuck with it. If I was to do it again I probably wouldn't go for such a long clip. Maintaining the energy and enthusiam for it has been hard work. Zach - Its' a good thing you noticed my grammatical error's. 'Ive always been a bit fast and loose with the key:board.! Gazz - Have you ever had one of those things sober though? You feel so dirty. Dale - Thanks! It's good to know that people are finding the Proxy stuff interesting, and it's encouraged me to elaborate on it too. This is a really good way to do a tutorial - It not only encourages you as you are writing it, but also allows for people to point out bits which need to be clearer.

Shaun - Thanks man! One word with a lot of meaning! Bill - Thank you too. I've done a fair amount of work on the eyes and studied alot of the pros work frame by frame to pick up some techniques. It's such a subtle thing, but really rewarding when you start getting somewhere with it. I've done the majority of a Proxy Models in A:M tutorial. I just need to add a final section about workflow issues. Let me know if there's anything in there that I could make clearer.

Rodney - I'll go one better and write a short tutorial on building and using a proxy model. Keep your eyes peeled.