ZachBG

Here's my latest test animation, using the 28th version. http://www.hash.com/users/zachbg/MonsterMash_mp4.mov I noticed some weirdness with IK/FK blending of hands under extreme squash conditions (watch when the little guy grabs the liftgate), but that may not be an issue with the new switch controls. It's a lot of fun to fool with the stretchiness. Does the baseball cap have a control? (I know that's not an issue with the rig, just the model, but the baseball cap bone that I found doesn't seem to do anything.)

/me defers to someone who actually knows something about rigging Please understand, I'm not trying to turn your rig into something it isn't... just offering ideas and so on.

Yeah, I was talking about how things work in the Squtech rig [sic]. There's a pose slider to control stretch in TSM2. The "hips_lower_controller" does allow for the squetching of the lower torso...I could put a "rotate only" on that and put another null that can be exposed when squetching that. I'll do that. No, no, no! Why have two controllers for a function that is currently taken care of by one? Here's a character with the kind of spine which Robert is talking about, where the hips and the torso can move indepedently (translation as well as rotation). Shaggy_w_Raf_arms_Rigged.zip

Thanks, David!

It wouldn't take much to add a pose for that...do you mean the rotation of the head controlling the neck rotation on the 'Z' axis and the translation of the head control tilting the neck with it? Yes, I think so. Honestly, I hadn't thought about the neck's Z-axis rotation, just the tilting. I personally can't think of a situation where one would want separate control over the neck's Z-axis, but maybe others would. (It certainly isn't possible anatomically to twist one's neck without turning one's head!) I'm afraid I have no idea what this means. Aren't cogs essentially fan bones? Or is there a control element to them as well? I've never read Mike's tutorials, forgive me. Robert, are you asking for spine segment isolation à la the TSM rigs? I think you can already achieve that in the current rig--the only question is how it would translate (no pun intended) to a character with a more complex spine. Perhaps once the rig has been plugged into a more complex character, we'll have a better idea. I will say that the one major difference is that when you translate the upper chest and lower hips bones, you get an automatic stretch, as opposed to spine movement/rotation. This took some getting used to and could be limiting for non-stretchy characters.

I'll take a look at that tonight, Zach. The tumbling pose is supposed to turn off the IK legs and IK arms and turn on the "orient_chest_like_hips" and "head_and_neck_orient_like_chest" poses...at least it's supposed to. It looks like I might have messed up the values in there. Thinking about it now, I shouldn't have had it disable the IK arms, I'll change that too. After looking at it again, it appears the IK/FK legs don't work properly regardless of the tumbling pose; as long as there's a value in the IK/FK legs pose slider's channel, the legs are stuck in IK. Which is a bit of a bummer. Also, is there any reason the FK legs aren't rigged the same way as the FK arms (with a limited kinematic chain)? I wonder whether the neck control is all that necessary. I've gotten used to the Raf system, in which the translation of the head control sets the rotation of the neck. Is there a reason that's not being used? It would mean one less control to worry about. Also, I'm finding it very difficult to find control bones in the PWS with the naming convention you use. One of the reasons I like to put "left" and "right" in the front of bone names is that they all congregate together in the PWS. Makes all the bones in the left arm, for instance, much easier to find. Currently, I have to look for, say, "bicep" then figure out if I want left or right; then I move all the way down past "calf" left and right, "chest_FK," "foot" left/right/IK/FK (yes I'm actually using all of them!), to find "forearm," by which time my puny brain has once again forgotten the side on which I'm working. If "Left" and "Right" were at the front of each of these, at the very least I wouldn't have "chest" and the opposite sides in the middle of the list. Enough for now? And a little tumble. It goes from FK arms and IK legs, to FK arms and legs, to IK arms and FK legs, to full FK again. It should go back to IK legs upon landing, but that's currently broken (see above), and that's why the end isn't as good as the beginning (not that the beginning is all that great shakes). I found it pretty easy to do. Once the FK/IK leg switching is fixed, and the new auto-keyframing from v13 is available, this will be a thing of beauty. tumble_mp4.mov

Erm... with which key mode buttons pressed down? Only, when I hit Key Model I get a crash... (A:M reported)

Problem, using yesterday's beta (I started working on it before today's was posted). After engaging the "Tumbling" pose, and then removing it completely (deleting the channel), suddenly the FK/IK switch in the legs doesn't work. No matter what the pose slider says, the legs remain at IK until the channel runs out. A movie is worth a thousand words. http://www.hash.com/users/zachbg/temp/AnimationMaster001.mov In addition, can I request that either (a) the IK/FK blending remain until Bob's switching changes are released, or ( b ) someone do a step-by-step on how to achieve the forthcoming switch under the current version? Chor attached (you'll need to have downloaded yesterday's version from David, not Noel's version). 10_25_2005_11.13am.cho.zip

I'll try to give it a good workout and post a movie (and project maybe) tomorrow. Thanks for everyone's hard work, especially David.

Heh. He will be in the finished product...

Hello all. This may be the first time I've posted a still image in "Showcase." Takes a lot less time to render than an animation... I was in a community theater of production of "Dracula" (closes tonight, in fact) and as a gift for the cast and crew, I was going to make a parody animation. Well, I only got the idea a week before closing and that's a quick turnaround time even for me, so I elected to make them a movie poster instead, with the promise of a movie to come. Anyway, the poster turned out pretty well, I think, so here it is.

So let me get this straight. What we're talking about now is the following work flow: 1. Animate the FK arms as usual; say, put Shaggy's hand on a door knob. 2. Now, click the switch to go to IK; and the bones will all stay _exactly as they were_, including the arm bones?! Because if there's any sort of a jump, the transition is still a problem. Better than the current Hash rig, but not as good as it could be. That's why I like to use IK/FK *blending*, not switching, and maybe I should have been more clear about that. The transition is still manual, but it can be animated, at least. But if on/off switching can be guaranteed to be perfect, then I'm all for it.

Excellent stuff! Made me LOL. The lighting is beautiful as well; was that Skycast?

Glad you caught it! I haven't yet. (It's taped, but I've been up to my eyeballs in community theater amd haven't had a chance to watch it.)

Hello, ladies and gents: Just a quick heads-up to point out that my famous one-minute epic, <ESC>, will be shown tonight on the G4 cable channel, as part of the animation program "Happy Tree Friends and Friends." Previous episodes have included Petey and Jaydee shorts, so I'm pretty amazed to be in such company. It shows at 12 AM Eastern, 9 PM Pacific, with a bunch of repeats later. Also, this showing will include the World Premiere™ of my logo for my new website. Five seconds of glorious narcissism! If you can, please catch it; if not, well, don't feel bad, because I'll probably be too tired to see it myself anyway.

Nice work!

Here's a revision of the most recent one, with better masking... and very bad smoke... I think I'll be removing the turbulence I put in there. http://www.hash.com/users/zachbg/yeeargh_temp3_mp4.mov (1.8 MB) Thanks to David Dustin for the fighter planes.

Wow...

A little King-Kong action coming up. The matting is temporary, obviously. Nancy, I agree about waving his fists, but I haven't animated that yet. http://www.hash.com/users/zachbg/yeeargh_temp2_sor3.mov (2 MB, 23 seconds) The missles are still puffy...

The saga continues... This has no shadows and the timing is off, but hey, it's a WIP. yeeragh_temp.mov

Freaky...

Not sure what you mean... the only thing for which I didn't use A:M was the actual match-moving of the camera, which I haven't a clue how to do manually. But yes, it is possible to do CG+live action directly in A:M, especially if the camera is locked down. I should say that, for now, I'm not using A:M's front projection abilities, because I'm having trouble rendering with an image sequence camera rotoscope. (AMReports knows about it, but if anyone else wants to try...) Instead, I'm rendering out Shaggy and the other CG stuff alone, as well as a shadow pass, then compositing everything in Final Cut Express. Thanks! I still need to "grain it up" so it's not so pristine...

Hi-ho. Still haven't masked out my son's head yet, but I did re-work some of the animation... and showed more of the story. http://www.hash.com/users/zachbg/longer.mov

Nice! The anti-aliasing terminology has changed from the 8.5 days. The equivalent to turning anti-aliasing off is turning ON Multipass and using a pass value of one. (Looks like that's what you did.) To get anti-aliasing, you can either up the number of passes (16 is a good baseline), or turn OFF multipass, which will be quicker.