KenH

And just for completeness, here's a final render of tinman:

Uh-oh. Now I see his ears. But no...his nose looks fine from that angle.

Yes, I figured he was spline lite. If you're doing more stuff with him I'd like to see it. I don't know if your stopping posting will make anyone else contribute if they're not going to already. I'm stopping doing my characters because I've brought them up to the point I wanted for the contest.

I just noticed now.....the sides of his nose seems quite wide and undefined. I think a cute little button nose might do wonders for him.

Cool! Looks like Officer Mcknuckles is on the scrap heap.

He's got potential. You could probably do just as well with half the cross splines in his ears.

I thought you might have got it off the net somewhere.... Not every walk has straight legs in it. But they do pop in places. It was just a test of the joints. Also, I forgot to put squash and stretch into the loon. I think it would make a difference. I'd need to study balloons to know what he should exactly move like.

A rough pass of how I imagine they get around. Hopping! His feet are skating about abit as I've forgotten how to animate a hop and can't find the tut on it. Also, it's only 3 letters long. It's 175kb... loon_jump.mov

Just starting another character. Again, thanks to Rich for the guide.

He's more or less fully articulated, but if he needs to walk more restrictedly, he can.

Paul: It seems like his hips have an un-needed keyframe in the middle of the animation. He kind of jumps forward. The rest is great. I particularly like his arm movement.

Thanks Sharky. David: Nice! Is that done in AM?

You have his heel raising but it's just for two frames before his whole foot moves off the ground. Usually the heel starts to raise as the leg "passes below" the body. How are his eyes done? Are they spheres or some other method?

Does the hair have dynamics on it? Maybe they're interfering. Might it be related to the Pre-roll too?

Cool! Love the rucksack too. Don't know what's causing the problems...

Here's the walk cycle (400kb). I wanted to add some head movement in the chor, but I can't work out how to blend actions in parallel ie combine a normal action with a chor action. Walk.mov

Thanks Mike and nice suggestion. There's going to be some "inner working" around the heart. When I get those modelled, I'll see if it's possible to incorporate that.

I don't know if there's an original decription of the heart in the stories. But I'm just going for the Oz magic fantasy type heart. Hopefully I'll have a walk cycle up soon. His hips are restricted so he won't walk like say Woot. I'm still testing though. I think his hips may need to be double ball joints.

A small improvement. Ideally the glow should be in the shape of the heart and not the light shape. heartbeat.mov

Thanks guys. I'm experimenting with the heart beat. Here's one with a light inside it and I'm animating the transparency. heartbeat.mov

Was it the truck texture?

Press the N key to get the children bones to move with the parent. Also, if you want the assigned cps to move with the bones, hold down Control key as you move the bones.

That's actually his oil can shaped like a rose. And here's what I'm thinking for the heart. The light and the ambience aren't right, but you get the idea. It's increasing in size as it beats. You might want to scrub to see it better. heart.mov

Thanks guys! No sooner said than....here he is blinking. It's only 64kb! Man I love Sorensen 3. Blink.mov

Here's a facial expression test animation. I've used "bendy metal" extensively! expressions.mov