John Bigboote
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Posts posted by John Bigboote
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Here is a test utilizing glow on transparent spheres... I've been toying with new uses for glow... this has pastabilities but needs more testing.
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Make sure 'cast shadows' are on in the light's properties, and maybe try setting them to raytraced shadows...
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I used a lot of BVH motion-capture in these Jet's Pizza animations from 2015, to help add visual 'punch' to the campaign. (very, very low-budget!) ALSO an interesting side note... ALL the music and sound-effects for that campaign were culled from the Youtube free audio library. (link below)
Youtube Audio Library:
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I updated my Nvidea graphics card driver and noticed it includes a screen-capture utility! SO- I made a video showing my method of adding a BVH motion-capture file to a rigged(TSM2) A:M character. I apologize for poor video quality and you may need to pause here and there to see what I am doing- but it is all quite straightforward utilizing simple constraints (Translate To and Orient Like)
There are many 'free bvh' files to be found on resources thru-out the web. Here is a folder of older files I DL'd about 20 years ago that was made free by Santa Monica Studios to get you started:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xc74lexfqc3ymnr/SantaMonicaStudios.zip?dl=0 30mb
Here is Youtube link to the tutorial:
Hit me with any Q's.
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COOL! Great skin! Weird shadow glitch there! Never saw that before... here are the properties in the hair emitter you can try messing with:
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Cool- thanks Will... sounds like a perfect solution but (there's always a butt!) in my experience none of the BVH's I have(and I have hundreds) start in a similar or a T-pose. On the bunch I was viewing yesterday, the 1st captured frame is some glitch-ball pose that needed be deleted.
In current versions(19), the heading is 'Bones' instead of 'Channels' and the shortcut to the BVH is not listed... unless I am missing a step.
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Hair, I've noticed... gets a 'rework' every now and then- version to version, that is. It is all for the good, I think because it tends to act better and better in dynamic and collision-detection manners.
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Great trick... cloth ay? Nice. What about taking to the next level with an emitter that would add some foam to the wake. SHUT UP, Matt!
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Maybe it is time I do a video capture. What is the best recording software that won't take-over my machine?
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Well - I was just explaining to Kevin Detwiler... even tho the feature was pretty cool- it would not always work, and no fault of A:M's. BVH files come from many differing sources, some uses mocap suits with little glow-balls on them, some use mocap suits with armatures... some use kinect cameras and some folks regurgitrate BVH's from popular video games SDK's... no constant naming conventions, bone or scene orientations(XYZ) rotations, frame rates... etc. SO- it has always been a need to be able to rig a character quickly to a BVH skelton in A:M in order to use them. It was just nice to be able to switch-out a BVH from a like-session/creator without the rigging rig-a-mole every time.
And I remember doing it in A:M- perhaps in 17???
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Time was (in previous versions of A:M) when you were working with a BVH file in an action and you had it all setup with all your constraints, you could change-out the underlying BVH animation with an alternate BVH and not have to re-constrain everything. When I try to do that now in V19 and V18... the 'Capture Sequence' option is unavailable (greyed out) but I seem to remember being able to do this in older versions.
To be clear- Capture Sequence DOES work initially when you bring in your BVH file... that is all fine. It is just when you want to alternate to another BVH file that the option goes away. This makes it so that every time you want to use a BVH action, you need to go thru the time-consumptive constraining process.
Wondering if I am missing a step- or if the feature is broken and needs a bug report.
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Yumps- here, see if you get it. I am in latest, V19.0f
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Sorry for long delay, Gerald. I believe it was flat patches- I must have found a solution... but here is ANOTHER volumetric light oddityV2... never saw these before and I played with the lights quality settings and volumetric contrast and brightness to no avail... any ideas on this one?
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Wow- TV Paint, I had forgotten about that and googled it on your mention... it is from the 'Amiga days', when I was using Deluxe Paint by Electronic Arts. Is it a good program you can recommend for 2D animation?
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Thanks! The funnest part on that job was coming-up with the expression in After Effects that automatically synched the girls mouth art to the VO.
HERE is another one (I am going thru old files...) from 4-5 years ago. A TV spot for a Cancer center which was already advertising on billboards and magazines using the artwork below... they wanted to bring it to life via animation. I cutout components as needed and built a multiplane setup in Animation:Master and comped it all in After Effects. I made 2 spots like this, I need to find the other one. I think they turned-out pretty nice.
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Well- hang on now... more testing needs be done... came in this morning to see my overnight render has a lot of 'flashing and flickering' to it. Maybe I missed something-
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THANKS! and I see a more recent project has hit the webpage at http://www.sciaky.com/ where a very industrial client who specializes in high-grade 3D printing wanted sort of a 'schoolhouse rock' feel with a little girl showing how easy their manufacturing process is... I did this one last spring. (mostly AE but with some A:M bits.)
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Played with it a little today... still works! Trick is to activate the .exe file where you specify your lighting setup and color map... it spits-out an action file that you apply to one of the 2 available .mdls and you are set... set your motion blur to a dividend of 100 (100, 50,25,20,10,5) and render with multipass same as you specified in the .exe.
Drawbacks seem to be:
-the effect is not functioning on the 1st frame as I imagine it has nothing to compare the motion blur with (no previous frame.)
-It forces you to use motion-blur- which some times you may not want. The effect works best at 100% MB, but character animation does not always look good at 100% motion blur...
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Going thru old files... Here is a video made Using A:M to make Corporate video fun... 'corporate' meaning- an invite to a bio-oncology seminar where the producers knew they had some yawner material and they came-up with a nifty idea to house their 'self-shot' cameos in an inviting way... making-use of their 'merge' theme.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/b7spgccs7vtsrv0/TRANSPLANT%20VIDEO_FULL.mp4?dl=0
I used the 'cartoon car' from the archives... a LOT!
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Myself and a user named Ben once fashioned a fisheye camera for Animation:Master using a half-sphere with 100%transparency and refraction that constrains closely to the camera... like a LENS! I believe it is available for download if you search the contributors cue forum for keyword 'fisheye'. You could also look into the 'gazing ball method' where you would aim your camera into a sphere that is 100% reflective- altho- both these ideas will not give you the 180degree angle I believe you are looking for.
HERE is link to an animation where I used my fisheye from back in 2008. https://youtu.be/fY9nDwTSrFc
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Wow- thanks for the replay, Rodney... scanning thru all those avatars of users 'past'... sad- how vibrant and dynamic this forum used to be, every day it was such a pleasure to open the A:M Forum to see who was up to what, and what wonderful accomplishments were being made, and the deep conversations about animation, art and our favorite software.
I remember trying to make my own skycast rig, it is meant to emulate global illumination (GI) and create natural soft shadows with a deep, rich ambient occlusion look, right? I remember it took advantage of the multipass renderer and many-many passes were needed which made it a little render intensive for animation purposes. Maybe I should give it another look as well!
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That looks interesting, nice controls... I always just made pose sliders for every nuance like eyes open/close... or phonemes... or smile/pout. I imagine these on-screen nulls are just interfaces for pose sliders?
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Thanks! The door is off to the side in the center patio area. The house is an old fishing cottage that has been updated several times thru the years- last time in '77- so it is due. This addition would benefit by giving a larger living room area, getting-rid of a leaky wall and terrible entry, and it would allow for addition of a 2nd bathroom. The house has a septic field in the front lawn so any added bath would need a direct access to septic.
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Good ideas. Another render: added DOF, omitted house animation.
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HOLOGRAM -The Looking Glass
in Off Topic
Posted
Here comes the future!
https://lookingglassfactory.com/