Simon Edmondson

Mark Thank you very much for your help, much appreciated. I shall try that tomorrow. I did some very rudimentary weighting with the stick figure Blockhead models but this will have to be several steps on from that. 74 is the number that survived until the end my guess is that there were nearer a 100 in total. The most difficult bit was keeping track of them all and sorting out the naming convention and sequencing. Onwards and upwards. regards simon Edit WOW !!!!!!! That makes it so much easier. I wasn't looking forward to having to redo that lot agin. Thank you.

Spent Sunday applying the maps to the model. 74 stamps ( not including the ones deleted and re done ). Thought a walk test was in order, Bert_Test.mov Numerous faults were apparent so spent today reinstalling the rig ( twice ) and lost the stamps in the process, this is it before smart skin or cp weighting ( warning contains nudity ! ) Bert_The_Streaker.mov Going to do the mesh adjustments tomorrow then back to the mapping, ( sigh ). simon The moral to this tale ? Map out the workflow properly...

Yes forgot to say - great photo of Northern Lights! but it needed some Irish Polar bears Nancy Thank you very much indeed for your two replies and your help. I will pursue that today in the chor. I'm working in V17g. Perhaps I should upgrade now. The Irish Polar bears are wonderful. You could make a whole series based around them. I've been up to Scotland twice trying to see the lights, and missed them each time. The irony is that, 6 months later ( both times ) they came here, and I missed them then too, because I was sitting in front of the computer working away. We hope to try again this year. They don't often come this far south its just because of the climatic conditions and the sun is at a peak level of activity. Apologies for sounding like an Aurora anorak. regards simon edit Bert with Fur on hands and awaiting rig. Just noticed some map stretching on thumbs so will address that later. Thanks to Nancy for her help.

Haven't decided what to do with the hands and ears yet but this is it mapped with the map Ken posted. Couldn't get the cylindrical mapping to work without smearing the map at the extremes so have done it with a lot of planar stamps instead. Might try a shag setting tomorrow as well. Any feedback welcome. regards simon Edit Forgot to put the displacement map in. This is it in shaded mode. Like the result but not the render. Working on that. Trying to get it to render like the shaded mode. The middle section is rendered the outer shaded in the model window.

Nancy Thank you for both replies and particularly for the advice regarding the fur/shag. I was just indulging in displacement activities here trying to decide what to do about that. Most welcome. Regards simon Ps On a completely different subjectIt has been a long term ambition to see the Northern Lights. I missed them two nights ago because I was working on the bear. To rub that in, a friend posted this picture, taken on Thursday in Northern Ireland. You might like it ?

Robert Thank you for your reply. I copied and pasted it into the main model window and it reverted to standard ( not dark grey ) and seemed to be OK. I've been having a few odd things happen recently and had started to wonder if I had picked up a virus but, apparently, such things are still non existent in the world of Mac, or so my friend assures me. regards simon Ps This was the model that was causing the problem B_Head_03.mdl

Curious problem started last night. Thought it might have been me but it has continued today. The default material property seems to have changed from white to near black. Modelling the head for the bear, I was making the eyes expecting them to come out white, as normal, only to find this, . The item selected in the PWS is the dark oval shape, screen left of the main head. As you can see from the properties window, no values are set. It was setup directly without copying or pasting from another model, yet it comes out like that. Any idea anybody ? regards simon PS Pardon. Belated thanks to John3D for pointing out the shag material. Edit Even more curious is that, when the model is copy and pasted into another window, they come out white...

Ken Pardon me.My mistake. Thank you very much for your help. I hope to try that today. regards simon

Lloyd Thank you very much indeed for your help. Much appreciated. regards simon

Lloyd Thank you for your reply. I have only had very mixed results with hair particles in the past, it might be time to try again, but the figure will be moving quite rapidly later and that was what cause the problems before. When the character jumped back because of a thunderclap ( this was about 18 months ago ) the head came through the hair before the collision could catch up with it. H'mm much to decide here. Regards simon

As a break from the animating, thought it might be time to make a teddy Bear for the long term project underway. Modelling is not a strong skill and materials even less so. In that light can anyone suggest suitable material properties, or where to look for them, to use for the Teddy? Any help gratefully received. He will end up being tested on the Unicycle though ! regards simon

Thank you very Much for your Help Tawan. Nicely done. regards simon PS I had been thinking towards doing a jousting competition with the Knights on Unicycles rather than horses...

Rodney Thank you very much indeed for your help. This morning will be busy... regards simon

Jost The bit I saw suggested W8 as well but it was a bit vague on the subject. I'm not technically aware enough to know and got told off by my brother in law for asking. regards simon

Proving my modeling skills have room for improvement I am making a unicycle and wondered if anyone had suggestions as to how to set it up for animation afterwards ?. Still over producing splines at the moment but hope to try it out tomorrow. I was thinking of constraining the characters feet to the pedals and their bottom to the saddle then perhaps using Eular for the wheel ? Any help gratefully received. Thank you. simon

Good antic with the knight, however he looks like he's sliding a bit. As for eye target, not sure why you had trouble animating it? I'm assuming it was because it was constrained to the head? A quick trick would be to have the eyetarget constrained to the camera, or to some other null positioned in the chor instead, for minimal animating. Then he would always look at that object or the camera - no matter what. Another option: if you move/change the eyetarget null to be a child of the head in the bones hierarchy, then you wouldn't need to constrain it to the head, and it would be easier to animate & it would still move relative to the head. Nancy Thank you for your reply and help. I will try to follow up the advice regarding the eye target. I'd not encountered eye targets before, which is why the problem arose in the first place. The knight does pick his feet up ( honest ! ) but not by as much perhaps as he should, will try to adjust them today. regards simon

Cheated slightly ( ?) with the eye target by constraining it to the head bone. Tried animating it but without success. Here is the steeplechase, or three laps thereof. No sound as yet Critical feedback welcome. I just spotted the hurdle submerges a bit at the end so will address that tomorrow. Simon The_Steeplechase.mov

A friend spotted something that might be of interest here ? Its called a Slate21 and is made by HP. I've only glanced at it briefly but, it seems competitively priced and, if you can connect a wacom tablet to it on the W8 model perhaps ideal as a animation workstation for drawn or AM type work ? regards simon https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=hp+slate2...8IIPP0AXB84GABw

Mark and Nancy Thank you for your replies and help. I didn't know that he had an eye target. Now I do ! I shall go back and add the keys. regards simon

Working on a steeplechase sequence for sports day I'm reminded of an earlier hiccup. The pupils on Rabbits eyes disappear after a few frames, making him look a bit like the shaolin priest in the old 'Kung Fu" TV series. It happened on the earlier Jump sequences too. Haven't animated the eyes at all. Can anyone suggest what might be going wrong ? regards simon Steeplechase_One_000_.mov

Gerald, Robert, Rodney Thank you very much for your help and tutorials. I shall follow them through later today. Regards simon

Have set up a run cycle action for a sheep and need to animate it to a mark using the action, but then keyframe it after that point. I recall a tutorial somewhere about doing that but can't remember where. Could somebody kindly refresh my memory ? The setup at the moment is that, the sheep runs up to 00:04:09, The action stops. I would then like to key it jumping over a hurdle from 00:04:10, using the last frame of the action as the starting point for the keyframing. I am sure this is possible but, if keys are set after the end of the action, it seems to affect the section before. This may be caused by too many late nights and early morning, but it is driving me crackers. Any help gratefully received. Thank you. regards simon

In a completely different area, perhaps this might be of interest ? It really is David Attenbrough doing the commentary but the sport itself has huge possibilities in this arena ? regards Simon Sir_David_Attenboroughs_Alternative_CURLING_Commentary.mov

Jack Thank you. I'm enjoying it. Perhaps that is what shows? regards simon

The middles section of "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin has a very famous Theremin section, as does "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys... regards simon