Simon Edmondson

Mark Thank you very much for your help and feedback. Much appreciated. This is the project file. Sprinting.prj The two runs were animated as chors first and 001 saved as an action. The Sprint base chor had the extra lane added with action 001 added to RB17. The camera is aimed at a null and the null was animated to keep pace with the figures as they moved down the track, staying roughly half way between them every 25 frames. 003 will be a lot more cartoon like. regards simon

Second sprinter. Different style , with full extension. Not sure why the strobing effect ( didn't happen with other sprinter ?) Sprint_002.mov Heres a comparison of the two, side by side. Still working on the lighting and staging. SprintRace_B.mov Going to a wedding so may not get the third figure/style done by next week. Any critical feedback welcome. simon

Rodney Thank you for your kind words and feedback. I think the backward motion might be an effect of the camera work ? as , I'll check but, part of the tedium involved in doing it was moving forward in three metres for every two full steps. Each position was keyed over 52 times I found myself whistling or singing after a while to try to retain motivation. The banana effect you mention was brought about by the camera placing and zoom in and out as he moves along the track. It starts on a focal length of 500, goes to 250 in the middle as he runs past the position, then out again to 500 as he reaches the end. I didn't know you could do this until trying it and will probably use it in the final piece. The reference used was that for the 'natural' run on page 178 of the Richard Williams book and there were no full extensions in that example. Although the other references do have full extensions and I will use those for the next runs with the other figures. Also tried Youtube refs for 100metre sprints, including this one of the infamous 88 final at the 88 Olympics. Sprint_88_VGA.mov Its difficult to tell from this but it does look as if the full extension is only glimpsed very rarely as the forward momentum is so rapid. They cover 10 metres in less than a second and do it in six steps. I'm going to start the next one tomorrow and will post it when done. Hope for a noticeable contrast to this one. Have tried a version with motion blur at 15% but not sure if that was a strong enough setting ? This was a VGA conversion of a 1080 render regards simon Ps revised version , this time with 30% blur. Sprint_30.mov Sprint_15.mov

First part of new idea. The intention is to do a 100 metre sprint race with 5 characters and use a different style run on each figure. This is the first one using the natural style reference in the Richard Williams book. Any Feedback welcome. simon A from DV conversion. Ps Didn't want to use a cycle action so keyed each move separately, 4 keys in a 6 frame sequence x 13 seconds @25 fps, is a slightly mind numbing task... Sprint_1.mov

Mark and Mark Thank you both for your replies and help. That seems to have worked. One curious aspect of it was. initially I opened the bones folder and clicked on the root bone and looked at its properties. The length had grown to 186. reset that to 15cm, but the problem remained. I then followed Mark W's suggestion and opened the section under the model name. The bone length was 15.7 cm. Reset that to 15cm and it seems to have worked. The roll handle no longer grows as the figure moves away from the root bone. As Robert says, it a curious problem, I wonder what could be causing it, Robert uses PC's I think so its not a Mac problem ? regards simon Ps Just done a further three seconds worth with it and the problem has not recurred ( famous last words )...

Mark Thank you for your reply and your help. I shall try that in a short while. I wondered if it was related to the problem you sometimes get when multiple objects are selected in the chor and the rotate handles all grow in a similar way? Its been discussed previously and occurred on PC's and Mac's. If, for example, you have multiple objects and, for ease of working, you group select them and make them inactive under properties. The rotate handles suddenly grow in length. I haven't tried it under V17 as I learnt not to try under V15. It used to suddenly enter channels under the proprties section ? regards simon Edit Mark I tried to find the bone length in the chor properties but couldn't see it. Pardon my ignorance but, where to look ? I can set it within the object properties as a model but couldn't see that option in thre chor ? regards simon

Report duly filed. At least I think so. regards simon

This is not a mistake. It is correct practice to plant the model bone once and leave it in place as the character is animated to walk or run or whatever from its initial location. That is odd. It still happens in v18. I suggest you create simple case that demonstrates it and send that with an AMReport Robert Thank you for your reply. I'm happy to send the file, it is very simple, how do I go about sending an AM report ? regards simon

Animating a 100metre sprint in V17g Made the mistake of not moving the model bone with each step ( decided not to make the same mistake with the runner in the next lane ). However, as I procede, the model bone seems to keep growing in the Y axis, or rather the rotate handle on it does. Is this normal ? A consequence appears to be that, when trying to select a rig bone, it has become easier to select the model bone by mistake and more difficult to select the rig bone without having to use the PWS. This is the bone on frame 00:00:00 And this the same scene 5 seconds or so later, Notice the growth ? The track is to scale, so the handle seems to have grown to about 13metres from 40cm at the start ? Simon

Part two of this weeks brief. Not having done a run before, it seemed like a good idea to try. So, after the stretch, the run... Any critical feedback welcome. The brick wall was because, originally the idea was to animate him running on the spot and have the wall move in the background ( that was to be a test for another project ) and it needed something on it to get the movement. That proved too difficult for the moment, so went for a straight run from the standing position after the stretch. Thought it might be a bit too quick ? simon ps This is a VGA from 1080 conversion Run_A.mov

Esoic That was fun. Thank you for the link. regards simon

Esoic Thank you for your reply and comment. I usually do my new year message on the day and its often a bad pun around the "Happy New Year' message. Theres one from a couple of years ago in this thread somewhere ( http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?act=a...t&id=64425). regards simon

Start of this weeks brief. Any feedback welcome. He's stretching before starting to run. No facial or hand work yet. Thought there might not be enough pauses ? simon Stretch.mov

Esoic Thank you for your feedback. They are mainly little sketches at the moment rather than full narratives. I wanted to make sure they read visually before doing anything else to them. I'm not very good with sound ( although I would like to be ) so a friend will do the sound later. I hope they are fun to watch but the real purpose for me is to learn as much as possible about animating, in terms of posing, timing and weight. regards simon

Robert Thank you once again. Downloading the video to watch now. regards simon

Trying to keep everything simple I haven't used atx textures before and don't know how to now. Have previously used maps for wall and other surface textures but noticed the atx files today in the installation folder. Tried to import it into the materials folder but it crashed the program. There doesn't seem to be a separate folder for textures so, how do you import them and how are they applied ? simon

I like the flower a lot. Good use of rich colour. There were some birds on the extras disc a few years back, not sure if they are still available ? regards simon

A final ( ?) addition to the bags and barrow theme, Was trying to remember how to use glow progressively but couldn't. Oh well. simon Prance.mov

Another impressive piece of work/idea Serg. Well done

Mat Thank you very much for your reply and help. That has fixed it. One of the difficulties with the PWS interface on the Mac is that the active part ( clear white ) is not always apparent when scrolling through. regards simon Robert Thank you for your reply. I did try that but, fortunately, Mat had a similar experience and had spotted the problem. regards simon

Have had a couple of hitches in the past few weeks with actions in V17g under OSX, but had thought they were resulting from exporting a sequence from a chor, as an action. Trying to setup an action now for some prancing sacks and, although the keys will set in the PWS, and the scroll tool will move through them. The play option won't work and the button that lets you move along the timeline is completely absent. Is this a known problem ? regards simon V17g OSX

Mark Thank you for your reply and help. Much appreciated. Take two. Have revised the foot positions and placements and added further movement to bags. Yet to address the burst tyre. Will have a look at that tomorrow evening. No facial animation as yet. regards simon Barrow.mov

This is the first pass at what will ( probably ) be the last of this little series of briefs. Theres no sound but the tyre on the barrow bursts at 03:08. Just started to notice a few things so will try to revise those later today or tomorrow. In the meantime, any critical feedback very welcome. simon Barrow.mov

No facial animation yet but, hope this may be the last version in terms of broad action. Any critical feedback welcome Simon This a vga from HD1080 conversion. Bag2.mov Ps With thanks to Mark for his help in getting Multiple Master working. Now I know how to do it, trying a flat shaded toon variant.

Serg That is very impressive. Great work. simon