Simon Edmondson

Nancy Thank you very much indeed for that. As they used to say in my home area, "Thats Champion" ! Thank you. Simon

Rodney Thank you once again for your help. I've spent the afternoon looking up project management sites and watching videos. I'm presently following your advice and mapping it out in simple form with pencil and paper, trying to think of the various things that have to be considered and kept track of. I've never used a spreadsheet but will have to learn. Thank you for the link to Tactic, I shall follow it up this evening. The storyboard is being developed slowly and should be ready by Christmas or the New Year in rough form. Once that is finalised it should start to fall into place ( thats the hope anyway ). Its keeping track of it all , the revisions, changes, models, props, characters and... all the rest of it. Still, its got to be done. regards simon

I asked a few months ago about file structures for people working on a project and was very appreciative of the responses received. I'm trying to plan a project which I hope to spend next year working on, could anyone kindly point me to a resource for overseeing the running of a complete project? I have no real experience in this area and have always relied on memory and catching up when needed. I'd like to try to do it better this time. Its not so much the particular details of individual areas such as models but the overall structure of a project and how to keep track of it as it unfolds? Any help gratefully received. Thank you. regards simon

Lloyd If you send me the script, PFG@Tesco.net, I'll ask Ian about it for you. He's a bit ill at present so, if Robert can do it, and he sounds like he can, that might be the best bet? regards simon PFG stands for Pretentious Fat Git

Lloyd It depends what sort of scottish accent you want doing. There are very distinct differences between the highlands andIslands and the Lowlands like Glasgow and Edinburgh. I have a friend who is an actor and loves doing voices. What do you want doing and when do you want it done by, do you have a script. I could ask my friend over the weekend ? regards simon PS Sean Connery is an Edinburgh accent, Billy Connoly is a Glasgow accent, Eaun McGregor is a posh scottish accent I think Robbie Coltrane is Lowland but not sure ?

Thank you. Its a reference I shall use a lot. simon

http://www.animationbrain.com/2d-model-sheet.html While preparing some character designs for next year I found these. Its mainly aimed at 2D but might be of interest to otherstoo ? regards simon

Mark Thank you very much indeed for your help. I've installed the rig several times now and have never had this problem before. It was a strange one. Thank you. regards Simon

I reinstalled the 2008 rig into my model and went to test it. In the action and the chor windows, the toes go missing even though they are present in the model window. Could anyone kindly tell me what the problem may be ? regards simon Winona_A.mdl

I don't want to take over Rodney's thread so I will post the result to the Hair Ball thread. Just before I do. I was having trouble with hair on the Mac and did a test. It would not behave under OSX. So I tried the same project on an old PC under XP. It worked. I then tried the model groomed on the Mac on the PC, which is where I lost the grooming. regards simon

Nancy Thank you very much once again. Dynamics is turned on with a pre roll of 20. I groomed it on the Mac the, because it wouldn't render properly on that, it is going through on an old PC that was about to be recycled somewhere. I will try your suggestion straight away. regards simon

Are you baking your particles? Rodney WOW !!! Thats a comprehensive outline. Thank you very much. Tomorrow will be very busy. re Baking particles. I didn't know that was necessary. How is it done ? regards simon

Rodney Pardon me but, I've never used cloth or the render to lines option. Could you give a brief outline of the method you used as I'm still having trouble with particle hair and would like to try and finish the project . regards simon Ps I'm finding that, once groomed and saved, when I open the model file the next day the style has altered

Gerald Thank you for your help. regards simon

Pardon my ignorance but, intrigued by your video I followed up the trail to Steffen's plug ins for V15. I get a Hxt file but were should I put it and how do I access it later ? regards simon

Rodney Thank you for your considered reply. The intention is to push them further and part of that will be the adding of clothes later on. Initially I had wanted to do without clothes but I think that would make them too simple. The hat in the earlier janitor shorts worked as a prop and a sign of what he was supposed to be. When he turned it round on his head there was the shift from what he was, to what he wanted to be. At least, that was the intention. Now I've added hair, modified the chest on Winona, and made the bottom a little more rounded, I will probably make some changes to the males as well, especially as they are supposed to be builders. Not sure what they will be yet but I will post them when I do. The next short is lined up and storyboarded, an actor friend is going to do the voice and I even know the techniques to be used. (!!! shock). I've just got to get this one finished first.... regards simon Ps A friend gave me a compilation of Sherman's Lagoon and I'm reading it now. I find the shifts between shark as human substitute and shark as shark keep putting me out of the narrative. Whereas the shifts in Calvin and Hobbes ( which we've talked about before ) are part and parcel of the narratives and work really well. The drawings are fab too!

Rodney Pardon me I didn't intentionally not address the question. It was a stylistic decision sometime back, taken for a number of reasons. Partly my lack of modelling ability but also a reaction to photorealism. I can appreciate other peoples skills in that regard, and there are some very able people on the forum but, too often you wonder why not do it live action instead? I think the clincher was reading an article or book somewhere were they suggested that using stick figures meant there was nowhere to hide, your errors or mistakes would be more apparent and that seemed like a good idea if I wanted to improve. That may have been the George Maestri book I mentioned the other day. I had an idea for a series of shorts based around similar figures under the provisional title of Blockheads. This one was Winona Blox ( the name taken from a character in the TV series "Justified" ), she has a rival Ava, ( similarly named ), each has a partner and there are kids too. The males tend to be straight edges and the females curved although they will need further development. I tried to use the simplest of graphic means to draw them and then replicate that in the models. The eyes, for example are black, flat with a line above and below. The mouths are very similar with no space behind the lips, just a black area. Another influence was the Pink Panther, which was always one of my favourite cartoons because of what it did with very limited means. PP is basically a stick figure with a big head and a tail. The very simplicity of the means allows a huge range of options and plays against the form. A bit like some of the WB shorts were Bugs Bunny draws a door on the wall and escapes , only to meet something coming the other way ( although that might be a road runner cartoon ? ). I remember a PP short were he is walking down some stairs and notices a picture is not straight on the wall. He stops, straightens it and the whole world tips up and he falls down the stairs. The intention next year is to use the stick figures to continue learning about timing, movement and techniques, while preparing designs, story and processes for a project using fuller figures and a combination of cg and stop motion. I'm working on the designs in the evening when the computer is rendering away. I have a terrible tendency to start when only 60% ready ( as evidenced by this short ) and hope to catch up with the other 40% when underway. Next year should rectify that. In my dreams maybe ! Coincidentally, I did have an idea for a possible community project that might be of use ? It was very simple. Knights in armour doing sports. Each person would make their own knight ( close to a stick figure ? ) and nominate a sport. Animate their character doing that sport, then try to animate it doing the sports nominated by other people. My choice would be the pole vault. The results could then be edited together like TV coverage of a track and field event,which tends to cut from sport to sport, complete with commentary. I wondered if it might work as a learning process and be fun to do ? Best stop there before I go off and start rambling even more. regards simon

Remodelled figure. Still enjoying ( !) working the hair. Will probably follow Rodney's suggestion re geometry hair. Simon

Gerald Thank you very much for that. Is it still possible to download the file? I anticipate that I may have to watch it several times. regards simon Ps Thank you. I learnt a lot I didn't know, especially about the use of bias handles.

Gerald I tried to download the file but the full version would not arrive. I got a small zip instead at about 30K rather than the 150Mb you mention. Is it still available and, if so, where can I find it? regards simon

Rodney Thank you for that. The image now appears and, erring on the side of caution as ever, I'm DLing thefile too. regards simon

Steve Thank you very much for your help. I'm trying that method but I'm not getting as far as your splendid examples. I've revised my earlier post. Got rid of the dreadlocks and just going for straight hair on a four CP patch. I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible. Have a black an white striped image. and it doesn't seem to give the expected variation. H'mmm time for something to eat and a cup of tea... regards simon

Rodney I worked through Holmes tutorial, with mixed results, then turned to the AM files you suggested. Unfortunately, the tech talk is very difficult to follow because it reads as though translated from another language or possibly an audio file ? Hot example, the second sentence reads "You oblivious know how to make a new hair here." and there are many similarly mangled sentences which make it awkward to follow. I then tried the tech talk video but the sound came up only, no video image. Tried the link in Chrome, ( as opposed to Safari), but it would not play QT files that old and the change settings dialogue was hiding somewhere unknown. The tutorial in TAOM uses a decal to control the length of the hair but is there anywhere that explains how to draw up the decal to get what you want? I tried the method Holmes outlined on a simple flat plane, and got the following result. I moved the plane around in a chor but the hair stretched and lagged rather than followed the plane. I am obviously missing something here ? Locks.mov Could someone kindly point me in the right direction ? regards simon Locks.prj

Particle hair. Should have gone with the skull cap (and/or used patch image or decaled hair). The secret to particle hair IMO is to keep it at a very low density until you have it exactly as you need it at the lower density and then increase that density. As there are many parameters to tweak it takes quite awhile to get a good feeling for it and it helps to experiment with one patch (and not an entire scene) until you feel comfortable animating with it. Rodney Thank you for your reply. You are correct, it is particle hair. I'll go back to the earlier section of Homeslices tutorial. I only put it in the chor when I got to that part of the tut and I had the chor there... regards simon

Bit busy with more mundane things today, but thought I'd worked thought Holmes Bryant's hair tutorial only to get this result when ?I tried it on the model . Could somebody kindly point me to where I might have gone wrong |? regards simon Suitable style for a dark and scary night perhaps ?