Simon Edmondson

Eve_Blox2008_C_.mdl I deleted all the bones from the left side. Is that OK ? If not I will go back to the beginning and start again. Thank you very much. simon

Rob Thank you for your message and offer of help. I shall try it again later. I hadn't saved sequentially but continuously. regards simon

I've worked through the tutorial/instructions three times now. Each time I get past the mirror bones stage, I check... only to find that several bones are missing. Notably all the finger tips. When I read through the thread Nancy mentioned there were a couple of messages that mentioned this problem. Can anyone remember what the cure was I I may have missed that bit ? regards simon

Welcome to the joyful world of rigging Simon! Theres a very old coarse song about activities in the rigging which I won't quote, but it does hint at certain frustrations... I too am very grateful for the help of the people you mention and others on the forum. Simon

Thank you very much for your reply, and all your work on the rig. I'm looking forward to using it. I found the plug in to install the rig when I followed your instructions. I wondered if there was a separate rig for OSX as opposed to the windows variant ? When I worked through the tutorial some of the bones did not appear on the left after the mirror bones section. I've just read the thread through and am now going back to make sure the model is centred and mirrored. I will restart the install process tomorrow and make sure all the bones are correctly positioned. I may not have been accurate enough today. Thank you for your time. regards simon

Pardon me, steep learning going on. I found out that .hxt is an AM plug in file ? simon

Rob I understood the .zip part, it was the .hxt bit that puzzled me. The file de archives to the same as the Windows option but the .hxt stays as that and the Mac asks what to open it with ? Regards simon

Just spent the afternoon working through the instructions and got to the part I was looking forward to and testing it. When I noticed a lot of the bones are missing on the left side that were there on the right side. The finger tips for example. I checked through and then it occurred to me, Is this a likely consequence of using the wrong installer rig ? I used one, then got to the end and noticed there was an OSX rig too, and guess what I'm using ? I was puzzled by the .hxt.zip at the end of the file name. Is it a case of go back and use that instead ? Pardon my lack of technical competence. regards simon

Thank you to Nancy and Steve for their replies. I did try TSM over the weekend but I could not find my V11 CD, only the V10.5 and when I installed that again the model I wanted to try it one would not load as it was deemed an invalid file ( made in V 15j ). I tried to install TSM in the newer version but it didn't show up when I came to try it out. I'm thinking of ways around ther invalid file problem which I'll try later but it looks like 2008 may be the way to go for me. It occurred to me what may have cause the problem originally ? I use a Wacom tablet and one of the buttons on the side has a zoom function ( it didn't come with a manual so not sure which ). I may have caught that while trying to adjust the scale of the root bone and that caused the size problem Rob identified ? regards Simon

MarkW, Rob, Nancy Thank you for your messages. I've still got an old PC which might have TSM on I will have to retry it. The models I'm using are (as you may have noticed ) very simple so should be backwards compatible and could then be reimported. It is my intention to upgrade to V17 as soon as possible but other domestic glitches keep getting in the way. The prospect of 75 pages of instruction is a little daunting I admit. One of the good things I remember about TSM was the simplicity of it although I can't remember too much about the animating process with it after setup. i'll find out. regards Simon

The newer AM rigs like 2010, Lite and Squetch are also much more modern than AM2001 but I'm not familiar with their workflow, so i keep using TSM2. I bought TSM a long time back but that was when using PC's. Is TSM2 available for the Mac? Is the 2010 rig on the CD ( as was ) or is it available on the web site. I have a few hiccups with the 2001 rig ( left forearm is rather strange ! ) but I'd thought that might be my lack of expertise at such things. The characters I'm tying to make now all use pose sliders and Muscle mode relationships, although that is a particular style I want to get. The project after next will probably involve face rigs but thats a way off yet. regards simon

Always do that for all AM2001 characters. Rob you don't appear to be a fan of the 2001 rig (?) is there one you would recommend ? regards simon

Well, that was scary. The model bone and Hips null "bone length" had been set from a few cm to a few light years in length. Possibly you had accidentally selected several things at once and adjusted something. Rob Thank you very much. Scary is the right word. I was trying to assign the Cp's at the time and it just happened. I shall not be trying to replicate it. regards simon

I had a problem yesterday when I indadvertedly moved some bones in the rig. So today I was reinstalling the rig and working away steadily when suddenly the mesh and the rig disappeared in the model window. I reverted but the problem was still there ( or not as it were ). If I do a quick render the model appears to be there but if I try to edit the mesh or the rig nothing is visible in the appropriate window. ??? This applies in an action window as well as a model window. Can anyone please tell me what might have happened so I can avoid doing it again and get on with the rest of the work ? regards simon IMac, V15J,OSX 10.68 Eve_Blox_Toon_.mdl

My apologies. I've just watched the tutorial. Questions answered. Thank you very much. simon

Fuchur, Rob, John Thank you very much for your kind replies. I'm just about to watch the walk cycles on a path tutorial but, in the interim, this was todays attempt. The method used in the end was to replicate the path for each of the cycles used and to alllign those over each other. I tried the ease method but it seemed to be rather temperamental. One model walked but, the other did not I tried to import a spline circle as a model in a chor but the program would not allow it to be selected as a path. Or rather, it just hung there with nothing seeming to happen for several minutes. So I had to relaunch it . I'm working in 15J on an Imac. @25fps One curios thing I have noticed is that, although I've set the action up as smoothly as I could in the action window and it seems to play back there OK. When I take it into a chor the movement appear to be less fluid and much stiffer. The only way to counteract that was to increase the number of repetitions over the length of path ? Rob had said that the length needed to accurately fit the stride length and I had tried to do that but not very successfully. Is there a way to measure the length of a path so that I can calculate the correct timing. I had tried to set up against the grid but, when forming the circle the measurements slipped as the control points were moved. The idea is to try to generate different character through the walks but, thats getting a bit ahead at the mo. Thanks for your help. regards simon Blox_Walk.mov

Rob Thank you once again for your help. I will try your suggestions later and post the results. I've just got in from exercising and my muscles are telling me how foolish that was. regards simon

I want to set up a walk test were several copies of the same model walk around a path but using different cycles. Is this possible ? Also I followed the tutorial in TAOAM but am still getting skating is there a common cause for that? regards simopn

The eyes move... Tried to add eye movements to go with the body changes. I was worried they were too exaggerated but they didn't show, so I upped them more. Too much ? regards simonBerty.mov

I live in Peterborough,well someone has to Didn;t realise you were in the area allthough its a fair trip btw Ive workd in and around Beccles a few times and Norwich laying floors recently made contact with a former college friend who lives in Peterborough. She teaches adult literacy. It is a bit of a trek but good to know theres someone else using AM fairly near. I talk about tit to people and, mainly, they've never heard of it. Regards simon

Thank you for your comments. I made the model a few years back when I made a little animation trying to get sponsorship for my nephew. I had to revise it a lot as, fortunately, my modeling skills have improved since then. A friend lives in Chicago and was lamenting the other week that the shop were he got UK brands had stopped selling them, so his Mum was having to send him Birds custard ... I'm not very keen on rotoscoping personally but thats just my preference. I watch the footage sometimes but away from the computer. regards simon

I will put some eye movements and blinks in, not sure about the mouth yet. Difficult to do an Elvis lip curl with that design of mouth ? Simon

Take Two More exaggerated movements than before,Berty.mov a la suggestions. Too much, too little ? regards simon

After pratting about for the student I managed to revisit the Berty animation. Any comments welcome. simonBerty.mov