RS3D

First of all, thanks for the feedback. I have attached a jpg of the 0th, 2nd and 7th keyframes. If you look at the difference between 0 and 2 there is very little lift in the hips there and what is there is necessary to reduce the snap in the leg as it straightens out to get to frame 7. Adjusting it is tricky. If I hold the hips down at frame 2 to exactly the same level as frame 0 (or slightly lower), there is a definite unsightly snap in the leg. I have the same problem you seemed to have with the Knight model in your tut on blocking in the key poses. That is, the adjustment you try to do by dragging the bones is too coarse to get the transition exactly where you want it. Does it appear in the animation that the body is lifting more than is indicated in the attached .jpg?

Here is an update to walk cycle. I made more changes to the pelvis by rotating it up a little more on the passing frame, rotating the shoulders a little more in the opposite direction on the passing frame and adding some bounce to the hair bones. Despite the changes, the result in the choreography doesn't seem to show the changes as much as indicated in the action window. I also attached a .MOV of the walk cycle in the action window. If you put it on =loop= you can see the model moves around quite a bit more than shows in the choreography. I think the changing of the camera angle in the choreography tends to flatten the secondary movements. 110423Walk2.mov 110423WalkFront.mov

I think the way I chose to 'color in' the shorts made the arms seem a little long. The model started out as the FemaleKLDWeightedB model from the Extras CD Volume 1. I altered it quite a bit from the original configuration. One thing I didn't change was the splinage placement and bones structure. The model may not be the best looking female model around, but the way it is set up is very good. It is about as easy as working with the Thom model and deforms in actions very nicely. Whoever did the bone set up knew what they were doing. My original intent was to use a version of the model that was quite heavy and show her exercising, losing weight and getting a makeover to look good at the end. But then I got hung up on the walk cycle.

Before trying to play with more shoulder turn and hip turn, I decided to concentrate on the level of the hips in relation to the straightening of the leg during the cycle. I tried to keep the hips lower after the initial frame (heel contact) for a couple of frames, but the co-ordination of the level of the hips and the straightening of the leg is very tricky to get right. I used a 29-frame cycle for the walk> See attached .jpg, which shows the first 14 frames. There are key frames at 0, 2 (foot slap), 7 (high point of the hips) and 14, which is the keyframe mirror of frame 0. I am wondering if the 5 frames between 2 and 7 is enough time to straighten the leg. It may be better to go to a 31 frame cycle and increase the time between 2 and 7 to straighten the leg. I attached a new version of the .MOV, 110416Walk2a.movI hope it is progress.

I have been following the various threads on walk cycles by Robcat and others. I put together the attached walk cycle for a couple of characters. I have looked at them for so long I don't know if they look right or not. I would appreciate it if someone would please take a look and let me know if they look realistic.110416Walk.mov

------------------------------------------------------------- Rodney, thanks for all the comments. I already used blue/green light for the choreography in order to get the night time effect. There is a trade-off between realism and showing enough detail on the model. I was going for a compromise between the two goals. Since I posted the animation I also softened the edges of the background decals. For some reason, the decal edges become sharper in the Quicktime compression process. For your point #3, could you point me to some thing that explains the part after 'This is a tall order but.... ? I think I need a tutorial or something to get started with compositing, EXR, post effects, animating transparency, etc. I had trouble playing the strobe.mov file you attached. I would love to see it, but I get error messages.

Actually this started out as an attempt to show the helicopter taking off and throwing dust around. I got hung up on sound problems and did this attempt to make sure I can get the sound under control. Now that I know the sound works, I can get back to the dust thing. Thanks for suggestion.

Thanks for the helpful comments and kind words. I have been playing with both motion blur to help the rotor appearance and depth of field for the camera to try to improve the animation. The depth of field is tricky because the background is so close to the helicopter model.

Attached is a night time fly by of an Apache Longbow helicopter. It is the first time I have used the Quicktime format for animation, so I have several things I am concerned about. (1) Does it play ok? (sound, etc.), (2) It is a compromise between showing enough detail of the model vs. the night time environment. So does it seem to look fairly realistic? and (3) Every animator's request, do you see anything to improve it?Apache1.mov

Thanks for the help, you never know when it is something you are doing or some other reason for problems.

I am using vers. 15.0j+. I am able to render output files in MOV format with sound, but not in the AVI format. I seached the archives and this is similar to another person's problem from March 21, 2010. In that case, he just decided to keep using MOV. However, I would like to use AVI. Does anyone know where I can find some way of figuring out what the problem is?

Thanks for the helpful comments. I am attaching some pictures of what I think you mean by the beveling improvements and also the .MDL file. Remember I said it was bad. Walther_P38_Test.mdl

The model is not very good. I more or less free handed it from pictures on the internet. I would be happy to give it to anyone who is good at mechanical modeling to see what an improved version would look like.

Here is a model of a Walther P-38 that I made. I was going for a well used but still usable look. Please let me know if you see anything that could be improved.

I think it is better than you seem to think it is. You have some secondary motion going on that helps to sell the action and some good anticipation in the face, eyes, etc. You could probably work on even more secondary motion in other places like in the stomach area. It looks like he has a little bit of a pot belly, so you expect that part to move up and down in some kind of jiggling activity in the jumping action. Anything that gives body parts a sense of weight would help.

Here is an attempt at getting an image with a cool morning light feel. The background is just a decal with cool light color applied and some fog effects. The foreground is modeled with a lot of small individual lights to give the impression of bounced lighting off the floor and walls, etc. Does it work? Any suggestions for improvement?

Here is a simple model I made. It is a wood cylinder with no useful purpose that I can see. I just wanted to use it to experiment with lighting effects.