fae_alba

I'll be honest here, with the exception of the feet, I liked your first iteration with the spikes. The feeler idea I think is a good one, only have them pointing down not up. Add a dynamic bone chain to the feelers and let them move freely with body motion. That would add some "character" to the character.

So I tried sim cloth, didn't like the results so much and the effort required. Since I plan on Pappa Bear being in a series of shorts I need to streamline the animation rendering process. So I went the dynamic constraint route and added a bone chain to each edge of the open shirt. Below is a first pass test using all default values. Looks passable, though I think I'll be damping it down a bit more, then I have to look into collisions with the body mesh. shirt_test.mov

Go tall my son, go tall

I thought it would be easy too...then I caught myself in an endless loop of tweeks, changes and re-renders. Last night I simply said enough is enough and sent the beast in.

how to "stage" my character is what I've been struggling with. What to use for render settings etc to give the most impact but still fit into the ability to reproduce for Hash is proving troublesome to me. I've re-rendered half a dozen times already and still not happy with the results. Edit: And having just said all that, I made some changes, rendered, liked the results, and sent it in!

Well then It's been awhile since I updated this but low and behold I have, finally, something to show. There is still a lot of rigging work to do on the head, but PappaBear is nearing the point where I can move from the modeling phase and into story telling. I wanted to put a sim cloth shirt on him, and worked for a bit on that, but the sim went wacky, and honestly I came to the conclusion that simcloth posed more overhead in modeling and rendering than what I am intending to do with the character. So I modeled a shirt, and perhaps I'll add some dynamics to it with a rig, but for now, it is a simple mesh. I don't really like the decaling and how it stretches on the sides, and will need to do something about it, but for now, here it is...

I'm pushing my limits...trying to get a cloth Hawaiian shirt to work on PappaBear....first attempt never even made it passed the sim...so tonight I'm back at it. Feeling the pressure of the sands of time though!

pappa bear will definitely make an appearance...cleaning up the model as we speak!

David, thanks a lot man! I figured I had nudged some CP's out of place during weighting. I appreciate it.

Right, so attempt number two. I had the whole right side so that it felt good to me. Weighting done, etc. Ran the mirror bones and it only sort of worked. It left some cp's unassigned (all of the left toes, cp rings around the left elbow) and it didn't add the left foot null. I've attached the version of the model just prior to running the mirror bones wizard. Any guidance would be appreciated. PappaBearRigged_V3t11.mdl

Rodney, It's funny, your post about interest in cartooning, and producing an actual product couldn't be more apropos. My youngest, who just graduated from high school is chomping at the bit to create her own animated comic. She is a big Marvel fun, and is writing her own script for a series. She keeps asking if "there is someone in the A:M forum who could help her on it". Long story short, I'm "making" her get at least an A.S. in computer science just so she has something to get a job with. This is a sample of her work....

Simon, you are correct. Education is not the same, since a good university would/should also require a more well-rounded course load that educates the student in other disciplines (language, science, math, history etc.) This in theory, produces a student better prepared to survive in the real world. Dealing with other cultures, understanding the world around you and so forth. That is the importance of a good education. Added to that, if (when) the student can't survive working in the art industry, then finding a job in say the business community would be next to impossible without a college degree.

Mu daughter spent $80k (of my money of course) getting a fine arts degree. She is now working at the local YMCA child care facility earning min wage. I'll be paying off the student loans for the next ten years. Her words right after getting her diploma..."wish I hadn't gone to school here...waste of money." Ouch.

"Gramps" Ouch. Break out my walker, rockin' chair, moonshine, and corn cob pipe...time to yell at them thar youn whipper snappers walkin on my lawn!

thanks folks! not much going on here, kids are all working or recovering from having the first grandkid..wife is working (chef) and I'm sittin' here doing well, not much.

PappaBearRigged_V1.mdl This is a backup copy of the model with the rig scaled, but perhaps not entirely positioned properly. Tried to follow the tut, but nothin sayin I didn't mess even that little bit up!

Good thing I saved multiple copies! Perhaps what I will do is post versions of the model at each major juncture of the rigging process for you to proof? Might not be tonight...first grandson is supposedly making an appearance today.... I DO NOT feel like a grandpa!

I did...doesn't mean I didn't mess it up in the process!

and so here it is PappaBearRigged_V1_6.mdl

And the rigging saga continues. This one is really dealing with the hand rig I suppose. When I rotate the right finger controller in an action window the pinky finger distorts. It looks kind of painful, really, and I was hoping our rigging gurus will point me in the right direction to correct it. hand_issue.avi

now we're talking! it always takes another set of eyes to see the obvious...many thanks

did i say the elbow fan??? my bad. The ring is assigned to the right bicep fan

OK, so I failed fan bones 101. I made it through the rigging of one half of Pappa Bear, CP weighted the ankle, knee, hip, shoulder (still some issues there) and started work on the elbow. I have been using one of the sample models that was included with the 2008 rig instructions. When I set the cp weighting for the middle ring of the elbow to 100% of the fan bone it distorts the mesh. Any ideas on what might have caused this?

So I've got the 2008 rig half installed, and am now adding in cp weighting. One thing I am wondering about as I go trough this process (strangely I'm rather enjoying the process this time through!), some areas of the mesh on the model look great when a bone is rotated along a more "normal" range of motion, but when you push it tho the extreme, the mesh distorts beyond an exceptable amount. My goal is to make the animation process as simple as possible by making sure that the model behaves well, with as little of the irritating distortions that could happen (bones being twisted all over the place, etc.) Is there a way to place limits on the rig so that so the pelvis bone cannot be rotated beyond a certain value? I'm thinking that doing that might make things a bit easier for me. I can't show what I mean right now since I'm at work, but perhaps the rigging/animating brain trust might be able to suss out what I am trying to say with my rambling and provide some insight.

Mine Too, next to Goofy of course! I've started rigging using the 2008 rig. I think the biggest challenge is building a face rig that will give me the range of expressions that Humphrey had. Recreating the eye shapes and mouth/lip movements will be pushing my rigging skills.