fae_alba

Not having drop box, and not willing to install the client on my work pc, here is a zip of my offering... Hopefully all goes well with the attachment

I tend to agree with Robcat on this one. If you explain to your students that while the tut shows it being done one way, there is a better way. Explain the differences, the reasons, the logic. Spend 15 minutes at the start, drive it home, and the students will understand. It is actually a good life lesson. Up to this point your students have had stars in their eyes about what animation is (as you said earlier, to them it's all about video games) and have no real concept just how difficult is can be. That includes using, sometimes cantankerous software. A:M is actually one of the easier apps to use, what's difficult with animation is that the software is simply a tool, learn to use the tool properly and you're about one third there. I'd actually like to see animation classes to also delve into the other aspects of animation (production, direction, business, writing, art, etc.) and that every animation movie you see out there took hundreds of folks working several years and spending multi-millions of dollars to get a project to the silver screen. Get the stars out of their eyes, a dose of reality never hurt anybody, especially 8th graders.

Trying like hell to get it done..I'll touch base in the morning with a go/no go

did you try slapping the spacebar??

Many thanks compadre!

Thought you all might be interested in this. I found it on the Howard Lowery Auctions site.

I'm trying my damndest to get it done!

man, that must have been one big cat!

that is truly good news. i was beginning to worry I wasn't going to make it sense I'm crunched with work now and am going on vacation Oct 2nd....Now I can do it..yeah...

My friend, there is only one way that you will improve; that's by doin'. No one judges; it's all an even playing field on these forum projects.

Well, I have no idea what caused this. I just re-downloaded the project from the beginning of this thread...re-rendered and it works just ducky. Back on track on on to tweeking the story!

Did that....

OK, so I'm almost nearly, somewhat there with this wee diversion. But I have one question: Is there any way to reduce the washing out of the girl character?

So I started back into the walk in a chor last night. I thought that I could simply copy the key frames from each foot contact, paste them in each consecutive frame, and move the body bone forward when needed to keep the poor old man moving forward. Sadly that didn't seem to work out. Each time I tried the poor old guy looked like he was taking a flying leap. I think it has something to do with the Lite Rig, and the body controls null. It would seem, that I will have to manually key frame each contact point, which in the long run I guess is optimum since it provides a more organic look (potentially), but also opens me up to not being entirely consistent as well.

I could never stay within the lines on those things!

I use a laptop exclusively, and have nary a problem using am. I do use a cordless mouse with a track wheel. Couldn't be simpler for me. The wheel controls zoom, short cut keys for move and rotate, view buttons on the toolbar for views. No tablet, no keypads... No as far the hot tub on a starry night...well nothing can compare to that! (I enjoy that every night, no better way to end the day)

Thanks guys! I'll get right on it asap (tonight I have to do paying work though)

walk_sample.mov

so...here we are yet again. I've started doing the walk cycle entirely in the chor, and figured to work on just the legs for now. Once I've go the legs down, I'll move on to the rest. walk_sample.mov

Sort of?? For an old guy he's practically tip toeing thru the tulips!

The saga continues....I think it's getting better, at least the process is getting easier. There are still issues, there is a popping at the transition, but I'm thinking that's where I'm moving the body bone forward at the end of each stride. Plus it seems that he is rising up a bit too far for an elderly gent, and I need to relax the hands quite a bit. But give me your thoughts... walk_sample.mov

We had big drums that collected the used chemicals...and yes silver was reclaimed from them...

Hijack away..I've done it enough to other threads! When I want it back,I'll take it!

I ordered The Animator's Toolkit on Thursday from Amazon. Got it on Friday. And those inbetweener stories were some of the first I picked up on in the book. They are relevant, because you need to understand the process in order to make it work.. This I have learned. At first I thought it was better to not put keyframes in willie-nillie. But as I got more into a walk that is exactly what I had to do.

So, here we go with a basic walk take 2. Quickly browsed thru Richard William's Animator's Took Kit, then started over. This is what I wound up with... walk_sample.mov Robert, one question for you; I've built the action in the non-treadmill way discussed earlier, but how do you approach it repeating it in the chor so that it doesn't keep popping back to the start position? Crits all around please. I want this character to behave naturally, so the goal is to avoid the "floaty" feeling