fae_alba

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

If you're wanting to eventually use a path constraint you'll want to do it treadmill style since that is the convention path constraints anticipate you will use. But animating with real motion forward is a more traditional method and makes the body mechanics problems more realistic. In most feature animation walk "cycles" aren't used because they look like robotic repetition after the first repeat. If a character needs to walk somewhere they animate every step and show the character thinking about why they are going where they are going and appropriately starting and stopping along the way. A Hanna-Barbera cartoon uses walk cycles disguise what would otherwise be a static dialog scene. They do lots of walking and talking in "Scooby Doo" for example. But feature animation tends to avoid such contrivances. Walk cycles got used in TWO for economy's sake, but they are pretty obvious. A good use of cycles in TWO was the parade scene. Ken Heslip animated a cycle that marched forward two steps and made the beginning match the end. Then at the end of the cycle he moved the character's model bone forward the exact distance of two steps to pick up where the last cycle ended. This has the advantage of not altering the length of the cycle as it was animated; a path constraint stretches the timing to fit the distance needing to be covered. Cycles work for the parade because that's a situation where the characters really are trying to repeat their motion. The longest stretch of walk cycle animation I've seen in a Disney movie was the opening of "Robin Hood" and that was... a parade. Robert, that goes a long long way in explaining/confirming what I already suspected. So treadmill walkcycles and path constraints are not the way I will be going, since my goal is the more realistic/natural feel.

Funny you should mention that: I was contemplating changing the cycle to match the tut in the TAO:AM. So allow me to ask you this...if I continue with the walk cycle as I have started, do I need to define stride length, and does it alter how I approach path constraints etc?

I am using the lite rig That "should" be easy enough to fix... I did watch your vid(s) ( a 3 part er no less!). I haven't reviewed the R Williams section yet and will hunt it down today. Thanks for your input!

take two.... as easy it this stuff may seem...it aint! walk_sample.mov

Robert, thanks for your tips, they will be incorporated today...that rear foot sliding was the bane of my existence last night. For the life of me I couldn't get it to stop, even though I was keyframing the living hell out of the foot null to get it to stay put....

I've started tackling a basic walk cycle for Old Man Willies. I'd like the forum's more critical view of the first (actually it's about the dozenth!) pass. I can already see some areas that need tweeking, but I want your crits first. walk_sample.mov

Sounds like the much ballyhood "make dragon" button

the tricycle from the other thread! (then a piece of paper whizzing by camera with the biohazard symbol on it.) sorry. innate gloom (with a side of morbid) seeping thorugh cracks produced by insecurities stemming from a creeping suspicion this is all just one big joke meant to intimidate newbies. keeping a close eye on you. As soon as I saw this thread this morning the image that came to mind was Oscar the Grouch's garbage can on the sidewalk (with Oscar of course)...

I'm liking it. The only remark that springs to mind is that the liquid feels like it flows like mercury. Maybe its just me, but I feel like I should be calling the haz-mat team and not the waiter!

Ditto for me Mark. It takes a rare individual who can do this sort of thing and be able to bite his tongue when getting crits from so many angles. I've been in your shoes with many an IT project, and it aint fun. Thanks for your effort.....and your restraint!

A barrel of monkeys...they're full of guaranteed laughs! I've already got mine in the works. Had one or two ideas for the room set...but I', liking the possibilities of straight character animation..good practice. Let's all get with it and start telling some stories.

The easiest way I know of is in the modeling window, right click save/save as from the pop up context menu

Oh the memories! I used to work at a photo processing plant (I was one of the blokes who developed and printed your rolls of 35/110/126 film (am I dating myself or what!?) One of my jobs was running the b&w film developing machine. I remember one night a bunch of guys in suits came knocking on our door (we worked from 3pm till around 2am). Turns out they were FBI, and had security camera film that they needed developing. I spent the night in the darkroom with these guys, explaining every thing I was doing, step by step. And yes I printed a lot of pics of moms and dads doing photo ops late at night in the privacy of their own bedrooms..funny how folks will do such things behind closed doors..then blissfully send them to a commercial film processor!

The knights hand placement is off to me in the beginning...they sort of float off of the cube. Me thinks if you placed the hands on the upper corners of the cube when he begins to push it would look better.