fae_alba

I have an associate at the music store where I teach, whose name is Armstrong. He assures me steadfastly that the clan MacKnuckles hails from Glascow. Is that Glasgow or Glascow, as in see-thru bovine? My granpappy hailed from Forfar, Aberdeenshire.

oh man, that is the granddaddy of all bad puns.

perhaps we need a thread dedicated to bad puns?!?

I wear my tartan wi pride, blah hard on me pipes, and can drink any Irishman under the table, any day 'o the week.

Aye lad, toss back a dram and throw a wee telephone pole aroon, now that's fun! btw from a Scotsman, it's Scotsman, it's a prideful nationality, not a name. And it would be MacKnuckles, McKnuckles would be his good for nothing Irish cousin!

Question: what are the constraints and weighting you used for the two fan bones in your example? I can see the value of adding the extra spline rings, something I already suspected, so I've added those, but it's unclear to me how you would derive the constraint percentages.

Like it was mentioned earlier, if you create the 5 point patch first, then apply the hook it works..if for any reason you have to re-do the 5 point patch, you have to break the hook, do the 5 pointer, then re-apply the hook.. Found that out quite by accident whilst breaking all the rules from splinig 101!

Rule number one....never "assume". It wasn't...but it is now. Also, I weighted the center spline 100% to the fan bone. It is a wee bit better, but still a bit too much creased for my liking. Would tinkering with the weights on the elbow rings be the answer, or is smartskin the way to go to get the final tweeks in?

I'm trying my first "real" rig and needless to say all is not well in 3D land. I am using the lite rig and am experimenting with the elbow joint as a starter. I've placed a fan bone, with cp weighting as follows: elbow ring nearest shoulder Bicep 75% forarm 25%, center ring 50/50, third ring 25/75. The elbow still deforms unkindly, and it doesn't seem like the fan bone is doing much of anything (it has a 50/50 orient like constraint to the bicep and forearm) Thoughts? Untitled.mov

This may explain why the stray ankylosauri are so hard to place at the animal adoption center. Apparently these things were elephant-sized so they probably didn't do much lunging. Herbivorous, of course; they might smash you but they wouldn't actually eat you. tell that to the blokes who get chomped on by the hippo-a saurous! The thought that I had with your test was happy puppy with that wagging tail...didn't go with the cranky look on the face

Right, so something aint right. With a new model, I added to on/off poses, one for a dynamic pose, the second with the target null. My thought was that I could turn off the null pose and get the nice dynamic swing action, then if I wanted the beard to do something else (like hang it over the shoulder) turn the dynamic pose off and the target null on. To test I created a chor, dragged the beard into it, turned off the null pose, the other on. Moved the beard around over time, then simulated sprind systems. While the simulation was running the beard danced a merry jig, but when I scrub the chor, no swing or sway happens. Then, if I switch the poses, and try using the null target, nothing happens either, sort of like the end beard bone wasn't targeted to the null. It would seem that these two methods of dynamic poses are mutually exclusive, and to get the best of both worlds I would need to set up two separate beards/models to get the desired effects. Any thoughts?

So that begs the question: is it possible to turn the control null constraint on and off with a pose so that a model can enjoy the best of both worlds? Sounds like an experiment is in order.

So I've rigged poor Thom up with a beard mock up, added dynamics so i get a nice lazy sway side to side. But when Thom gets excited and jumps up and down, the beard stays still. So I'm wondering, does this kind of action require the null as well as the dynamics?

Trust me, I've already studied your tutorial on dynamic constraints (thanks a lot for doing it!) and it was based on the knowledge culled from your tut that put the geometry idea in my tired old brain pan as viable in the first place...so perhaps tonight I rig it up and give it a try...

You know I've had that thought..It might just be worth playing with for a few days.

So I've been working on the main character for my first short, an old man with a long beard. I've been avidly following the recent threads on hair, and have wanted to use hair for this guys beard and mustache. I really wanted the hair quality, but the overhead of experimenting with the hair emitter, and rendering has me questioning if I should use hair or geometry to create the beard. So if using geometry how would I go about creating a beard that at least looks close? Below is a sketch of the target "look" and the current model with a geometry mock-up for the beard. The biggest issue is the ability to work the beard in such poses as in the sketch, as well as being able to animate it.

Oh the possibilities! I can remember trying to model a character wearing a kilt some 4-5 years ago, and giving up since the folds and creases simply wouldn't work and animating it would have been near impossible. Now, I'm wondering if sim cloth will support such an endeavor. Great job, man, my punch hat is off to ya!

the tricky part is the transition from regular mesh to cloth. At some point on the arm, behind the wrist I guess, the cloth would start and you'd have an obvious point where a rigid set of CPs is next to some freely moving ones. Why not two models? One with sim cloth for a long shot to show the flowing sock, and a second modeled with a "normal" manner for close ups for the mouth movements?

Weeeellll, I figured that. But the only action there is the one I created to test my cp assignments. No Install action.

So I am trying my hand with using the LiteRig. Go as far as Installing the controls step. The instructions say "open the action", but I must be missing something as I don't see an Install action. Any ideas in what I'm missing?

Holy Moly! And I just spent last night and modeling a wool vest, buttons, pockets..did you simply apply a decal to do this??

So, I'm jumping in and starting modeling on a short for submission in a film festival Film Festival Topic Discussion. The movie will be a Christmas Story of sorts. The main character is Old Man Willies. I started on his head..made one goof after another, then decided to use Sire Nigel as a starting point. After beheading Nigel, I then started to push and pull control points to get the look I was looking for. Here he is: crits please.

So I had this model hanging around that I had created a good 4 years ago. He got wind of this project and begged to be a part of it. I mean the little bugger just wouldn't leave me alone until I gave in. So here he is... chatter.mov

John, I just wanted to verify that you received my email with my pinBall movie. I didn't receive a confirmation and sense my email has been a bit wonky of late I want to make sure you did receive it.

Ok boys and girls...here is a final render. I tweeked the camera movement just a wee bit. pinball.mov