fae_alba

Wow...papa near made the grade, though at the very bottom! Guess I need to get back to work and post more. Trying to split time between work, this forum, my animation aspirations and my personal blog makes for some serious time crunches though.

Some time ago I had won at an animation art auction a backdrop painting used in a HB cartoon (which one I have no idea), and I thought it would be a good backdrop for Papa Bear. So I did a couple of renders with version one of the model both in 3D and 2D. Below is a quick example of the outcome. While at the time the consensus was that my shorts should be done in 3D, I'm still partial to the 2D version. It seems to resonate more with me. The backdrop image Papa Bear in 3D Papa Bear in 2D

I've been toying with the idea of doing my "Papa Bear" shorts in this style. I'm partial to the early Disney look and feel, which ultimately for me would be as near to nirvana as I could get.

"Squirrel!"

I did the same as Rodney with a denser grid and it simulated as I wanted. The pieces did a little mexican jumping bean routine at the end, but that was a simple enough fix of whacking the trailing keyframes.

I'm experimenting with the bullet rigid body constraint. Nothing fancy, just a simple puzzle piece falling from the top of the chor to the ground plane, a bounce or three then stop. I intend on using this as part of a power point presentation I am putting together for work (the slide is "Pieces of the Puzzle"). What I am stymied on is keeping the puzzle pieces from penetrating the ground plane. I want the pieces to hit, bounce then wind up laying flat, but short of adjusting individual channels after the fact I don't see the magic setting to get that to happen. test.avi Project1.prj

That would be one awesome story!

You couldn't go more minimalist (is that even a valid phrase?!) than that rig!

Rodney, sent you an email with a model attached. Have fun with it!

Now that looks promising. The other place for expression is the upper lips/jowls. They need to have a flappy kind of vibe. But what you have there has quite a bit of expression in its own. My holy grail would be able to mimic that sheepish look that Humphrey often gets.

The below images of Disney's Humphrey the Bear are along the lines of the sort of expressions that Papa Bear needs to emulate. For right now I don't see him speaking, but rather like Humphrey pantomiming

That's an interesting character. For some reason I can't envision how you got from a flat plain to the 3D head. I always have a problem with drawing in 3d space until I have a nearly completed model. That's why I start with existing models and work from that. As an aside, it'd be interesting to see what kind of rig you'd come up with for the mouth/snout. That's one big piece that I haven't been able to do nicely with Papa Bear.

In animation we can do just about anything. I'd imagine that if a giant finger poked at a flour sack, the sack's weight would be such that it wouldn't tip over unless already precariously perched somewhere. The idea being that most of the sand/weight is near the bottom of the sack and so the finger would simply redistribute the sand at the top of the sack. (we could actually have a go at animating this!) This is the same premise of what might happen if someone were to push on a regular human being whose is balanced. The push might cause some movement but if the base of the human is well balanced then only the upper extremities would react. In the spirit on Monty Python, I give you the finger poke. floursack_mp.avi

Rodney when i first read your response I instantly got an image in my head of a giant finger poking the poor flour sack in the back and tipping it over, ala Monty Python. But then that spun off onto a weird tangent and turned into the idea of a hill, then a sledding hill, then alas, two months later, the following short. https://youtu.be/NxVc4PwtvPk

Here's one I was just gifted with. It's Humphrey the Bear, from which I modeled Papa Bear from. The head and arms are moveable, and it is solid.

yes please

I experimented a little with makhuman yesterday. I could not for the life of me find a way to reduce the density of the mesh being saved. Being so new I figure it's a learning curve issue, but right now, while it's great to be able to construct human models this way, the high density, and honestly the still generic looking models, it's almost not worth it. The work that would be involved to reduce the patch count would be more than building a character from the ground up in am. Again my opinion is formed based on my newbie status with both makehuman and blender, so if I'm wrong, speak up!

aaannnnd as soon as I posted this I see that the obj file came through with a bunch of groups, all with transparency set to 100%. Yeesh.

So my darling daughter has made a whole bevy of make human characters for s story she is writing. She asked if I could bring them into am and see if they could be rigged and animated. I tried one character (below) and while it imported, some weirdness ensued. The big issue is that while I can see the imported model in wireframe mode in the modeling window, it disappears in shaded mode. The mesh appears ok (though way way too dense). Has anyone had experience bringing in these obj files before? Ryan-20170104T200945Z.zip

Disney is big into these figures. Only the call them vinylnation.

I'm pretty much the same. Though I'll qualify that by saying that I may be sent overseas to points as of yet unknown next year for work, so that may change.

Yeah, I'm thinking that this falls under the category of it seems too good to be true, it most likely is. Better to save my pennies for something else, like a nice bauble for the wife!

That's an interesting thought Rodney. Might take a look into replacement parts and if it is even possible given Geralds remarks. Of course I wouldn't want to be the one to take away your reminder to not spend money, what with it sitting right there on your desk staring at you. One could only guess at what kind of fiscal trouble you might get yourself into!

You know, I never thought to run the arms and legs up the side like that. Might have to play around and see if it works for me!

Has anyone have any experience or thoughts about this 3D printer? http://printm3d.com/themicro/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=costf#intro