John Keates

Nice Bonsai! I think the darkness of the hair is caused where it points towards the light. One method is to comb it so that it is side on to the light. You couls also try this: Set the diffuse falloff to a low value - or even 0% Set the translucency to about 80% or more/ This should get more light in there. I think you need raytraced shadows for this to work You can also whack some more ligts in there - perhaps a rim light to get some back-lighting. Expect render times to go up when using translucency. Hope that helps

She is more-or less rigged now. I need to tweak some of the deformation (I am using bone weigting combined with fan bones which can get pretty confusing). I may use a little smart-skind afterwards but we will see. Features that the rig has at the moment: The shoulder movement is controlled by translating the arm bone. The hands can be steadied. The legs are designed so that she can rotate her foot from the heel, ball or ankle. When she lifts the heel, the toes stay still. The knee can be pointed also and there is a slider to set the degree to which the knee points like the foot. There is a but bone (or arse bone as I call it). The pelvis and the chest can be translated independantly. The jaw is rigged with cp weights. Things left to do are: Make and rig a tongue Rig the face (that will be a whole new exercise) Texture her properly. I am not going to add any auto-balance stuff as I never got on with it.

Here is another test of the same model. The back bone is the only thing that is animated - everything else is automatic. The left arm is kept steady with a slider which can be eased off. The head is also leveled except at times when this would break her neck in which case the leveling constraints are eased off. I used the same method to do this as with the shoulder - a bone drives a pose via a relationship. The pose varies the enforcement of a constraint. The effect also works when you rotate the pelvis. It is dependant on the angle of the head relative to the body. Once you start building in this kind of automation, the character becomes creapily real as she adjusts whilst you move her. I just hope that it all helps with animation. Head_orient.mov

Hi guys, It feels nice to have some attention from two of the most 'Technical Director' type people here. Reading through it now (it is the morning), I am not sure how clearly it all reads. It was quite an effort to get it all down at all. If you need any clarification then feel free to ask.

EDIT: Sorry that the quotes didn't work out. Thanks, I wanted to make the joint nice and robust. I am going to try to animate her climbing a tree and all sorts. Actually, I am showing an image on another forum. There is a link to it from here The short that I made was for the sake of light relief from rigging. Believe it or not but the entire animation took about the same amount of time as making this character has so far. OK, this is going to be long so bare with me... ----------------------------------------------------------- The rig was based on the 'chatter buster' rig which was the invention of the great Carl Railard. This is the rig that Pequod used when he animated Schlitzy. I could never quite get my head round all that was going on in the rig but I recond that I could do the same job in another way. The basic idea of the rig is that the arm is always working with IK internally but the IK null can translates iether to a floating null (for normal IK) or to a null which is the child of a bone rooted at the shoulder (which I shall call the chatter buster, or CB for short). This means that you can get a nice swinging arc movement of the arm indicative of FK and transition smoothly to IK. You can also move the null that is a child of the CB up and down the CB to get a punch type motion without sacrificing the quality of arcs. There are other details to do with pointing the elbow and keeping the bones from rotating badly but I won't go into them here as they are not relevant to my recent invention (plus I can't remember it all now withouth digging around in my rig). The bit that I invented is this: I wanted the end of the shoulder to follow the bicep bone variably as discribed in my first post but there was a circularity problem. The Bicep bone is a child of the bone which controlls the end of the shoulder (I called it the shoulder joint) - but I also wanted to have the Bicep controll the shoulder joint. I decided that the only way around the circularity was to make a duplicate of the geometry bones (I called this the shadow arm). This duplicate has the same constraints as the geometry set up but is at the same level of the hiarachy as the shoulder joint - and thus is not controlled by it and escapes any circularity. I was worried that the difference caused by the lack of movement of the root of this shadow would make the rig less acurate but it seems fine. Ok, so I want the shoulder joint to orient like the bicep, but only where the bicep is raised. So I made a pose that stored the orient like constraint and set the enforcemtent channel to linier. I often prefer zero slope for this type of thing as it gives an automatic ease in and out but I wanted to control the ease later as you will see. Within this pose I made the shoulder joint orient like the bicep shadow but the I realised that this looked bad when it rolled so I made another bone which orients like the bicep shadow but has store roll set to off. Now I had to link the motion of the bicep to that pose so that it eased it in at the right moment. I made the new bone drive the pose by using a 1d relationship - that is to say that I made a relationship between the x rotation of the bone and the pose that orients the shouder joint like the bicep. My method for doing this is thus: Right click the x property to start the relationship then move the pose slider anyware and stop making the relationship. Once this is done, a channel is created which links one to the other at varying extents allong the rotation. This can be edited in the channel editor. For me, this editing is a black art but it basically involves the following workflow: Make an action such as the one in my demo animation which will test the relationship. Click on the channel in the pws to edit it and make a simple channel which varies along a wide range. Go to a part of the action which is at one extreem and fiddle with the channel until you can see the effect come and go as the channel is moved in and out of the area where it has an effect at the extreem position. Now do this at the other extreem. EDIT: You often have to make the channel operate at negative frame positions as well as positive ones. Now you can play with the way that the ease of the relationship works. I found that just editing bias handles was the way to go in this case. Actually, I would like it if this process were made easier - I can't think what kind of UI changes could be made though. Anyway, once this was done, the motion worked pretty well (after some fiddling). I could set where the pose started coming into play and how. The only problem was that there was a small glitch which I couldn't work out. I sent a report and just the other day got a message from Bob saying what the glitch was. I'm not sure if I can print it here and I didn't fully undertand it. It was something to do with the way that rotation maths works and a method of getiting round it that involved switching between two different methods of handling the axes. Anyway, the glitch was something that couldn't be changed for maths reasons and it very rare that it comes up anyway but Bob gave me two work arounds (Bob is definitely one of my favorite programmers). The work-around that I used was to make another bone that had the same constraint as the one that ws driving the pose enforcement, but this one had a limit on all rotation except X. This work around worked perfectly and now the rig is working as planned. ----------------------------------------------------------- Wow my eyes need a rest!! I hope that at least one person (probably you Yves) can follow that. It only just makes sense to me!! It is a model that I am making for a short that I am planning. Actually, the short is starting to turn into a long. The modelling started when I boasted that I can make a head mesh in 15 mins (with the proviso that it would take another 15 to make the ear). I felt guilty that I was boasting so I went ahead and tested myself. I was pretty much spot on. I made a male character out of the mesh but there were areas which were lacking so I added some splines. Then I thought I would adapt the mesh for this character. I generally find that making the mesh takes about a fifth of the time of shaping it.

I was rigging a semi-realistic character when I noticed a lot of talk of shoulder rigs. I thought I would have a crack at doing one myself and so I spent a lot of time looking at myself in the mirror and girating (steady vern; you know what I mean) I have attached an animation of the rig in action. The idea was to get the effect of the arm taking over the movement of the end of the shoulder as it goes up. This movement is independant of the main shoulder movement (where the collar bone moves also). If the character is walking then there isn't much movement of the end of the shoulder but as the arm swings up the two connect. The rig is quite complex but if someone asks then I will give a description as best as I can. Hope it is usefull/interesting. EDIT: Oh yeah, not all the deformation is finished yet. It is the underlying rig that I am showing. Shoulder_deformation.mov

I have to admire the simplicity, style and character of this stuff John. It is really well lit too. Have you tried Yvses' skin shader? I think it would work wonders here.

Wow, I saw this character a few pages back and was impressed. Now he looks even better! I love the real/unreal use of lighting. It is creative but believable. The only crit that I can think of is that there could perhaps be some gloomy shadow under the arms - particularly his left forarm. Other than that it is stunning!

Nice character! He has the extreem features there but a nice human quality also. I think that Porcillain would make him look even better.

Thanks for the comments guys. They are duly noted and may well end up in the animation. The direction was kind of hap-hazard as I just let it grow with no story-board. This probably explains why it is the area that is lacking. Just goes to show how important the planning stage is.

Hi All, I have been working on this animtation and wondered what you thought. Download here All crits welcome. Bare in mind that it is WIP and so is not fully rendered (only realtime shaded at the mo). There are places where the hands are popping through and such. It is mostly the story/direction/acting/timing that is up for crits. I don't mind honest comments. Fire away.

Just to let you know that I have another gig on Wed 17 of this month (this wednesday) at the Doublin Castle. There is more info here: www.mergatroid.org Sorry to abuse the forum like this, but I couldn't resist a little targeted marketing here Oh, and I will definitely be up for another meeting. I got fed up with the complexities of 'realistic' animation and have started on a really simple short. I will have some animation for you to laugh at this time!

Looks good, I like the clouds. How does it look with a stron side light as would be the case in space?

Nice image! Lots of character and movement. It reminds me of the most difficult commission I ever did. A guy wanted his bycicle helmet airbrushed. His son had chosen what he wanted on there - octopuses that were anatomically like real octopusses but with a cartoony quality to them. Before taking on the commision I had neglected two things: 1. It is very hard to airbrush onto a curved surface and I had never done this before. 2. Octopuss's mouths are hidden amidst their tenticles. Anyway, I think you did an admirable job of it - much better than mine. PS: Octopusses... octopie... octopy.......... whatever!

>>This part I'll have to look into: "setting the pre and post extrapolation of the >>channels in the poses". >You are not referring to the percentage value of the poses' property (not sure I >worded that correctly, and I'm not at my A:M computer to check it out) are you? As it >is now, many of the poses are at their extremes and I haven't tried changing the >percentage values to try to push them further. Ok, here I am referring to the fact that you can set the channels within a pose to carry on after and before the pose extents. In some cases - as when the pose is driven by a relationship, the pose can be driven past its extents (I belive). If this is not happening then it is possible to change the settings of a pose (right click it under the model in the pws) and set it to +200% and -200% or whatever you like. >>"It is a good idea to orient the head bone like a steady bone with 'apply before >>action' to 'on'. This way, it will keep its angle when you add neck movement." >I'm not quite following you here. What is the steady bone constrained to.... an upper >spine bone? And is the orient like constraint on the head bone at a percentage less >than 100? The steady bone is usually at the root of the model (it is not a child of anything). You don't want it a child of the thorax as this would undo its effect. You can orient the head like it at 100%. You could also make the constraint in a percentage pose where it gradates from 0-100% (you have to set the channel interpolation to linier or zero-slope or whatever). The idea here is that the head will allways keep the same angle (as tends to happen naturally anyway). The biggest advantage is that you can rotate the neck without the head rotating. Hope this helps and I am sorry that I keep missing updates to threads - email notification doesn't seem to work for me.

Wow, can't believe I missed this one! It has been fantastic to see you progres so fast through the learning curve. I think you nailed the animation very well. Yosemite Sam was allways one of my favorites and you have captured about as much of his attitude as one could expect without having put any body movement in. I was going to suggest some more extreem movement but I don't think that it would be appropriate with such a realistic model. One thing you might consider though is not having any limits on the amount that your control nulls can move and setting the pre and post extrapolation of the channels in the poses to accumulate so you can allways add some extra movement if needed. Feel free to quiz me on this if you don't understand - it might not even work with your setup I guess. I am no big expert on lip sync. The mouth movement looks nice and snappy and all the basic movments are jumping out at the right places. One area that I would look at though is the eyes. I would like to see some real squinting goin on there. There is some blinking but more eyelid movement would be great. If you make the eyes into slits at "flee bitten" and then burst them wide open at "blow" then you would get some more impact. Also, the eyebrow movement looks a little like it was done as an after-thought. For this kind of acting I would make the eybrow movement snappy and decisive as you have with the mouth. At the moment the eyebrows seem to slide around in a flirty way rather than jolt from one place to another as I would expect. Since you have put in head movement, I would condider adding neck movement as they should go together in this kind of wild speach. It would be great if he pushes is head forwards one "flea bitten" and pulls it right back at "blow". It is a good idea to orient the head bone like a steady bone with 'apply before action' to 'on'. This way, it will keep its angle when you add neck movement. That is pretty much all I can think of for now. As I say, it is great to see you progressing so fast. I can't wait to see what you will do in the future.

It just means that it is easier to select different views. Actually, I bought it because the box said that it was possible to re-map the keys but I havn't found a way of doing this yet

Hey guys, I thought I would let you know that I have bought a numeric key pad so nobody else needs to buy one for next time.

Wow! Congratulations. I have only seen the trailors for that and I hope I get to see the whole things some time.

BAM!...... LAMU....... BAM! ...... LAMU..... I gues it depends on what mood you are in.

Hey guys, I think you need to pull your weight a little here! I am the only one even nearly approaching Vern quality baldness and I am the youngest there (I think). After seeing those photos, the old clipper came out to play. Next time you see me I will resemble an army man - shaved and ready for action. The meeting was certainly a sucess. Looking forward to doing it again.

Lovely work yet again, you guys definitely have your own look. Did you use v11 hair or another method?

The following is for anyone who likes the techical stuff (I think that it can only add to ones appreciation of looking at stuff). As I remember it... Arial perspective was first played with by Leonardo (of course). The fact that shorter wavelengths get scattered more is due to 'Raleigh scattering' (Don't know if I spelt that right - if you want the real name then I could find it). It is a quantum effect and therefore only happens on particles that are small. It is a result of the inditermanency principle - if you know the position then you don't know the direction. The smaller the particle, the more defined the position and the more random the angle so you get more scattering. This is a universal law of course. For this reason, you would expect a blue sky for any alien planet with small (air) particles in it. I remember seeing photos of mars with a blue sky - aprarently NASA 'reds' it up to make it look more alien - can't vouch for the truth of this but it is a good story. I guess that a planet with low gravity might have a redder sky as dust particles will tend to float about more. Mars is earths twin though and has about the same mass. When you have larger particles then they do not do the Raleigh scattering - they just influence colour in the normal way (they subtract from it). This will tend to cause a redder colour as blue stuff isn't common. This is why smoggy sky looks like a browny red. However, over jungles and such, there is chloraphyl from all the plants and bacteria and so the air looks green. In deserts, the colour of the arial effect is dependant on rain - when it rains, the dust gets knocked out of the air and the sky is blue. Maybe this is why we find blue sky attractive? This would be an important thing to cosider in the scene depicted. The red atmosphere gives the impression of dryness - like it hasn't rained recently. Depending on what you do with the clouds, you could get a nice 'storm brewing' feel. There are a whole load of other effects that can happen giving any colour that you can imagine but you are basically looking at blue for the sky unless there is stuff in the air or the sun is low. I had a friend once who was colour-blind. He saw green sunsets. Pretty cool. This stuff is actually very relevent to art ( I think). If you spend a lot of time out-doors then you will find that you become very attuned to the changes in light. It would have been very important for our ancestors' survival to know if it was going to rain, or get dark or whatever. The weather can have a very powerfull effect on mood. This stuff runs deep into us and we have a natural fascination with it. I am guessing that we have more of a sub-consciouse awareness of the physical facts behind lighting conditions than most people know. It is by doing research about stuff with the rational part of our brains that we can learn to wobble the deeper recesses of our imaginations in a way that is contrived to be relevent to our message. I have a fantastic book on the subject... let me see... Heres the link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/search...9231027-7049211 If it doesn't work then just type "colour in nature" into amazon.co.uk By the looks of it, there is another book there which is more relevant to the subject at hand. I really can't imagine there being all that much to know that one could make a whole book on it! Anyway, lecture over. I just remembered that I have a life lying around here somwhere waiting for me...

Hi Guys, Thanks for the compliments on the music - glad you like it. Paul, It will be good to see you there! Remember to print out the flyer to get in cheaper - we need lots of flyers in else the organisers won't like us. I have thought of modelling our mascot (that is what the front man has started calling him). That way I could easily pose him in different positions / lighting. Animating him to music would be fun also but I have an animation project on the go at the moment which takes up my time. I will certainly have a go at making music for my current project - I like the idea of making the entire thing myself and there are no copywright issues. Also, If the music is made for the story then it can add a lot more and there will be no awkward cuts or fade outs needed. I have been thinking of offering the Mergatroids' survices to anyone who wants them. We can do a fair range of styles - allways with our own quirky additives. We have our own producer also. The lead singer (Gaz) has an artistic bent and the drummer is studying film effects at college. Gaz and the producer both have a talent for voices and a wicked sense of homour. We really should be making our own cartoons but it is hard to get the others into the animation thing as there is so much to learn. It is kind of up to me to show that it can be done.

I thought that I would mention the fact that I have a gig on the 30th of this month at the 'Grey Hourse' in Kingston Upon Thames with my band 'The Mergatroid'. You can check out some of our tunes and find out more at: www.mergatroid.org It would be nice to see you there but don't let it detract from the main meeting which I would like to be a sucess. If you do turn up, I am the bass player. I can't garantee that I will be able to spend a lot of time chatting AM, I am hoping to be talking about quite different matters with our fans (if we have any by then).