amarillospider

Looks really great to me. For the amount of interaction, weight, arcs, and polish this has I am not at all suprised it tooks so long. I suggest ignoring the cape until you're through with the animation, then fighting it after everything is set. (1 battle at a time) Didn't the umbrellas stick up behind her shoulders? Hope they aren't in the way of any arms. Glad to see this piece is still going! -Alonso

Don't forget, I started the boot camp as a direct result of winning the lottery. Rodney made the lottery to foster more A:M community action. So when I won I made the bootcamp to "pay it forward". And he runs the TaoAM. Rodney is like the patron saint of A:M. He deserves mega props! Ask not what your A:M community can do for you, ask what you can do for your A:M community. -Alonso

Fabulous Tricks XTAZ! Thanks! Keep them coming! -Alonso

Just ran across these free plug ins and they made me think of your project. (Mainly because they are using dominoes) http://www.sgross.com/plugins/plugin20/index_e.html http://www.sgross.com/plugins/plugin18/index_e.html

Nice looking design's there. Fun sounding story. Have you looked into the physics plugin that's floating around? Seems like that might work perfectly for dominoes. Also you might get hair with decals to work for a really big long shot of lots of dominoes falling in a pattern. Good Luck! -Alonso

It's looking really great. You're painting the texture onto really simple geometry was a huge eye opener for me. That knee joint solution seems pretty complicated. It looks like in pic further up this thread that the thigh bone and the the calf bone aren't making a straight line (looks like a tiny angle change), which would explain a pop if when animating the bones are pulled to straight w/ an IK null, it would pull them straighter than the model is modeled. Also the knee bone isn't visible in the pic, I'm wondering if it's position and orient like constraints were affecting the pop. If I get pops it's usually because the leg is straight, then somehow isn't straight on the next frame due to the pelvis coming down or something, then straightens again. But your animation doesn't look like this is happening. Looks like the leg bones do this ! instead of this ! and it looks like \ ! < < the geometry is leading them to do this, maybe rotate the legs forward and then bone. But your solution worked so it doesn't matter. Anyway, it's looking good. Congratulations on the new place. -Alonso

Hey Dagoos I checked my A:M 2002 Complete Guide book by David Rogers and couldn't figure it out. How do I do this? If I use the Key Heirarchy filter on say IK hand I only get keys on the hand, if I use Key Model I get all the moved geometry bones keyed (the hundreds of bones). So which filter do I use to force a key on every control bone only? Thanks -Alonso

Really amazing rig here, great job!! Just my personal preferences... (I like having the IK hands controllers as Nulls too.) I like the easy native half IK/FK A:M has when you first lay an arm down. I like being able to drag the arm into place by the hand, and then fine tune it if needed by rotating the forearm and bicep. Can't find the FK Hand bone in the bones folder to turn on attached to parent (if that would even work) There's probably a way to do this in A:M that I don't know, but there are so many hundred's of bones, I won't be able to clean up my animation after my first pass. In my own models I put a 1 in front of all my main controls, and a 2 in front of secondary controls, and then the rest I leave, so when I animate and force keyframe all my important bones are at the top of the timeline. (guess I could just learn how to force key on only the bones I will use) I like to have my skeleton really simple, just the bare essential controls, and then have a pose that can make visible fancier manipulation controls. (All those feet bones scare me) Personally I make the hip bone a null, so I can grab it easier and distinguish it from the butt wiggle bone. But those are all just my own preferences, I'm sure every animator has their own, and I'm coming to this thread ridiculously late (and am being to lazy to read through it and see what's been said) Thanks for making such a HUGE contribution to the A:M community! -Alonso

They're the experts. Here's the material I made for the towel on my mascot entry. -Alonso towel.zip

Really great. It's bugging me that he's holding his side like that. If he were sitting or if he had a stomach to rest on, but his dialogue is strong and aggressive but the body language is a little defensive and weak. It might work better holding his elbow instead (resting his arm in his elbow?) (Sorry I know that's a big fix) Fingers are really nice. The head seems a little wobbly in the first sentence, maybe take out some of the up and down and just emphasis one of the accents of the sentence. His looking is kind of aimless, he's just not looking at Mr. Thatcher, to me it seems like he should be looking at something in his mind so we can see corresponding eye darts to show he's thinking, otherwise why not just look at Mr. Thatcher? It's looking strong though, you've improved a lot from the last work of yours I've seen. -Alonso

Okay I'm pretty sure the whole thing is up now. There should be credits at both ends, and it should be about 1:10 long. Thanks Nancy, interesting point about the martial arts timing through out. I wonder if the full acting piece has that feel to you (only the very start of it made it through before, it's much longer.) And don't worry the final version will be cleaner and have sound probably. So the first link should work for the full thing now. I really appreciate all your comments. -Alonso

Thanks for the replies so far guys. I used VideoMech to stitch it together, then converted it to MPG with avi2mpg (both freeware). I don't have a way to put it into mov right now, except run it back through A:M (which'll take 5 hours) but you should be able to play an MPG in quicktime by right clicking and choosing open with quicktime (that's how i do it at least) Jamagica, the credits repeat at the end, sounds like maybe it is being cut off. There should be: single guy doing martial arts, running eyball, fight scene, acting scene, Nevermind, I just checked it, it is cut off for some reason. I'll get that fixed as soon as I can. -Alonso

Hey Peoples, Here's a new demo reel. (Terrible terrible compression, but this isn't the final version, just something to get feedback on.) Everything done in A:M http://www.alonso-soriano.com/anim/SorianoDemo.mpg 5.4Mb Mpg (so you can view it in whatever you want) What do you think? I'm looking for brutal critiques. What needs to go, where can improvements be made? I know the audio is off (only audio in 1 piece) by a frame or two but I'm pretty sure that happened when I was stitching it all together. Suggestions on order? Some things are from my last demo, do they still belong? Be achingly blunt, please! Thanks. -Alonso

Allright Mark, you asked for it. The camera moves are so quick start and stop that they are distracting, they don't seem to be based upon any changes in action. You might try using cuts instead of zoom/pans. First you have the establishing shot then you zoom in to KeeKat talking, I suggest getting WAY closer, maybe so it's just his torso up, we don't need to see the whole background because we saw it in the establishing shot, and he looks tiny. You've got Keekat's mouth opening and closing well synched with the audio, but it seems to be only one mouth shape every time. It would look better with a variety of wide and narrow shapes, some OO shapes, and maybe some non symmetrical stuff. Keekat's motion overall is very stiff. You need way more keyframes. His motion also doesn't seem directed by his thoughts, it feels more like it is just there to keep him from looking like a statue. Concentrate on the arcs, right now if his arm is pointing it just moves across like a stick at the elbow, be aware that gravity is pulling down on it, and there are muscles in the upper arm that are countering gravity and counterbalancing the forearm. The head also is just twisting back and forth without any further arc. Also pay attention to overlap, energy kind of cascades out of the body, so a movement may start at the hips, then the belly, then the chest, then the shoulder, then the upper arm, then lower, then wrist, then fingers, and have counter movement in other parts of the body as it travels out. Your movements right now are kind of isolated from the rest of the body. Keekat is nailed to the floor, he'd feel more alive if in addition to the weight shifts you have he took a step every once in a while. Course if you have a closeup from the waist up you don't have to worry about that. The guys sitting don't seem very relaxed in their chairs. The rabbit pretty much stops moving in a kind of akward pose (just not relaxed into gravity). But hey, all just my opinion, feel free to ignore it if you like. When I animate, by the time I've put my polish in, it's really common to have a keyframe on almost every single frame. It's a fun audio clip. I can see the start of some character in these guys, Keekat especially is starting to show some individuality. -Alonso

Such a soft look, would love to see a wire. you had that other project you were working on (the one your avatar's from) did you ever finish that. Do you have any of your animation on line? -Alonso