amarillospider

Just something I've noticed with wrists: elbows tend to be looser than wrists. I'm thinking of the part where she's pointing, then rotates her hand around, I find I do that if I'm sitting and my elbow is supported by my stomach, but if I'm standing and my arm is not supported my hand falls down to my waste during the time my hand rotates over. With the lipsynch I've had really good results creating lipsynch in a independent action and just dropping that action into the chor. In fact that's how I always do it. Lately I've been including small head nods (up and down) in my lipsynch action (ala Osipa) and they have also blended in well on top of the larger body movement. Whatever movement you make in an action is added on top of the chor action, so in the chor if the head is angled to the side, a little head nod would go on top of that, so the head would still be angled to the side but would nod as well. looking good. -Alonso

The advantage of making the head angle work for both cameras is you only have to animate once. But if you aren't getting the results you want I'd suggest just having two seperate animation versions and cheat them to get the best head for each camera angle. It's not like you have to worry about film cost. (everytime I post advice on your wip I hesitate because I'm pretty sure you have more film and theatre experience than me.) -Alonso

Alonso's Tutorials Menu Whole Project This tutorial goes through a project from opening A:M to rendering. On the menu page there are hot links to: attaching the limbs, building hands, building a head, rigging, animating, and getting that all white background (among other things) you can also download this whole tutoriall so you can use it offline. Also the project is downloadable for you to pick apart. The model and animation aren't super advance because they were laid out fast, but the principles are the same you would use for a more advanced project. Cartoon Eyeballs short tut on modeling and rigging them. How to Animate basically it's my description of the 12 principles, sometimes hearing it from a different voice makes it click. Also has common Newbie mistakes for a more direct step by step on animating see the Animation Section of the Whole Project tutorial Ultra BootCamp Finally there's the new Ultimate Bootcamp, a little more self directed than the last one but if you go through it you'll come out with a demo reel ready to work on the Wizard of Oz Tinman project. Here's the Original Bootcamp for comparison -Alonso Original Bootcamp

Glad people are finding them usefull. And thanks to Rodney for getting them up, and then announcing them (my stupid internet's been more off than on so I haven't managed to announce them.) Now get to animating -Alonso

Man Mike, I love the look of this thing!! Crit wise, the hood looks wierd to me as it comes off. I think it's because it holds it's form so much, kind of like a shell she's sliding off, whereas real cloth would slide around at different speeds much more. (I hate saying that as I know you've worked very hard on it.) You could try muscle deforming it as she pulls it off, or maybe try the cloth sim. I think that it might be less noticeable from the back, I think it's the lack of sliding over the head that bugs me, so maybe you could just restage it (cut after her hand starts moving it to a back shot for Monk's reaction?) As for production ratio. It seems like your trying to do everything at once: animate, light, render, composite to final image. Maybe you should concentrate on one stage at a time. It seems like you animate a little then find a need for a new rig, maybe if you animated all the way through you could find all your rig problems at once and fix them all at once. It seems like your compounding your problems by fighting rigging problems, animation problems, lighting problems, and rendering problems all at once. Maybe you can streamline it so your only fighting one problem at a time. But maybe you're already doing this. Anyway, that's just my suggestions, feel free to ignore them. This project looks so great I would hate for you to get burned out and abandon it. Good luck!! -Alonso -Alonso

Have you read the composition notes from Brad Bird over on www.animationmeat.com ? He's always going on about using more interesting angles to make shots more interesting. You might try having a higher camera looking down on the bathroom, instead of the long straight across view. I'm sure you'll find a good solution. -Alonso

Hey Mike The airbrush look is interesting. I like the blood spilling down the hand also (how'd you do that) I agree that the long back shot isn't very exciting. The thumb doesn't look that bad, but it's true that thumbs are super hard to deal with rigging. My unsolicitated suggestions See my quickly photoshop edited versions of your storyboard. Still have your establishing shot, but maybe pull back after a bit and the hands come into the sink. Then straight to the hand shot. Then the face shot. Then your shots 2, 5,6,7,8 can all be taken care of in one. Start with just the big empty long room shot to establish empty bathroom. Use sound fx of door knob and door closing, I don't think you need to cut back for his head turn, and then have her looming in from screen right. As for the hand motion. The left hand is fine animation wise. An easier animation I might suggest would be to have the right hand fingers in the relaxed part curl, squeeze the meat below the right pinky with the left thumb (like in your thumbnail), flex the fingers open, let go with left hand and relax fingers, then the blood drips. (animation/rigging wise just have to go from part open to all open and back.) Otherwise a second suggestion would be to just have substitute hands and smartskin/muscle animate them to look good for this shot only. Keep going -Alonso

Wow! Looking great. Those hands are well done, did you just grab them from a previous model? That clay texture is awesome how'd you do it? -Alonso

Hey Ken, Love the compartment, it's really cool. I agree with Rodney thought that it should be a little higher (maybe start at the collar instead of at the belt.) As for the jaw, it looks most athentic just rotating it, but this is animation it's all about exageration, I say make it as bendy and soft as a regular human mouth. But if you don't want to, http://www.CarlosBaena.com who works for Pixar has a character with a stiff mouth, check out his sight for some examples of how he get's emotion out of it. -Alonso

Really fun design you've got going. You probably haven't gotten around to texturing, but the uniform shiny tin is a little dull to me. What about using some kind of specularity bump so it's shinier in some parts and not others, more like a used tin object instead of brand new. Not nearly this old, but along similar ideas. I keep thinking about the old fashioned toys made of tin, especially for Tin Nimmie Annie. I think I liked the bigger hat better, maybe just a thinner brim on it. It's looking good! -Alonso

I like his look. I don't think that the hat totally makes me think of Woody, without the hat he's totally unique, at least to my eye, but with the hat your stuff is gonna get compared to Pixar. I've got a character who's head is so big he can't really reach his own nose, makes for creative animating. Cheat with staging as much as you can, and then don't be afraid to pull the arms out of the sockets to get a pose. Nice lighting on the room. Can't wait to see more. -Alonso

I like the look a lot. You're right it's going to be difficult to get emotion out of him, I would say cheat some and deform the eye's to get shapes out of them (your already going to be squash stretching all of him anyway) I think the slight disruption in believability will be more than paid for with the added emotion. Are you going to use the x's as pupils? Also don't forget that you can get a ton of emotion out of the ears, whiskers, and tail. As for deformation's you might consider expressions. I don't understand them at all but there are tutorial's out there that can walk you through it without you having to know what your doing. (I think in the first animation boot camp thread I linked to 1 of those tutorials.) Can't wait to see him move. -Alonso

Hey David, It's a little hard to judge because he's not on an incline. I would suggest throwing a simple tilted plane under him just to give us a better idea. Anyway, I agree that he needs a moment of suspension. Armor wise, he's a strong guy right, so he has the strength to push that armor around, but where the weight will come in is in how high the moment of suspension is (but not necessarily how long if he's moving fast he can still cover some ground) and how much he has to fight it when gravity pulls it back down. Other run points. The speed of the run can often be determined by how close to underneath the body the contact foot is, how far tilted forward the upper body is, and how high the back foot comes. (see the link to preston blair's quick run guide, in the Animation Boot Camp run excercise). Your guys foot is landing pretty far forward, in basically the same place it would in a walk. And because he's so bulky the forward tilt in the upper torso isn't coming across very strongly, I would suggest exagerating it more. Your back foot isn't coming very high. If you do tilt the body more don't forget that there will be more follow through on everything since it doesn't have as much column-ular support. I think you need to animate on a tilted plane so that you can tell how much forward he needs to lean to maintain balance, how soon the higher ground will meet his foot, and so you can make him run on his toes like Mark said. Great character, it's looking good so far. Gotta run, catching a plane to visit my Grandmother in Spain for 2 weeks. See ya all next month -Alonso

Looks great Jim! How long does it take you to make 1 of these models? How much reference/rotos do you use? What d'ya mean?! I remember your schlitzy animation was solid! -Alonso

Looks like it will be a very interesting short. Unique look to it. 1 suggestion is to dirty up the fly some, so it doesn't look so fresh from the factory. -Alonso

Great look and style. Just curious what kind of rigging challenges and solutions you've had with this character. It seems difficult to rig plumper characters, especially when their lower and upper bodies are kind of 1 blob. Looking forward to seeing the rest! Is this for the animated contest? I better go wack some more at my entry to try and catch up -Alonso

How do you guys arrange projects like this in A:M ? Do you have multiple projects, or just 1 big one? Do you have a lot of action's or do most of the animating in the chor? Do you have many chor's? Or will all these questions be answered in your "how to make a short" video? -Alonso

Easy fix for the eyes: have 2 bones that are the children of your Aim At Target for the eyes. Aim the eyes at these 2 children (1 for each eye). This way you can move around the target all you want, and the eyes will follow (because the children will move with the parent) but if you need to cheat the eyes you just grab the child bone and adjust it. (you won't even have to reanimate your eye target null (or bone if it's just a bone) just add the children bones and change the aim targets.) -Alonso

Hey Mike it's looking really good. I like the bright light and her reaction to it. Why does your timeline loook like that? The lip synch and walk cycle could have just been dropped in as actions. The whole talking and waving thing too for that matter. You might consider lightening the shadows on her skin, they look a little harsh on her face, and since it's flat shaded you can probably get away with a lighter color. Good work so far. -Alonso

Woo hoo, I love 2005!!! Thanks Rodney! In an effort to deserve this prize I have started these threads Animation Bootcamp and a free model and I'll try and be a more active community member, which was the reason you had this whole contest right. Happy New Year everyone. -Alonso (I'll PM you my details)

Just haveta chime in that everything looks super great and i can't wait to see the final. Have a great new year. -Alonso

Count me in too You know Rodney, you ARE the A:M community, you contribute in every thread it seems. I checked your stat's, of the 4000 members, you make up 5% of the forum entries! 5%!!!! Just wanted to point out that we appreciate all you do for us! -Alonso

Good rework! -Alonso

Great job using the shoulders! Fun characters and a great effort! The brown hair guys thinking is good. As for possible improvements. They both are very static. Their faces are moving and their hands a little, but the faces are hard to see because they are so much nose. Next entry try not to just lip synch, but body synch, as in make the whole body convey the meaning and emotions of the words. It's difficult in this clip because there doesn't feel like a lot of emotion, but still, the characters silhoette only slightly changes. Move their feet/ shift their weight, they don't quite feel believable because they aren't existing in their world, they are holding still like manequins. The green shirt guys arm motions are appropriate for the dialogue, and pretty good. But they could be staged better, his right arm is not well defined because it's right in front of his body. His upper body is moving around a bit, but his lower body isn't counterbalancing it with the feet. I would suggest you change the framing, and have a medium closeup (waist up) since that's where the main motion is and it would give the viewers more detail. You might also try turning the green guy towards the other guy, so he will be looking over his left shoulder to see who they are talking about (this might make the silhoette of his hands more distinct). Green guys hands twin a bit, doing really similar things in close time, in similar heights. I agree that I don't quite buy the blue guys angry pose. It's not clear what he intends to do, and he doesn't quite look like he's going to stomp over there and change anything (feels like he's looking at the ground) The facial animation is solid. Something you might consider for next time is altering the face mesh a little so that the important parts are a little more easy to see (i.e. make the mouth and eyes a little larger). The lighting is a little strange, try making the right side light coming from below and a little less intense, while the left side light comes a little higher coming down. Overall a strong effort! Can't wait to see what you do next time! -Alonso

Hey Dieter, Looks good man. I have used this system in some of my AM acting pieces and found that having the eyes LOOK AT controlled by one of these doesn't work well. The problem being that everytime you move the head you have to counter animate the eyes to keep them looking in the same place. My current solution for eyes is to have them each aim at an individual target bone, and then have both target bones as children of a null. That way I can move the eyes focus wherever I need easily with the null, and it stays fixed, but if I need to cheat the eyes I can move the individual targets. The eyebrows on this character I think you can make more expressive. Currently the poses seem to control the flesh above the eyebrows, but the actuall shape of the shadow created by the bone ridge stays the same, so the eyebrow effects are pretty subtle. I think you should not be afraid to really manipulate the bone ridges to get really expressive and different eyebrow shapes. The model looks great man! Good splining and good poses! Now get animating! Hey Vern, You have to already have poses set up to use this system, the nulls are really just controlling how much of a pose is activated. threadHere's the link to the first thread I just went and posted in it the little how to that Bill Y kindly sent me when I asked. And here's a similar thread -Alonso