Fishman

Peter, Love the stills. The lighting is exquisite. I love how the headlights of the ambulance act as a rim light for the cat. The hands still seem a touch floaty in the animation clip. Maybe he should put one hand on the ground and pull himself over the canopy with the other hand. With two hands on the canopy and the angle of the head he seems to be in an awkward position. Can't wait to see what's next. Ihope you have a long break from school so that we who are starved for updates on your work will get enough to satisfy us during your next term! Scott

Peter, I like the clip and agree with the other crits on the vehicle. I also wonder if it would make more sense for him to come out the side opening, and be standing up rather than out the front of the canopy. There is something about the way his hands slide and the angle he comes out at that doesn't make it clear whether he is hurt or not. If he is hurt, I would expect him to crawl out, if he is not then standing up may make more sense. Welcome back and Happy New Year! Hope things are going well at school. Scott

Ooo! Oooo! Pick me! Count me in! Scott

The character looks great! Excellent detail and the best thing is it is easy to rig! The bricks don't look quite right though. Either the cylinders are too tall or too big in diameter, but they just don't look correct. Great start! Scott

Cute. A couple of things. When you first see the red guy he is holding his sword in such a way that you can't actually tell it is a sword. Perhaps have him hold it at an angle so you can see that it is a sword and how big it is. When the red guy gets chopped he becomes perfectly still for several frames. A moving hold would probably work better there. Also, his sword disappears after he drops it. It may look better to have it land on the ground somewhere where is can be seen. Looks like fun, though. Scott

Actually, I've had this question as well. I would love to hear a more detailed answer than Yes and Yes. How does it make rigging easier? How complex are the rigs? How easy are they to apply to a model? How do the rigs compare to the Hash 2001 rig or even some of the rigs proposed in this forum? Thanks, Scott

I think that is an excellent head. It already has character and is engaging. One thing I do when I'm trying to assess splinage is to study the prebuilt models. They usually give me clues as to where I can improve. From the looks of the splines, it seems pretty good to me. It may just be a matter of tweaking. Scott

Peter, More great stuff. A comment on the little girl. Without eyelashes, when her eyes are closed it is very difficult to discern which way her head is turned. I find this distracting as I have my attention drawn to it and away from the main action. You've had a great week! Scott

Peter, I hadn't noticed the volumentrics before that, but what struck me and still does is the sharpness of the edge. Light projected on cloth like that is not likely to have such a sharp edge. Additionally, the roundness of the window staying perfect like that accentuates that the bedspread, with the little girl underneath it, is flat. The enhanced volumentrics look good. Scott

Peter, Looks great! The only thing I might add that the more esteemed members didn't already mention is that in the stills the foot board on the bed frame looks kind of strange. Not sure if it is the modeling or the camera angle/focal length. On the left the horizontal member meets partway up the vertical whereas on the right it disappears below the matress. Also, the projection of the lampshade onto the bedspread is too sharp. It accentuates the lack of wrinkles in the bedspread, either a soft shadow or some wrinkles in the beadspread may help. I speak for all, I'm sure, when I say that I can only imagine how excited I'll be when the whole movie comes out if I get this excited when I see that you've added an update. You're doing an awesome job, keep up the great work. Scott

It looks to me like your problem is that the wings in the spread position are too big. If the tips of his wings when folded only reach roughly to his tail, then I would use that as a guide to how long they are. If the wings are the right length, then I don't think you'll have to do much more than maybe a little smart skin to clean up the wing fold. Nice character! Scott

OK, maybe hate was too strong a word. I apologize. I just don't think they work as they are currently being implemeted (and you do say they are in the trial phase). I'd be curious to see a clip where they are not used at all and compare that to a clip where they are visible all the time. When I look at the character with the teeth present he looks flatter, whereas when I look at him without the teeth he seems to have more depth. All in all, I think if you do him with teeth that they would look better actually modeled as geometry so that glimpses of them look more natural. Scott

Mike, I really love this character, but I hate the teeth. When he's talking and the teeth aren't there, it looks great. When the teeth are there, not so great. Just my opinion. Also, his skin seems to have the same sheen as his suit. He seems to be made of the same material as his suit. Is that intentional? Scott

I really like it. The look is really cool and the animation is excellent. I have one small comment. When he is coming to a standing position, it seems like his right leg should come back a little farther to give him a three point triangular base (left foot, right hand and right foot) to be able to push up to the standing position. As it is his hand and the two feet are in a line which seems a less stable, less powerful position. Hope that helps, Scott PS: Who left that big picture window open?

A couple of comments: 1) It seems like he should rotate more around his hips. 2) The back foot push off looks wrong. It doesn't look like he's actually pushing off with his back foot more just bending it for no reason. 3) There also seems to be a couple of times where a frame was held giving it a more jerky look. Nice character though! Scott

EDIT: Never mind my answer, too! I think you caught yourself while I was typing. Scott

Now take a look at your horizontal movement axis (probably the x-axis). This should only need two key frames. The starting location and the landing location and should almost be linear. His horizontal velocity should be constant. If you look closely the robot, just before the landing, seems to stop moving from left to right. Your z-axiz should really require limited keys. On the z there should be one at take-off, one at the peak and one at the impact point. Points before take-off and after landing show follow through motion. You have about 4 or 5 keys in there. If you delete some of them leaving the one for your take off point, one for the peak and one for the landing, you can then use the bias of the peak point to control his vertical acceleration and deceleration. Looks good so far. Scott

http://www.shipbrook.com/jeff/animas/skylight/ I think this is what you are looking for. Scott

Got to play with your rig at lunch today. Looks pretty functional. I think you should change the feet to nulls, they are so much easier to grab and move than regular bones. I don't care for the elbow and knee position sliders, I think it is easier to move the target nulls themselves, especially if you want to move one knee or elbow and not the other. Your hand clench pose didn't close all the way, but you may have intended that. The color change slider was cool, handy for using the same model multiple times in a choreography. Have fun with it. Scott

The ones in front of the knees I use nulls as targets rather than bones. The elbows can be the same unless you are using some sort of orient like constraint. Just a personal preference kind of thing I guess, I find nulls easier to translate rather than bones. Scott

No offense intended, just looked like a fairly standard 2001 type rig, which is OK but has some flaws, particularly around the balance poses. I saw those bones way out behind and in front, and I've never liked them. The rigs I mentioned are ones that I really like, clean and easy to work with. I've worked with David's book as well, but these rigs range from Jeff's absurdly simple (not to mention completely functional) to the sublimely complicated (also completely functional). Since you mentioned Jeff's video (which you'll love), I thought you'd be interested in his rig. Haven't time to check out your rig just yet. I'm always looking to see how other people do their rigs. Have fun! Scott

You seem to have your caps lock key stuck because I'm sure you didn't mean to shout. I thought the tutorial link explained it pretty well. The emitter object is a model and the emitter is created in the materials section. When you drag the material onto the model, the streaks, particles or sprites will emit from the object. I believe the firelight they were referring to in the tutorial was a light used to simulate the light given off by the fire. Remember that the streaks are an animation effect and that you may hav to change one of your preferences in the Tolls>options section to display them. Scott

You may want to do two things when considering a rig. One is to go to Jeff Lew's site and download his free models of the green guy and the yellow guy. Jeff's rig is great and easy to use. You may be able to take what you've done and add it to your rig. His rig does IK legs and FK arms. The other option is to wander over to the Rigging and Relationships forum and read through the thread on Rigs. In there you'll find mtpeak2's rig which is much more complicated but has FK/IK switching and a raisable heel. I was able to take the raisable heel and add it to Jeff Lew's rig, so the concepts are pretty portable. When you watch Jeff's video he makes a point about using null targets to manipulate rigs which is pretty cool. By using null targets all you end up with are translation channels in the time line which are much easier to understand and manipulate than rotational channels. Looks like a good start! Scott

Not to start an argument thread, but I thought the construction guy was hilarious. The whole idea that a big ExcessUV just ripped the stop sign from his hand and all he can do is look at it with bewilderment just about had me on the floor. Scott

Zach, You know I love this film. However, the one thing I noticed (but only after it paused and I looked at it as a still) was that Shaggy's wrist was twisted the whole time. I don't know if rolling the forearm would have cleared it. The funny thing is I watched the whole thing the first time and never noticed it. Nit picks - the first scene where he's in the restaurant, I think the people at the other table could have been more exaggerated in their annoyance. I suppose you could have spent more effort making the animation of him signing his name look more like he was spelling out Shaggy. I have to disagree with the selection of your star. Did Spielberg choose Cruise for War of the Worlds because he was lazy, no, he has star power. So does Shaggy! Scott PS: The advisor for my son's middle school morning closed circuit TV show nixed showing it because it had a gun in it and it violated our school's no weapons policy! Talk about absurd, but I guess that is zero tolerance for you!