Fishman

Now that's a character with star quality. Anxious to see him rigged and posed. Man you are productive! Scott

Tom, Don't be so hard on yourself! That looks pretty good! There are probably ways to reduce the splinage somewhat, but I don't no how important that is. My guess is that texturing will make a bigger impact. It looks like you did a very nice job beveling it. What you might try to do is take out all the bevels and use Emile Leroux's trick of reducing the magnitudes to somewhere in the 4 to 10% range. If you watch the Sweeper tutes, he used that technique a lot. Then you can see which is easier. Keep up the good work! Scott

At the risk of sounding fawning, I think that this is just marvelous. I think you've captured Rich Jackson's original concept well, given the character personality and appeal. Keep at it! Scott

All, Thanks for sharing so much of your work and your talent. I was inspired (and intimidated) by your work. I will definitely try to work on something to present at the next meeting. I echo the thanks to Don for hosting the meeting, an interesting setting, but it worked great. Zach, you need to be cloned to sit on our desktops to help us with the subtleties of animation, the stride length tidbit was worth the drive. Vern, my wife says you're welcome, glad you liked the cookies. I'll bring you a take home stash the next time! It was nice to meet good people with a similar interest. Scott

Very cool! I like the look and I think the motions are interesting for the short length. My only comment is that when the ball first comes on screen his hand is moving from left to right to catch the ball and it seems very stiff. Also, the way the ball lands, it isn't obvious what stops its motion. The hand is horizontal and the ball just stops. I think it would be more convincing if the hand were angled more up (break it at the wrist) and contacted the ball sooner to make it obvious that it was slowing the ball and catching it - that way it would be obvious why the ball came to a halt when the hand came to be horizontal. Like it a lot! Scott

I've marked up your picture to give you some possible places to improve the model. Hope this is helpful. Scott

Excellent! That is one of the best walk cycles I have ever seen. I especially love the way he spreads his toes in anticipation of impact. Scott

The porcelain material is on the CD. There is a link to a good porcelain material tutorial in the Software Tutorials section of the forum. Scott

Several things I try to do to get smooth surfaces. 1) Use continuous splines whereever possible, only dead end at a hole. make sure that any creases are not caused by two splines connecting discontiuously. This can be difficult to diagnose. I find that if you disconnect the CP of spline running perpendicular to the crease, check to see if it is smooth (no kinks). If it has a kink disconnect the two ends and reconnect them. 2) Reduce splines to a minimum. I often find creasing where I've over done it with splines. The corollary to this is that adding splines into a mesh can cause trouble, so start with more splines than you need and then reduce. 3) Tweak CPs by the two view method. Have two windows open, one with a shaded render view and one with a wire frame. Select CP's in the offending area on the wireframe view and tweak (I like to use the arrow keys) watching the shaded render to see if it helps the mesh. 4) Check it with a test texture or color. Sometimes texture or color will hide what seems glaring in the modeling view. Consider the portion of the model where the creasing is occuring. Is it prominent or will it be unlikely to be noticed? 5) Don't be afraid to use 5 point patches. They are very useful and can solve some sticky modelling situations. 6) Use the porcelain material when you've got your mesh to the best you can do by the other methods. 7) Keep practicing. Your models will get better the more you model. Scott

Looks good! You may want to make the center cone slightly more pointed, but that is just my opinion. Hope the bball closure was helpful! Scott

Apologize for not getting back quicker. As far as the engine goes, I would consider closing off the front, since a turbine with an intake doesn't make any sense in space. Typically they would be solid fuel with a nozzle out the back. Here is a pick of a typical "basketball" closure. I whipped it up on a simple cylinder. It has the added advantage of giving you three additional CP's at the end to manipulate to get the smoothness you want. Hope this helps. Scott

I like the design. On the engines, it looks like you have some fan blades inside, I would make the opening bigger to better see them. I know you said no patch comments, but I would change the closure on the front end on the ship from the minute hole method to what I call the basketball closure. I'm going to try to describe it, so bear with me. If you have eight control points around the second to last ring that all feed to the tiny ring, then it is easy to describe. Looking at the circle of eight CP's and numbering them clockwise from 1 to 8, you would a spline from 1 to the middle to 5 and from 3 to the middle to 7. this will produce a cross. The trick is to then go from 2 to the vertical spline in the middle to 8 and from 4 to the vertical spline in the middle to 6. The connections to the vertical spline are not at the center, but at half way between the center and the circumference. This will give you a smoother looking nose. If that was confusing, let me know and I'll post a picture to replace my thousand words. Scott

Love the dance. I think what impressed me the most was the motion of the feet, you captured the quick up and down off the toes wonderfully. Way to go. On the still I understood everything in there except for the low bar on the left. Couldn't figure out what it was. Also, in that particular frame, it seems to be resting on the cat's head. The slight curl of the poster was an excellent touh of detail. The only other comment is that based on the size of the cat, the scale of the room seems a bit off. Dying to see the completed film! Love the style, enjoying the process and am intrigued by the story. Scott

Just took a look at this and notice one small thing you may want to change. On the right hand side of the frame for this camera angle, the tree in the distance seems to be dangling from the tree in the foreground. You may want to move the one in the background. Love the look! Scott

Tom, Thanks for the quick response. I think you confirmed much of what I was thinking. I'll definitely check out those two websites. I've been thinking about getting Jeff Lew's DVD. Maybe I can talk the wife into getting it for me for Father's Day! (Although I'm not sure I can wait that long!!) Thanks again, Scott

Tom, Thanks for the insight and recommendation. I am following your mini film entry progress and it definitely seems that you were able to make it work. What you are saying about animating directly in the choreography makes sense, but it raises a few fundamental questions for me. Here goes... 1) How did you approach it? Did you start with the model in one position and then walk him with successive poses or did you move him to from place to place at the timing you wanted and then animate the stuff in between. That probably didn't make a whole lot of sense, but let me try a different way of explaining it. IF you start with the character in a particular place and then start posing him and he progresses across the screen, the model bone stays behind (as I understand it). If you position him in various places on the screen at various times then the model bone will have a series of postions that you'll have to start with and at each frame yoou will pose with respect to the position of the model bone (As I understand it this is how actions work. You constrain the model bone to the path and then your action is relative to the model bone and the model bone moves the whole character) 2) How do you adjust timing if the action in the choreography is too fast or too slow? Do you jsut drag keys around in the timeline? I thought that was one of the beauties of walk cycles is that they were easily adjusted to get the timing to look right. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I will be trying your method in the next few evenings. Thanks, Scott

I will be attending! As far as refreshments go, I can bring some cookies if that would be all right. Let me know if you want me to bring anything more like drinks or whatever. Looking forward to this. Scott PS: Big thanks to Don for organizing this!

I've said this before, but it bears repeating - I am not a rigging expert and I don't play one on TV, but I would suggest the following: 1) Decide on functionality of the rig before you get started. It is better to do a ton of research than try to learn only from your own mistakes. 2) Check out the rigging forum, there are some great experts that can help you or even just to bounce ideas off. 3) Study other rigs. The 2001 rig is quite good, Patson Brooks has some interesting ideas (http://www.sonofpat.com/Tutorials.html), www.3dartz.com is another good resource. I believe there is a thread in the Rigging Forum on rigging a face. 4) Of course there is always TSM (The Setup Machine) from Anzovin studios (www.anzovin.com), which many people swear by. 5) The ARM has links to lots of rigging tutorials. 6) Check out the rigs on the CD character models. There is a lot to be said for stealing ideas from the already proven. I could go on and on, but the best way to learn all this is to try and do. Scott

Just a quick comment on rigging. If you are going to use the 2001 rig, you will want to rotate the hands so that the palms face down. I learned that the hard way. If you are going to rig it yourself from scratch, then they shouldn't be a problem as they are. Scott

WOW!!!!! I'll say it again - WOW!!!! I was trying to figure out how you managed to texture a live action piece of film, then I realized it was just an incredible model! I am in no position to truly criticize the work, but i will say that my impressions are that it is too slow. Almost excruciatingly slow. I think that if you sped it up some that would help. Also, it seems to be segmented, if you know what I mean. He sits and then he starts to raise himself up to full position. That should flow better. Before his behind hits the cube he should start straightening up. Model incredible!!!!!!!! Animation needs polishing, but that should be doable. Scott

Looks pretty cool! I'll let you experts work out the settings to get it to rest properly on his shoulders. The fabric reminds me of the Firesign Theatre's radio show "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger" ...All those curves showing through that flimsy burnouse! Scott

I posted my dice character earlier. I now have a walk cycle for him. I tried constructing it three different ways. First, I tried starting with the down positions, then the contact positions. My final try was starting with the hip up and down motion and then going back to the beginning and, starting with the contact positions, went straight ahead. I liked this one the best. None of them were hard to put together, but I attribute that to A:M's great tools rather than my skill. I am posting my last effort. All comments and crits (of the work, not my religious or political beliefs) welcome! Scott Dice_Walk.mov

I thought it was very good. It showed the weight of the character and there ws lots of panache in it. Edit: I watch it frame by frame and the last two frames seems to have some kind of slide in it (when seen from the front), almost like he stepped on some ice. The heel contacted and then seemd to slide forward slightly. From the side, the leg locks straight just before contact and then contacts giving the impression of sliding. Additionally, it looked like he's reaching a bit on the front leg, looks a little less natural/comfortable. Good effort! Scott

Just another picky detail comment. The 3rd and 4th lightning flashes don't hit him quite right. The tip of the bolt shows behind him. Hopefully not a big problem to change, but it will help keep the overall quality top notch. Scott

I'm pretty sure I can still make the 14th. There was some threatening to send me to Egypt for work, but that seems to be fading. Looking forward to the details. I'm pretty much a newb, so I'll bring some basic stuff I'm working on for lots of constructive criticism and I'll bring plenty of questions. Scott