pixelmech

Thanks Scott - I agree on the fall. I kind of thought it was too slow when I made it then kinda forgot about it. Timing is one thing that I need work on. I blocked the whole thing out mostly in 10 frame increments as my 'base' to work with. I definitely will try and add a bit more bounce too..I mean the guy just got nailed by a lightning bolt!

Ok, I'm getting close to being done with tweaking. Anyone have any more suggestions? I changed a few things, want to see if anyone notices... Coming up will be smoke at the end on red., finalize lighting..maybe a few more items in the scenery and finalizing texturing. http://www.pixelmech.com/movies/rr34.mov Finally..to bed!

Oh, got it Scott - I thought you meant something else lol. I will try that!

I still need to come up with a title. First it was "The fall of communism" (The decal on Red is part of an old communist propaganda poster - it's really hard to see). Now I'm thinking "Lookout hill." I gotta give it some more thought.

It's the best animation book I have ever read - hands down. Everyone should own it. You know I might be able to. Since I won't be changing any of the TSM bones, it may not matter so I will give that a try. Do you have a link to Josh's eye rig anywhere? Definitely will look into fixing those. Thanks a lot Scott!

Part of my problem is I don't have enough keys for the walk I think, when I blocked it out I put in too few. So I can't make as many adjustments as I would like. I'm going to try and tweak it some more. I have the animators survival kit, which is awesome for studying walks. I should have used that when I did that walk.

Hehe - well when I say re-rig - don't misunderstand me. I'd add the new bone, assign the cps then just rerun the rigger wizard. Probably 5 minutes work..yah I m lazy.

For the TSM rig, you of course add the bones, apply the CPs etc - then to get your controls you run the rigger wizard. If you want to add more bones, you have to go back to your PRE rig version, then re-rig it. It's not a huge deal, I just don't feel like doing it right now Here's an update, I added more at the end when he get's zapped - let me know what you all think. I also made some small adjustments to the up the hill walk. It can probably use more. The problem is it is not a well crafted walk, I blocked it out badly, so tweaking is only taking me so far. http://www.pixelmech.com/movies/rr25.mov

Ah - the WALK is floating - not enough weight you are saying. Gotcha. Been struggling with that a bit for sure. Will try and tweak some more. I've made some changes and tweaks which I think help, will post a quick render in a bit. I can't add a bone to the eyes at this point without re-rigging him (its a TSM rig) which I'm not sure I want to do just yet, so I'll put that on the back burner for now, but still may do it.

Good points as usual Josh. Now, I'm not seeing the slipping on Red - can you point to a frame #? They seem to stick for me. Do you mean sliding up and down the hill (as in x) or in and out, as in y? Good idea on the spread eagle, dang how'd I miss that? I'm having trouble chaning his appearance when he gets zapped. I have a material attached to him. It seems no matter what I change on his surface attributes - it makes no difference. The material overrides it in the hierarchy How do you get around this? I will try the black on the camera background - good idea again. I want the bold to glow. I could also make it darker too as the cloud floats over him just slightly... On the eyes - unfortunately I do not have a pose slider for his eyes. Maybe I could animate the mesh tho? The eyes are not attached to the head of course...

Ok, did quite a bit of tweaking. I kind of hate to spoil the ending without it being done right but oh well...there's still a bit more to do. I think I fixed all the sinking feet. I'm wiped out, lemme know what you think. Burned frame nums in for ya http://www.pixelmech.com/movies/rr24.mov

LOL Josh, thanks for writing this up - I'll have to revisit this when I have time.

Let me just say....AWESOME! That thing moves perfectly.

Hey thanks Melissa - I'll be checking that out for sure! You've all been a lot of help!

Thanks Josh - good points. I'll render it like that next time - probably won't get something up until this weekend.

What an excellent car! The engine is SICK man! (That's Orange County Chopper parlance for "awesome!"). Get some color and texture on that thing - that's the fun part!

Hehe, you are reading my mind. But I found out last night that if I work in, what, preview mode I think? (instead of wireframe shaded) that I can see better where his foot is. I hope that will allow me to tweak it. Plus, I doubled the amount of patches in the hill, which has allowed me to see it slightly better. I still want to put some patches of grass in, but I'm not sure how. I know I have seen people do it and I'm not sure how they do it so if anyone knows let me know.

So somewhere in-between where it was before then...I think I see what you mean - the hand is kind of on the edge of the his body. It would read better if it was in between them. Thanks again for the tips.

You mean toward the end I imagine? After the point? Good point, and I've heard this before. I'll try and work that in. Partly why I picked a robot character was because this was my first animation You can get away with more. Maybe using a hill wasn't such a good idea, it's caused me some problems but too late now. I may try and work a lean into his walk a bit. Frankly, I hate the way his walk looks anyway so I had planned on trying to fix it once more. Thanks for the tips!

Ok, getting closer. There are still lots of little tweaks I need to do (feet especially) but I am getting close to finishing the action - one more thing to do..... http://www.pixelmech.com/movies/rr19.mov

Kyle do it in the Chor for sure. Maybe plan out each shot first, then animate each one if you are changing camera positions. If not, animate it all through.

The "cloud thinky" [sic] has a purpose - I hope to show it on my next version. Then tell me what you think I've had pounds of trouble with the feet. While I'm working on it, they seem to be sitting nicely on the ground. When I render a shaded view, they are just fine. Then when I did a final render - bang, inside the hill. Confusing. I think because I have so few patches on the hill, I don't have enough reference points. I might try and add patches to the hill to see if that helps. Mmmm... sighing a lot hehe. Darker eye color maybe...not a bad idea. I may try that. Thanks! (R2D2 rocks BTW).

Are you saying I should do something unexpected? It might be unexpected for some people I'm not sold on my ending yet though...so we'll see... I'm not going into scenery/backgrounds until I'm about done animating - and there won't be much of it. I want it to be simple, and it's mainly an excercise in animation. Soon!

Thanks Stian! I'm having a blast doing it and learning a lot. I wouldn't call it so much a short - I've been calling it a "mini movie" - it's shorter than a short, but longer than a test of some sort and has some story (even if small) to it. Say minimum 30 seconds - we should all do mini movies!

Thank you Melissa - it is indeed part of the endgame, and it should indeed be slightly distracting... and that is all I'm gonna say just yet...