rossk

Wow... beautiful already, but once you get the pose cleaned up just a bit... its going to be stunning. Nice work!

I've been doing a bit of practice with the model that Scott gave me (thanks!) and it works nicely. Thanks again to everyone, --Ross

Haha, bravo! I don't know what you are planning on doing with your character, but the humour you've displayed so far in this thread points to some good funny animation. Keep up the good work! --Ross

Thanks David! Yeah, the character came from Jeff Lew's website... there's a downloadable content section where you can download two of the characters that he uses on the dvd. I just took the antennas off his 'Yellow Dude' character. Thanks Scott for the heel raising rig! I've downloaded it, and will definately check it out in a couple of hours when I have free time. Attached is a quick run at getting rid of the toe jitter. Thanks again everyone, --Ross wtw3.mov

Yeah, the toes do jitter... The rig doesn't have a great way to lift the heel and leave the toes in place it seems. I'm guessing the bobbing of the toes could mostly be fixed in the curves editor? I was just doing this as a quick really rough animation, but I'll check out stopping those toes from jittering tomorrow. Now that you pointed out my mistake I have a hard time ignoring it when watching the clip Thanks Robert! --Ross

I made this a couple of days ago just to try out pose-to-pose animation for the first time. It was a kinda messy attempt, but I learned some from it and hope to use the experience in my next attempts. I'm mainly looking for suggestions/critiques but comments are always nice too. Oh, and its rather rough too... I was just trying to catch the broad motions. Thanks!, --Ross wtw3.mov

Woah, nice! Yeah, very mind bendy

Wow, nice work!

^Thanks! Here the newest version with fixing the fall into something less stiff boomerangfallfix.mov

Either end of the boomerang can be held when throwing. I think the way of holding that you suggest looks more cool than the one I currently use in the animation, but I'm absolutely horrendous at throwing a boomerang when held like that... so I kinda forget about it Thanks for the comments Excellent point, I'll definately work on that later today. Are there any reference images anywhere for this sort of thing? Thanks also for the comments --Ross

In the previous animation he seemed to get thrown back a frame too early, so thats fixed now. boomerangclosethrowfix.mov

I minorly adjusted the throw motion and tried out motion blur... I think I overshot the motion blur percentage... but this is my first time using motion blur so its hard to restrain myself The first animation is a far away shot of the boomerang's entire path. The second animation is a closer shot showing the improved throw. boomerangsmall2edfarbb.mov boomerangsmallclosebb.mov

Haha, my trouble with expressions was alleviated by realizing that the "show properties triangle" option should be enabled so that I can access the null's translate x property... I knew building expressions seemed more difficult than before Thanks David! That is a nice pose-based solution for the spinning boomerang.

Good idea! Using a path would have made things easier in my animation. Maybe tomorrow I'll try that out... Keep up the good work! --Ross

suggestions appreciated Thanks again everyone, --Ross boomerangsmall2ed.mov

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and compliments. My revision of the animation is being rendered right now... so I'll post it in about 10-15 minutes. John Bigboote-- Yeah, boomerangs can be really fun. I have two boomerangs that I purchased which I really like. One is a short range boomerang and the other is a long range one. I like the long-range one the best. Mine goes out about 65 yards, though I've seen some that supposedly go out around like 110+ yards... and I have a couple of boomerangs that I've made myself. One of them is *extremely* dangerous... when you throw it, the boomerang basically goes straight up and then dives straight down right back at you... it has the nickname "bomber" for apparent reasons

Robert-- Thanks, that really helped me out on understanding how to deal with that stuff. David-- Thanks for the offer! I'll watch that expressions video quick and then take another go at doing it myself, but if I can't get the expression to work then I'll take you up on your offer. --Ross

Excellent, thanks Robert! I know how to change between quat and euler in the options menu, which affects the entire project (I think)... is there any way to have my character use quat rotation channels and the booomerang use euler? And-- Which type of rotation do you usually use as a default? Quat, Euler, Vector? Thanks again Robert! I'm also trying the method offered by David. Right now I'm taking a quick break on that though to download the expressions tech talk... since I've forgotten a bit about how to do those (like how to choose the null's position as one of the variables for the expression controlling the z-axis rotation). Thanks again both! --Ross

Thanks! Yeah, I guess what I meant by orientation is controlling the rotation of the boomerang in the 2 axises not dealing with the spin of the boomerang... so if spin is a rotate on the boomerang's x-axis, I want to be able to independantly change the y-axis and z-axis rotation without touching the x-axis spin part at all. What's the difference between Euler and Quatern(?) rotation channels? I've heard something about gimble lock with Euler? But Euler allows you to set larger rotation values (like 720) without it reverting to 0 degrees rotation? Thanks for the link ddustin, it looks like a good solution. I'll work on that later today... right now I'm late to my job though!

Thanks for the advice! I'll have some time to work on it in a few hours. The model I used came from Jeff Lew's site I edited it very minorly for my uses since I didn't want to mess around with the character's antennaes.

Hey, this is a short animation I put together this afternoon. I was having some problems with making the boomerang spin properly (see the New User forum for more info), but I am relatively pleased with this animation. A few areas need stronger poses, longer pauses, better anticipation, and the regular like of course... and I'm hoping you all can help me out with spoting them. Suggestions greatly appreciated! Thanks, --Ross boomerangsmall.mov

I was working on a little short animation where a character throws a boomerang... and ran into some problems on making the boomerang spin. Basically I want to be able to position the boomerang in several different places (ex: I want the boomerang over here, at this angle) and then use the curves or some sort of pose to control the speed and direction with which the boomerang spins along its axis as it travels between these points. I was thinking of some sort of rig for the boomerang that allows me to make its position and orientation seperate from the spinning. I've tried several things with no success... I don't really know whats going on... but it seems that the spin of the boomerang gets weird when the x-axis rotation curve crosses the white-line curve (w-axis?)... Thanks for any help, --Ross

Thanks for the advice all! Sorry for the abscence for awhile... I had a paper worth 20% of my grade in one class and a programming project worth 30% of my grade in another class due this past week and a half. I just attempted at fixing the skip per your suggestions, but my dopesheet was getting a bit scrumy and I miss having access to the curves editor (the program freezes whenever I try to open it), so I've decided it might be easier to create a quick skip from scratch... plus I should be able to learn more that way. I'll try to get the clip posted as soon as possible. Thanks again everyone for the help, --Ross

From what I hear the basic animation tools in most programs are very similar.. so it shouldn't be too hard to make the transition someday in the future if you must. Nice animation, too!

I think its mostly because the hair on the trees is very thin and in the realtime render it isn't anti-aliased. It looks much better when the final render is done... though I may bump up the hair thickness a tiny bit. --Ross Good points, thanks! I'll get working on that for the next version. --Ross