Jump to content
Hash, Inc. Forums

cribbidaj

Craftsman/Mentor
  • Posts

    317
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    4

Everything posted by cribbidaj

  1. Very helpful, David - thanks. It really helps to have someone point me in a definite direction as you and RobCat have - otherwise I'm just flying blind and going through whatever it takes to get the shapes and contours to look right, regardless of the rigging and animation problems that may ensue. Need to really think in terms of poseability during the modeling process - not my strong suit! Sometimes feel like my instincts fight the software instead of adhering to what A:M innately does best.
  2. Ah . . . bummer about TSM & Mac . . . oh well. Working on the lip splines. Thinning out the bottom lip is easy, getting the shape I want out of the top lip into the nose, not so . . . -Chris
  3. There's nothing wrong with working on building your own rig, if that's what you want to do...I think more people should. At present, the most complete instructional material for doing that would be part of Barry Zundel's tutorials...he sells them here. I don't have a copy of those tutorials, but I hear nothing but good things about them. TSM2 or the 2008 Rig are easier to install and have more complete documentation than the Squetch Rig at this time, so that's what I would recommend. The Squetch Rig's documentation is slowly getting updated and will be released along with a huge rig update when everything gets finished. Even when that documentation is released, it's still going to take more to install though. Hey Guys - As a follow up I've attached 2 pics of the geometry of the right half of the character's face and a 3 pics of the full geometry of the right side, all after CP 'thinning'. Please share your thoughts. I've made some adjustments to the lips and cheek areas but still question the 'animateability' of these areas. RobCat - notice new thumb placement. This version of the character is just the right half as I work better without the other half getting in my way. Holmes - I've read through your face weighting tut and find it encouraging and informative. Before I contact you for rigging help I feel I need to work through this tut slowly. One of my problems when trying to accomplish a complex task in A:M such as rigging is that I start out patiently but end up trying my results and losing focus in the interim. I'm gonna try to accomplish one task of the tut at a time, leaving the software for awhile and coming back fresh between tasks. David - I downloaded TSM2 from the Anzovin site but A:M 15.0f on a Mac running OS 10.4.11 won't load the HXT's. Thanks, Chris
  4. Thanks for the positive comments and for the plethora of advice - this is already a lot of great info to ingest. Thank you! Seems like I need to address the excess of CPs and splines to begin with. Robcat - your advice on the toe rigging, the thumbs, and the eyes is well received. I honestly have yet to grasp the relationship between the eyeballs and their sockets. I've got Burn Hogarth's anatomy books but no true depth of knowledge of anatomy. Every time I'm dealing with eyes in A:M things get wacky and inconsistent, so I appreciate your candor and will hopefully gain some knowledge in these areas working with Holmes. David - I have not worked with the 2008 Rig, but have TSM2. Haven't used TSM2 in a few years (didn't they stop supporting it?). Maybe I'll have better luck if I try to use it now. It kinda overwhelmed me a few years ago. From what I gather from both of you, creating my own control rig is not where I exist right now. That's understandable, but I've downloaded and tried the 'squetch rig' as well as Patason's Rig and TSM2 and, again, have not gotten a handle on them and became overwhelmed. I will post wireframe renders from every angle after I spend some time addressing the 'too many CPs' issue. I think I get caught up in the contours of the face without regard or true knowledge for animating it (a difficult lesson to learn!). Thanks for your help.
  5. Thanks, Holmes. Yeah, as much as I'd like to hire someone to just get this character rigged properly, I really need to have the knowledge in my toolbox for other characters. I feel like I've done a lot of the homework on the rigging subject, but for whatever reason (maybe plain lack of skill) I'm starting to lose focus and perspective. I'll read your updated Face Rigging tut (thanks for the link) and try to apply and email you in the near future to take you up on your offer help me rig this model from scratch if you have the time to instruct me. -Chris
  6. Thanks, Rodney. Sorry about the confusion. - Chris
  7. Yeah - I wasn't sure which forum to post this in. My problems generally stem from awkward CP and spline placement during poses and animation. This is definitely a question for an experienced rigger. Enjoy your journey with A:M! If you have questions, this forum is a great resource! -Chris
  8. Hello - It's been a while since I posted on this forum. I've been slowly trying to develop characters for a music video. The attached is a 'Conductor' character (un-decaled) that I'm pretty happy with spline-wise, but rigging is another issue. I've tried educating myself on the topic of rigging using various sources - "Art of A:M", a Fan Bone tut from a 2005 3D Mag issue, Matthew Krick's wonderful online tuts, various CD-ROMS purchased from the Hash site, including Raf Anzovin's, etc. - to various degrees of success. Though I feel my best efforts came using the Matthew Krick tuts, I'm still not satisfied. The attached model has a basic rig and some fan bones on the right side following the 3D World tut. There is no smartskinning on this particular model as I've had various degrees of success there as well. My worst issues are in the pelvis/thigh/stomach regions. Perhaps my CP assignments are atrocious, but I've tried numberless options and am losing steam and patience. Could I hire someone to teach me to rig THIS particular model as I feel I'd understand best using a model of my own creation. Suggestions or advice? Thanks, Chris Conductor__TialRIG_.mdl
  9. I am using a:m 15c with mac os 10.4.11 and while in an action window cannot find the icons to choose a single bone, bone heirarchy, or whole skeleton keyframing option. Where are these located?
  10. I've been messing with the 'steam' volumetric effect in a choreography and last night saved the attached project with all the settings working as I intended. When I opened the project after restarting this morning, the settings on both the steam effects and the camera were wacky. What happened? I'm using A:M v.13t in Mac OS 10.4.8. CLOUDS_Brighter.prj
  11. I found the great rolling cloud effect 'entity' has created for T.W.O. and downloaded his 'best clouds project' from those forums. I've dragged the emitter from his project onto my face model and have played with the settings a bit, but my face model is transparent in the choreography when the emitter does it's thing, though I've looked at the transparency settings of my model and the materials and can't find an explanation for this. I'm hoping he or someone else can offer advice on how to use his emitter to stay relatively in one place, evoke the facial strucure of the model, and roll slowly. Thanks.
  12. Thanks for all the help and ideas . . . lots to ponder!
  13. That's beautiful - however, it still looks like a face appearing within a cloud (of swirling dust or fire in this case), as an apparition. I'm wanting to get the face to be comprised of the cloud substance. Particles may still hold the answer, but it seems like what I want to do requires manipulation of control points and splines within an action. I want the facial 'skin' to be bumpy and billowy, AND flowing. It seems I will probably end up doing this point by point - I started this thread to see if anyone knew how to quickly manipulate my initial "bubble-wrap" model into a curved model typing numbers into the properties. Thanks for the ideas.
  14. Yeah, in Firefox the right-click just opens an options for download the link as an html file. In Safari, I'm able to right-click download linked file, but it downloads the model as a text file. I think I'm aware of your concept though, but I eventually want to have the cloud "texture" rolling and billowing through the face, which I think would look better with attached splines, though it may work with seperate spheres. Hard to tell til I get into it.
  15. Clicking on the link to download your model opens a new tab in my Firefox browser instead of a download dialog box. I'm using Mac OSX - is there a preference I have set wrong?
  16. I'm am trying to create a cloud that resembles a cartoonish human face. I've attached a model with a sort of 'bubble-wrap' look and would like to know if there is a way to quickly give a nice a rounded shape to the whole model to which I can then manipulate points to define facial characteristics. I'm open to all suggestions, included starting from scratch with another approach to accomplish the same thing. Thanks. Clouds.mdl
  17. here's a site that has a printable list: http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/pengwin/3dtut1.html
  18. Oh, man - I live in Nashville but hadn't checked this forum in time to see this invitation. My loss. Hope it was a good meeting and that the opportunity arises again. -Chris
  19. Will - I sent you an email a few days ago regarding this, and have sent two previous emails over the course of the last month. I'm sure this is only one of the many items on your agenda, so this is not a complaint, only a concern that my emails are not getting through the pipeline. When you can, send me the correct film submission info at either citykids3@aol.com or christop.walters@comcast.net. Thanks, Chris
  20. I've tried this link several times. After entering my film information and checking the agreement checkbox, each time I click on the "SUBMIT" button I'm directed to the same page with the version number and image thumbnail fields blank. Entering and rechecking all the corrected information yields the same results. Any ideas? -Chris
  21. [With CP weighting, I'll need to do the geometry bones (since they actually have CPs attached to them), but can I (should I) do the smartskinning with the control bones?] I only do smartskinning on the geometry bones, not control bones. I am far from being the expert on this, but I don't think smartskinning works on bones to which cps are not directly attached. As far as the hip/leg connection situation, I know exactly what you're running into, especially when creating sitting poses. I'm sure someone more knowledgeable than me could recommend intermediate bones (fan bones) to alleviate the problem, but I just solve it the best I can with smartskinning. There is a good tutorial on rigging troublesome joints in Computer Arts Magazine: http://www.computerarts.co.uk/tutorials/3d..._complex_joints Cheers!
  22. Very cool! - great, smooth looking model and a humorous 'Kirk' pose. Smartskinning is another aspect of A:M which seems daunting but is relatively straightforward once you understand the process. I'll mention a few tips which I learned (am still learning) along the way. I apologize if I mention things you already have a handle on or seem obvious. 1) learn and experiment with CP weighting before and during smartskinning 2) make sure all Left Side cps and Left Side bones are exact mirrors of their Right Side counterparts (that is, if you want a symmetrically aligned model - your Captain model looks pretty much symmetrical). If anything differs from one side to the other, time-saving tasks such as 'mirror all smartskin' will not work on the mis-aligned bones. 3)When naming bones, follow exact naming conventions from 1 side to the next - Right Calf & Left Calf, not R calf and Lt calf. I know this seems obvious, but an idiot like me can make this kind of mistake very easily.
  23. Largento - I've spent the last few months making headway into creating my own rigs using tutorials from a variety of sources. First of all, rigging is a daunting task and there are plenty of people more qualified than I am to give you advice. However, I have had some success getting simple but effective results using tutorials from this link: http://demented3d.com/tutorial/toontutoria...ging/basic.html Somehow, these basic rigging tutorials clicked with me and I've been able to use and modify them for my needs pretty quickly. -Chris
  24. As a follow up - creating a new "scale" pose provided the best solution in this case. Though scaling the root bone while holding the 'control' key did indeed scale both the bones and the cps together (info which is new to me - thank you), the 'relationships' that I created before behaved oddly.
×
×
  • Create New...