raillard
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Posts posted by raillard
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although i wish charactres were PRE-WIGGLED and people had to un-wiggle or turn things off rather than turn them all on
Later on, when you try your hand at Non-Linear Animation, you will understand why the bones are not pre-wiggled.
You see, one can modify an existing animation by lacquering on additional Actions which contain rotational or translation information of just one or two bones. The first time you try this, you may find yourself giggling -- it's so easy to massage your animations, and tweak them to perfection. At that point I predict you shall lose your devotion to pre-wiggled Action files.
Gosh, you've had the program a week, and I'm already talking about NLA techniques with you! After a week most people are still making vases in the modeller. You might want to buy a copy of the AM Quick Start CD sold by the Anzovin Studios. I haven't tried it myself, but I've heard good things about it. The reason I mention this is because you seem to be zooming up the learning curve faster than most people. The Anzovin CD might answer a plethora of questions better than we can, on the list. Raf Anzovin is very adept at NLA animation, too. I can recommend his NLA tutorial.
Sincerely,
Carl Raillard
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Well observed. Good job!
Sincerely,
Carl Raillard
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now - i wonder if the same concept could apply towards animating directly in coreography...
'Lo again.
Yeah. One Choreography can be imported directly into other Choreography. So, drop your character model into a cho, wiggle his bones, and delete any extra garbage, like cameras and lights and floors. Then save this "Character Cho" outside the Project.
Then every time you want the character to appear in a new Cho, just right-click (or Mac-equal) on the new Cho's name in the Project Workspace, and select Import Choreography, and select your previously created Character Cho. Your prewiggled character will spring into view, in the center of your new Cho.
Sincerely,
Carl Raillard
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i cant believe i have to open a model and wiggle every bone before i begin to animate -but maybe i do.
You do. Don't open the model file, though. Wiggle the bones in the Action file.
Action files can be saved separately from Project files. You could wiggle all your favorite bones at frame 0, and then save this rather unexciting Action file separately, and then make multiple backup copies of this file.
Now all your favorite bones are pre-wiggled. Forever after, whenever you wanted to begin a new action, you could just drag and drop one of these copies directly into Animation Master. The program will prompt you which model to use.
Once the Action is inside the Project, rename it, and you're ready to start animating.
As long as you're diligent about giving the Action file a fresh name, you can repeat this over and over again, with the same pre-wiggled copy.
Sincerely,
Carl Raillard
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i am assuming that when i copy and paste a frame from one position to another - and i have bones showing - that it is pasting ALL aspects of where those bones are positioned.
Hello.
Nope, that's not always true. It depends what key buttons on the Frame Toolbar are active. The Frame Toolbar, by the way, is the heart of Animation Master. As you animate, the Frame Toolbar is where you'll be clicking, toggling buttons, scrubbing through your piece, etc.
Also: If a bone has not been translated or rotated yet, it's position will be ignored by the paste buffer.
The program has to maintain efficiency, you see. If you haven't touched a bone yet, it sensibly assumes nothing should be done with the bone. When you copy and paste keyframes, the program does not make a photographic picture of *every* conceivable mutation for *every* bone just as it appears, right then.
If you really want a particular bone to be counted, you've got to touch it, and do something with it, no matter how slight. The bone must be:
1. Translated, if it's important that the bone traverses the screen independently at some point in your animation.
2. Rotated, if it's important that the bone spins around independently at some point in your animation.
3. Scaled, if it's important that the bone shrinks or grows independently at some point in your animation.
To make a bone count, select it, and jiggle it. That will create rotational drivers for the bone. Now its rotations will be recorded in the paste buffer, whenever you copy and paste keyframes. You can also hit the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard to create a set of translation drivers for the bone. Now the bone's translations will be noted, whenever you copy & paste keyframes. You can also hit "S" to evoke the Scale manipulator, grab the box handle and make the bone shrink or grow a tad. Now the bone's scale will be copied into the paste-buffer. CAVEAT: Remember to activate the appropriate keyframe buttons on the Frame Toolbar! If the Key Skeletal Rotations, Key Skeletal Scaling, Key Skeletal Translations, and Key Body buttons are not pushed in, nothing is ever going to get copied in the paste-buffer, and you'll be stuck in newbie hell forever!
Bwa ha ha ha!
Seriously, you've only had the program a week? You're doing quite well!
You'll get the hang of it, soon.
Sincerely,
Carl Raillard
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Hello, List.
Here's a brief animation test, featuring Gaty, my alligator boy.
It's very short (30 frames, 226 KB). It just shows Gaty jumping back in surprise.
My reference was a page out of a Preston Blair animation book. I think I have the same book that Smudge has. Right now I'm copying animators I admire, 'cuz I want to animate like them.
Thanks for taking a look!
Sincerely,
Carl Raillard
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(Shift 8) I believe it was. Nice avatar by the way did you do that in AM?
Thanks for the answer! Shift 8 does it.
And yes, my avatar was created with AM. That's Gaty, my alligator boy.
Sincerely,
Carl Raillard
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Howdy, folks.
I halfway remember that there is a quick keyboard shortcut to toggle the Dynamics on and off. This feature was added so that we can scrub through Actions and Cho's quickly, without waiting for the machine to calculate every jiggling spring in an animation.
Off the top of your head, does anybody recall how to do this?
Sincerely,
Carl Raillard
AMv10.5n
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Ah, thanks!
Sincerely,
Carl Raillard
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Hello.
I've got a question about the timeline. I'm an old v8.5p+ diehard. I'm busy learning how to use the new timeline. My question is this: How do I adjust the magnitude of more than one channel curve? In v8.5 I just selected all the channel splines; in the Property Panel there's a setting for the IN & OUT magnitude, so I'd just type in "50" in both of those settings, and all my bones would then move in a nice snappy way.
How does one do this in the v10.5n timeline? If I select all the driver curves, the Property Panel doesn't give me any choices. I tired activating Show Bias Handles button, and the Show Manipulators button, but they don't seem to give me any extra options, either.
I hope my question is clear enough!
Sincerely,
Carl Raillard
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Yes. Looks really nice.
Sincerely,
Carl Raillard
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Just wondering if you have any neat tricks for making CP's stay put after a certain amount of rotation ...
Hello.
Well ... you could always defer the CP muscle movement into a percentage pose.
It's not a quick procedure, though. It's quite labor-intensive, as a matter of fact.
Rundown of the procedure: Create a Percentage pose. Copy all the muscle keyframes from the 'skin into the pose (To keep things sane, maintain a one-to-one correspondence between the skin and the pose; e.g. 60 degrees = 60%) Then, as William suggests, copy the keyframe at 60 percent, and paste it in again at 61%. You might as well paste it at 99%, and 100%, too, just to keep the CP's from wiggling. Once you have transferred all the CP data into the percentage pose, delete the old 'skin. Next, create a new Smartskin on the bone. At 5 degrees along the appropriate axis, set your new pose to 5%. At 10 degrees along the axis set your new pose at 10%. At 15 degrees along the axis, set your new pose to 15%. Continue doing this, every 5 degrees, along the same axis. (I'd go backwards, too -- 'just to combat the "circulosity" that the new 'skins have.)
I've posted this procedure before on the mailing list. Although it requires a lot of work, it does allow one to keep CP's motionless when one wishes them to remain motionless. It's difficult to keep CP's rock-solid within a 'skin directly.
If somebody knows a better technique, please don't keep it a secret.
Sincerely,
Carl Raillard
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Hubba hubba!
Usually I have to leaf through a copy of my dad's Concrete International magazine to see such a tasty-looking screeder!
Nice work!
Sincerely,
Carl Raillard
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Hello.
Do you have the "Show Decals" ON by any chance?
To find this setting, go to Tools in the menu bar, and select Options.
Select the Rendering Tab in the Options box, and verify if the Show Decals is on or off. When creating a model I think it should be OFF. Otherwise, I find the program slows down as it recalculates patch counts, etc. every step of the way. This slowdown only occurs when you're *building* the model. Once you're done, it's good to turn the decals back on, so that you can see your completed model properly.
I hope this helps. If not, please ignore.
Sincerely,
Carl Raillard
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Hello. I've got two cents for you, here.
The joints of fat, pudgy characters are the hardest to do, I think. I think it'd be helpful to break the job into several phases. For starters, get a decent fan bone system into the shoulder. If you can spare 30 bucks, I would recommend getting Mike Fitzgerald's COG tutorial. Mike's system benefits from a careful placement of splines, which might be different from your present mesh. Fortunately AMv.10 & up have this new "stitch" tool, that makes altering mesh a lot easier then it was in v8.5. As a test I took a model by Joe Cosman that I've always admired, and added a COG joint to it. The splines were not laid out to work well with COG joints, so I just stitched in additional splines, and deleted the awkward ones. I was very pleased with the results -- I maintained the shape of Joe's model while gaining the smoothness of Mike's joint rig.
Once you got a fairly decent shoulder joint going, you can start worrying about how it interacts with other body parts. Again, v10 & up offers all sorts of options. The cheek problem might be handled in this way: Add a child of the arm at the shoulder joint (start = same as bicep) and have this bone point up, at the cheek. The end should rest on the cheek. At this point, on the cheek, there should be another bone, a child of the head, that will be used as a target. In your default constraints pose, apply an Aim At constraint onto this bone, and dab the eye-dropper onto the cheek target bone, and activate the Scale to Reach feature. Now what you've got is a little piston that shrinks and grows as the arm presses into the cheek area. You could then apply a Relationship onto the Z-scale driver of the piston bone -- essentially a smartskin that works with the bone's scale rather than it's rotation. When the bone shrinks by a certain amount, use muscle animation to deform the cheek, to make it smoosh.
Bottom Line: The job is still tough, but there are tools in v10.5 that will help you.
This is a well-crafted model, and it deserves further effort!
Sincerely,
Carl Raillard
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Man, I sure do love the design of that character!
Sincerely,
Carl Raillard
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Duh. I just reread your post, and realized that I failed to understand your question!
Sorry, Emilio, for my brain-dead response.
I should just shut up and let David Rogers answer this.
Sincerely,
Carl Raillard
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Hello.
On the menu bar select "Tool, Options."
On the Option box that springs into view, select the Action Tab.
Here you'll find a bunch of radio buttons where you can set the default interpolation method. For machines, set everything to "Eular."
Hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Carl Raillard
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Hello.
I tried doing this with AMv10.5e. I could apply constraints onto D-box bones, linking them with the bones of the character's body, but the constraints did not survive a screen refresh. I mean: if I hit the spacebar the constraints would vanish. They also dissappeared if you saved, closed, and reopened the project. It's a pity, for that pretty much rules out their use in character joints.
I've already sent a bug report to Steve, on August 12.
I haven't tried using D-boxes since then. If the problem has been fixed, it certainly was not listed in updates list.
Sometimes, with these newer features, it just takes a while before all the kinks are worked out.
Sincerely,
Carl Raillard
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Thank you ... but I thought my project was kind of hellishly complex, myself!
Marcel Bricman is the guy who devised the Conform plugin. I've been planning on adding some extra CP's around the eyes of my alligator boy, because he just doesn't have enough for really wild cartoony expressions. But Gaty's head is supposed to be a very smooth little ball -- it's part of his character -- and so I've been hesitant about going in there and adding a lot of lump-inducing splines.
I've often thought the Conform plugin might help. Just add the splines in, and use Conform and a copy of the old, smooth head to bring the new head back into true.
So, please, Victor, could you post a WIREFRAME of your adorable giant, when you're done? I think we're all interested in how he turns out. I'm especially interested, 'cuz this problem of adding splines to a surface that also needs to maintain its smooth integrity is a problem that worries me.
Thanks!
Carl Raillard
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Hello.
I'm not a modeling expert, but I'm going to chime in anyway.
The way I figure it, the major chore is getting the base spline ring of the spike to conform to the surface of the head. Instead of tweaking forever, I'd use constraints in an Action file to mold this troublesome spline onto the head.
Here's a zipped project file that shows the procedure.
http://www.sonic.net/raillard/hash/4_Victor.zip
A set of six Action files are included, which illustrate the sequential steps.
The instructions for each step are provided in the long file name for each action.
At the end of step six you should export the Action as a model. In this new model the surface constraints applied will vanish, and the CP's of the base ring will now lie in close proximity to the irregular surface of the head. In this new model you can safely delete all those pesky bones that were needed to get the spline to conform. I've included a sample exported model, with the bones deleted.
Now it is a simple matter of breaking up the mesh of the head, and hooking it into the spike. You'll probably still have to spend a lot of time tweaking the CP's of the head. But at least you won't have to spend as much time tweaking the spike.
Sincerely,
Carl Raillard
A direct question: Animation Help
in (2003-2004)
Posted
Hello again!
Every bone you think will need to be translated, should be translated just a tad.
Every bone you think will need to be rotated, should be rotated just a tad.
Bones that will be both rotated AND translated, should be rotated AND translated.
Roll, by the way, is just a type of rotation. The minute you rotate a bone, you've wiggled its roll, as well.
Here's a tip: Along the top of the screen there is a button called "Show Manipulator Properties" Activate this button. Then select a bone and hit "R" on your keyboard. This will evoke a specialty manipulator for the bone that allows you to rotate it with greater precision. Since you have the "Show Manipulator Properties" button on, there will also be a field of numbers next to the bone, where you can type in precise numerical values for each axis. Type in 0 in any one of these fields. There. You've done it. You've just wiggled the rotation of the bone. You did not even alter its rotation! Nevertheless, you have touched it where it counts, and that's enough. You've created a set of rotation drivers for this bone in this action.
Here's another tip: Select a bone and hit the up and then the down arrow key of your keyboard. There. You're done. You've just wiggled the translation of the bone. You did not even alter its current position, but you've created a set of translation drivers for this bone in this action. I think I may have mentioned this tip already.
In your sad example you failed to rotate your hip at frame 0 and so that's why it only created its second rotational key late in the game. The first rotational key was created the instant you created the second rotational key, late in your animation. The program assumed you wanted the bone rotation to begin at frame 0. It assumed the bone should turn smoothly until it reached the rotational position specified on frame one hundred whatever. If you *wanted* the hip to turn smoothly between frame 0 and frame one hundred whatever, then what you did would be the way to do it.
Am I being clear?
I hope so.
Sincerely,
Carl Raillard