higginsdj

A very nice complete model you have there. Your attention to detail is superb. Cheers

Hey - It's a free site - I guess I can't expect too much. My own paid web site won't allow me to upload anything over 700kb for some reason (It's currently used for all my Astronomical research work) I'll post when the sites available again or I fiund somewhere else. By the way I am 2 versions done the track c/- Franks critiques and advice. Cheers

Thanks guys (I think) I'm not overly happy with the eyes and I just can't seem to get hair to work in v11 (at least not by following the Siggraph 2003 demo) and haven't got the patience/time to complete it in 10.5 (where it does work) I'll donate this model to the hash community as soon as I can find somewhere to post it so someone else can have a go at improving on it. Cheers

Here is the near completed head model with rough decals. The 'hood' was supposed to be hair but it didn't work out right - I might leave it as a hood. Face isn't quite right. Fixing the Decal may help but I think it will do! I might leave it as a hood and start working on the body next. Cheers

Well Hermione now has a head but I need the scale/shape checked since her large mass of hair only allows me to guestimate the size/shape. I tried making ears but failed dismally so she is wearing a pair of Eds ears Cheers

For Jonathan who emailed me privately - my reply to you bounced..... I am participating in the Animation Master Apprenticeship program NOT the Animation Mentor program. The A:M Apprentice program is a Hash community/forum initiative only. Cheers

Thanks Mike - your critiques are really appreciated. I understand all the points for shot 1 Shot 2 Not sure what you mean when you say 'it needs more inertia'. Do you mean (using the example of the character comming to rest) that, say, the whole body should sway forward (sort of loop forward, down, up and back) to a halt? Hand bounce - still trying to get blend options working here but to no avail - will have to review Raf's non linear animation video again (A:M v8.5 version of the tape) Shot 3 Completely missed that arm lock. Facial animation - I'm still coming to grips with Franks facial setup. Many of the poses are linked and if I push too far the face 'explodes'. So, should I animate the lip synch or the facial emotion first? Which should have priority? I'm now thinking Emotion first and give emotion priority. I had done the lip synch first and didn't want to 'ruin it' when applying the emotion. By the way, my 250Free bandwidth is almost exceeded for the month so if you may have problems downloading the file until January! Well what can you expect from a free site Cheers

What are you opening it with? I've downloaded it (right click and save as) from the 250free.com site and tested it in both MediaPlayer and QT and it seems fine. Cheers

OK, I have made adjustments to the animation as recommended. Time for a further critique - Please Note this new version is a 1.3mb mpeg file and you need to link directly from: http://higginsdj.250free.com/theatre.htm Its the bottom animation on the page. Cheers

Could be that people using those other packages are spending more time animating than rendering stills...... Stills are good but animation is better :-) Cheers

Hi Robert, I guess I was trying to point out that the body appeared static whilst he was listening (or any body motion you had in there was a little to subtle) Cheers

By default Renderosity takes you to the Whats New area. Look at the Sort By items and choose the others.... Cheers

Thanks Robert. You picked up the foot forward issue but I didn't see the others - many, many thanks. My blends aren't quite as good in slo mo as they appear at real time :-) I'll have to work with slo mo more often. The jerk at the start of shot 2 is wierd. There is some sort of body jerk that I introduced somewhere. I'll have to investigate. For those who get the can't hotlink - just navigate to the gallery page: http://higginsdj.250free.com/theatre.htm and grab it from there. Cheers

You mean there is only one recent A:M image there.... The Renderosity A:M gallery is full of wonderful images (hundreds of them) Cheers

That UV mapped template one kinda looks like a chocolate egg version :-) Cheers

Hi all, I am thoroughly enjoying my A:M apprenticeship and have now completed my final lesson (not yet accepted by my Mentor though). Here it is: http://higginsdj.250free.com/downloads/Lesson6.mov Note that you may have to navigate to my gallery (theatre) page and access it there as 250Free may not allow direct linking (see below) My other efforts can be seen here: http://higginsdj.250free.com/theatre.htm This was by far the most complex animation I have ever done as it comprised 3 Chors (3 Shots) each with up to 5 blended actions overloaded with Chor Action. If nothing else I have learnt a lot about blending actions in A:M http://higginsdj.250free.com/downloads/detailedPWS.jpg Note I am not after praise, I'm after some serious critiquing. (There is one subtle problem with it - I wonder if you can pick it up?) Cheers

Hi Pancho, Not a bad first attempt but it is difficult to tell just from the one shot. Side views, shaded wireframe views etc will help the critique. As a first look you appear to have a couple of issues - one in the cheeks (they appear a little flat) and the other around the jaw line (spline bulge) Cheers

There were 6 distinct pose related actions with not much going on between them. Some different camera angles/shots/moves wouldn't have gone astray either but given the 4 hour time limit I think you did pretty well - overacting or not Cheers

Thanks Yves, One thing I have learnt this time round is not just to try to model the face from front and side view but from top and bottom view as well but the quality of the rotos helped as well. The decal is just a straight forward position and apply in the front on model window. The decal itself, however, was not the original roto. It is the side of the roto that I modeled from, cut from the original and paste flipped and joined (just like I did with the face mesh) I also found it interesting that copy flip attach also did the same thing to the applied decal. Shame it doesn't re-group adding the centre spline though. This was what gave me the idea of doing the copy flip to the roto and re-apply sicne it looked quite good. The original roto didn't fit both sides of the face as Emma/Hermione was facing slightly away from the camera. I have to admit that practise/practise/practise is the key to this. Hermiones face only took about 4 hours to get to this stage from scratch. I remember by last 2 effors (Leelu 2000, Morgan 2001) took considerably longer and I had to apply porcelain to Leelu to iron out all the bumps (and she still looks liek she's wearing a mouthguard ). I haven't had to do that with Hermione (yet) I used the Coop Face tute this time round to guage the splinage (I tend to put in too many splines) Cheers

Thanks for the comments all. I've uploaded some undecaled shaded wireframes as requested. Cheers

OK, Side view and wireframe have been posted. You can see what I mean about my decaling skills Cheers

Just started modelling a new character starting with the face and head. The only render to date is the model decaled with the roto rendered in front of the roto. A little bit of a cheat, I know, but I haven't built the eyes, hair or rest of the head as yet - and I have yet to learn how to properly decal a head! Wireframe has been posted as well. http://higginsdj.250free.com/wips.htm Cheers

A little CP and bias handle tweaking will fix things but I imaging you want the characters mouth to move so some 'distortion' will be inevitable/required so don't go too overboard just yet. Cheers

All you need to do now is to select and delete all the splines you don't need. This should maintain the shape of the sphere. You could do it in reverse and just add more spliens to a low patch sphere in the area you needed but then you would need to tweak them all (via the bias handles) to maintain the smooth spherical shape. Cheers

I should mention that the body was made using an old Shi roto. (Hands and boots borrowed from Wonder woman) I must say I like the Teal coloured suit best. Now to accessorise :-) Cheers