robcat2075

Well, the idea is you could have a generic character with these geometry bones preweighted and you could push and pull CPs to modify him. Then you could make the bones travel to fit the modified mesh, export it and run a rigger on it to finish it. If you had to weight the CPs every time that would negate the advantages.

Now the next layer is to figure out how to have the CPs attached to the bones beforehand and yet not create circular constraints.

that does work! Problem solved!

What am i doing wrong here: Trying to force keys with constraint results... TryingToForce_Constraints.mov I think I experimented with "before action" already, but I'll try some more.

That's what regular old assigning CPs to bones does. So, yes, I do await further explanation...

Explain that more.

that also works, however I'm still having the problem of the bone orientation not surviving the export of the chor as a model.

Here's what works so far... StretchableCharacterConceptH250.mov

I'm actually trying this notion for the first time now... this will take a bit of R&D...

Mark Largent (largento) has been doing a long running 3D comic strip but he says getting an audience to it has been very tough.

Is this for a modifiable character? I think the Group constraint and export from Chor would work well for that.

That probably wouldn't be hard for Steffen to add. But... what orients the bone? A CP is just a point in space with no direction to give to a bone. Does the bone just retain its original orientation?

If you need the bone to follow a moving CP in animation then you need the constraint. If you just need to adjust the bone to the CP once, then exporting will work.

You can export the model from a chor after you turn that constraint on. That will save a copy with the bone moved. What are you doing that needs this?

Creepy! Why do i think there should be a picture of Whistler's Mother on the wall?

In the modeling window? No (?), aside from manually copying the XYZ values of the CP to a bone's However there is a "Group" constraint that will translate a bone to the center of a group, which would be the same as a CP if the group was only one CP. A classic use of this is to make buttons follow simulated cloth.

Could we consider changing the distributable set of stuff so that the models are not embedded in the PRJ? As it is now, when you save a chor all the models get saved as part of the CHOR which makes chors larger than they need to be as you save successive versions of your animation and for the purposes of returning a chor that has the lighting and camera information keyframed in it. Also, when I open the set there's no "grass" beyond the sidewalks. Wasn't there some dirt or grass in some version? Here's a preliminary version of the "rules"

Transparency on hair can help make it look thinner. You could make the end more transparent to simulate more taper

Some eyebrow shaping might be felicitous. A hair density decal could do that. She's somewhere between Brook Shields and Groucho Marx at present.

I believe 24fps will be used. That's the standard for the film and animation world. American NTSC video was about 30fps but now, with digital TV and the web, anything goes

I can tease hair with the brush by dragging it one way then scrunching it down.t

Can you show a screen shot of the shape you are trying to make?

For me it sways the entire hair shaft in the direction that the top CP is dragged. If you need to make a more complex curve you can use the arrow tool to move CPs individually.

That's an old product. Does it even work with the current (v13 and later) A:M file format?

I hope that isn't the formal launch announcement. That will need a fresh new thread to get everyone's attention with the rules and guidelines and downloads front and center at the very top so no one can reasonably miss them. Don't launch this yet.