robcat2075

Hey Mark, do you think there's a way to fit a middle state in the IK-FK thing? This would be "elbow K" where the elbow keeps a fixed position and the shoulder and upper arm move to match it, much like the upper arm and lower arm move to meet an IK hand target in regular IK.

For me, most revealing lecture they showed us at AnimationMentor was the one on "Spine reversals". This is probably the main technique for keeping characters from looking stiff. Build key poses that change the shape of the spine. they have a brief description of the concept here http://www.animationmentor.com/newsletter/...ature_geek.html He's using a broad motion of a heavy lift there. But it's very effective even on slight movements. A slight reversal of the spine curvature (from the view of the camera) makes everything change position in relation to everything else and makes it not look like a rigid shell. There has to be a reason for the change to happen, there has to be some movement that "needs" it, otherwise it looks like wandering body motion. This was my first attempt at putting that into practice to loosen up the body where there is almost no real "action". I tended to use them in pairs where one is the anticipation for the next one. http://www.brilliantisland.com/am/youreright228s.mov Spine reversals on frames: 019 100 111 252 264 there's also a stretch from 130-180 where I'm only barely changing the spine shape. That bothers me now. Another spine reversal probably isn't called for but some better overlap between the head/torso/hips would have kept the spine more flexible looking.

It's like Big Bird in a Sea Anemone costume.

That's the even harder part! You're on the right track with "chain reaction". it's a bit like waves traveling through the body.

Unless it's terribly private it would be interesting to have you post that PRJ (with everything embedded!) to see what the problem was.

Good looking character! This is a very difficult move to do. My first observation would be to treat the torso more flexibly and not as a rigid unit. It will have a different bend to it depending on whether he gets hit high, mid or low and everything else will trail and be pulled after the part that gets hit.

Thanks, Matt!

Well, that's more than we have now but still odd looking. Does a Kleig, or Sun light have that pyramid shape?

last resort... try Help>Reset Settings

make sure the "Object Draw Mode" is set to curve(circle) not vector(diamond) It's in the PWS next to the Show More than Drivers Icon

You can change the color of the non-camera background (or any other interface element) in Tools>Customize>Appearance You can also name and save this "scheme" in that tab.

I'm trying to figure out how long the lights' translate manipulator has been broken. At least since v8. v5 might be around 1997 or so. I had it but can't find my CD.

I would add a bone to the head that originates where his lips are gripping the mouthpiece and then generally points in the direction of the body of the horn and constrain the horn and hands to that. For an orient-like constraint to make use of "lag" in this situation the bone will need to NOT be a child of the head but translate-to constrained to it instead. I haven't used automatic lag for this purpose but it might be a less labor-intensive way of loosening up the structure . I'd recommend getting your cuts done first before you polish the animation.

If by chance you have an installer for one of those around and can run it... Select a light and hit N for the translate manipulator. Does the Translate manipulator appear correctly? A box with red, green and blue handles on each side and corner, like for any other bone or the camera. and if so, can you screen capture it?

ba-dump bump.

My first observation is that the sax seems to be too rigidly locked to his head. There's a lot of opportunity for slight overlaps and lags in the motion to help give the sax a look of having weight. When i did my BUS STOP segment I first thought i could just constrain Shaggy's hands to his head when he is playing his imaginary oboe. But it was obvious pretty quick that that looked too rigid whenever he moved his head around, even a little. Instead, i constrained his hands to a bone sticking out of his mouth where the oboe would have been and worked at lagging that and overlapping that to the head motion. (a separate bone for each hand would have been better)

It's odd a how a computer can appear to be completely functional with outdated drivers and stuff... until you get A:M on it and then it damn well better be up to date!

I have v11, 13,15 and 16 on my Win7 PC and they seem to operate normally. I often hear people here say to not get a computer with integated video but that's just because those are slow. There are probably more current drivers for that video card none-the-less. That would be my first guess, find the appropriate latest drivers and install those. (And of course you have a way to revert your computer back to its original state just in case you mess something up when you do this.) Win 7 i supposed to look for updates automatically, but look anyway.

Anything that resides in the "components" folder of TSM2 needs to be a pre-V13 MDL or TSM2 won't recognize it during the Builder stage. But, your process isn't putting anything in the components folder, right?

I just note that if you are making an mdl for TSM2 to call directly as a "part", it needs to be made in V11. But i dont' think your import model is that particular usage.

I just tried it again and can't find any errors even before the save.

I just did a quick Builder, Flipper, Rigger, save, restart, reload and I can't find any string errors left. I'm trying it in v16a.

The "Error loading String" can be fixed by saving right after Rigger is run, restarting A:M then reloading the model. I'm going to wildy guess that the User Prop is some side effect of TSM2's manner of creating a phantom bone to simulate an offset.

Oh, OK, go ahead and put it back up.

Like all bone-like things, I would just add them as part of the regular model before I need them for a constraint. In bones mode. Go back to the model before you started that step to avoid confusion. btw, the constraints are done in a pose window, not an action window (although a temporary Action will appear in the PWS while you are editing teh Pose)