robcat2075

It is best to convert your video to a numbered image sequence of targas. Most NLEs can do that. Quicktime Pro can do that. If A:M can import your video file into the images folder you can on it and choose "Save Animation As" and choose .tga as the save format. Remember to pad your filename with a few zeros so the image numbers are all the same length.

I like the look of your toon renders. Does that dragons' wing have a tree sticking thru it? Ouch.

If you want a to try the absolute minimum leg rig see "The simplest IK leg" tutorial in the tutorial link in my signature. But I recommend a more thought out rig for general use.

How do you get that so smooth without a lot of bias adjusting? Or do you do a lot of bias adjusting?

Smartskin isn't for attaching CPs to bones. You do that in the model window. that guy is messed up. Smartskin was never for attaching CPs to bones. Have you done the tutorials in TaoA:M? You'd be ahead if you had. You'd know that smartskin is not for attaching CPs to bones. You're trying to create a rig from scratch your first time out. This is asking for an unhappy result. Use one of the rigs that has directions on how to install it like TSM2 or Mark's 2008 rig. TAoA:M shows how to install the 2001 rig although that's not one of the better rigs. You can find these in the "rigging" sub forum.

"slider up and down in time line" I dont' know what you mean. This doesn't sound like smart skin. smart relates the motion of one thing (usually mesh) to something else (perhaps a bone) but it doesn't limit the bone. Oh, oh! this doesn't sound right. Tell us how you rigged your character. I'm thinking some essentials have been missed. And PC or Mac? That "set" word sound like you may have a mis-notion about this. However, you smartskin the joints that need to bend smoothly. There are other solutions besides smartskin. Dont know if I being clear enough. I am so close to being able to create my toon walking and acting in the world. You know how I feel! I can almost see my ideas in real life. Please help!!!!! It WILL be cool once you get this going. But we need a few more details.

yes, more pages could be rigged like that. Remaining to be solved, however is the problem of showing something different on opposite sides of a patch. Fortunately for the shot I'm working on we don't' see the book at an angle where that's important.

Just a little test for a bit I'm doing for someone else's project. Making book pages that don't turn like slabs of concrete: pageturntestMP4.mov the second shot shows the 4 bones the page mesh is attached to and the third shot shows the two bones that control the four bones. the first bone is animated directly the second Aims At the target bone the third and fourth bone are not pointed at the target, but are Oriented Like it 50% and 100% between the first bone and the target bone almost any page curve can be made. Only the middle page is rigged to turn like that. The others are just CP weighted around one bone to bend whichever way the page is directed. I used "render as lines" on the front edge of the pages so they wouldn't look like infinitely thin patches. In the first shot you can see how those edges stand out better than the edges on the sides.

Yes, W is a fourth component of the Quaternion rotation values. I have never read an explanation of them that matched up with what I was seeing. you may sometimes read that Quaternions are bad because they are hard to edit, but the truth is most CG animators only have a fuzzy idea of what even X, Y and Z are about. Quaternions do give vastly better interpolation for most character animation situations. Don't worry too much about the exact values, the real worth of the curve editor is seeing the slopes that go thru the keyframes. Many times you can adjust an x y or z rotation and not bother with the W. If you do get an unexpected result, undo, then use the rotate manipulator to rotate the object on screen in the direction you wanted and observe the result in the graph. I have no idea where Quaternia is.

here are 3 more conventional renders without radiosity that use specular lights to highlight the edges acryl_block_specs.zip

Your radiosity may be complicated by the fact that there are holes inthe set surrounding the object. Big ones on the sides. Aside from everything else, it's too many shadows. Use some specular only lights to highlight the bevels if you need to. Maybe what you really want is the "caustics" effect of the block of lucite.

What were you not able to get with non-radiosity rendering? Maybe there's some other solution.

Also... V15 has some editing capacity so you can take renderings from two different chors and edit them together to make a longer movie.

No, you can't render negative times, but you can select and drag all your keyframes to later times so they are all in positive territory.

that looks good. One detail I noticed is that the armpit area of the shirt actually is going up when he lowers his arm. I don't have a suggestion for solving that.

I couldn't examine your PRJ long enough to figure out what you're doing, I'm not really sure. I think the problem is that when you have multiple poses active those poses' R G and B values are getting totaled to more than 255 each which would be white. most of your poses have a bright color at 0%. Just a few of those at once will send the color over the top.

yeah, that carpet stole the show! But the whole looks real good. a semi transparent decal on a plane behind the window could mimic the reflection and shifting perspective if the camera moved.

what do you have covering the ground on that shot?