robcat2075

If you were looking from the side the origin of the thigh bones and the origin of the back would be the same point. But it doesn't look like 2008 is intended to work that way. It looks like it's intended to have the hips swing from a point at about belt level and I dont' know if it can be configured to work another way.

(width of planned print) x (dpi is will be printed at) = horizontal resolution to render at (Height of planned print in inches) x (dpi is will be printed at) =vertical resolution to render at a 5x7" image printed at 300 dpi would suggest a 1500x2100 pixel render. a 5x7" image printed at 150 dpi would suggest a 750x1050 pixel render

I don't think this is a matter of FK vs IK. I didn't even know 2008 had a choice there. But I wouldn't think that choice would be changing where that main controller is in the body.

If I understand correctly what you want.... While your AI pose window is open, first make sure the "Key Muscle" filter is on (bottom of A:M screen), and make sure muscle mode is on select all the CPs and CTRL-C to copy the "keyframe". Close the AI pose window then go back to your model window, >new>pose>percentage CTRL-V in the new pose window and the shape of the AI pose will be pasted into the new pose. Then you can modify it to suit your needs.

I guess you're trying to have the glow not spill out past the edge of the model? You need something besides "Glow". Glow always has a radius beyond the objects edge and a negative radius isn't possible. I just tried to paint something in Photoshop that would be a glow that doesn't spill out, but I couldn't make anything convincing.

I think the new displacement mapping is a pretty amazing, creating the appearance of geometry where there is none. I think Martin wrote that one himself.

Bulls-eye! You're starting to see what's at work here. You're having to counter animate the position of that control to try to keep the hips form pulling the feet off the ground. It's not like fine animation could not be done with this arrangement. Someone well versed in body mechanics and who knows the result they want could pose it just fine. But for a student it inserts a complication that they won't be ready to work around yet. All back motion starts at the base, and mechanically, that base is the joints where the hips meet the legs. That is the big hinge point between the body and the legs. It is where the weight of the body is supported by the legs. In almost any body motion you pose that point first and then arrange the spine on top of that to make the shape you need. With the main control above that hinge you are really trying to position a midpoint of the spine and then adjust the hips below it to look as if it were the origin of that motion. Not undo-able, but counter intuitive. Now, in real animation there's probably no situation in which you would try to rotate that the base with no translation , like I was trying to get you to do in that example. You'd be moving the base of the base somewhere when he leans over, to make the appearance of balance. But later on when you are debugging your motion and looking at channel curves there really will be no bone channel that represents the motion in space of that big main hinge point where the hips rest on the legs, because that point is indirectly derived from a control's motion somewhere else on the spine. It's hard to explain in words. Am i making any sense?

Those are better looking bounces!

In that clip, are you both translating and rotating the control, or are you only rotating it ?

When you step thru it in the chor window (+ and - keys) what does it do?

they look good enough to come from the Franklin Mint.

That's a good gag.

It's not working for you with that control where it is. It's not easier if it's in the wrong place and you have to work around that.

Ok, it's not as bad as I thought. I thought the null in the middle there was what you were animating , but it's really the bone that starts at about belt level. But belt level is still too high for that control to do what it's supposed to do. It's still not the natural pivot point for the body. I can see how this is the reason for a lot of weird movement in your character. Maybe mark has an explanation for why that control is placed where it is placed, but I don't see the advantage. Tell me again why you're not using TSM2? Are you on a Mac?

I can't tell from that what the body bone is controlling because a bunch of other bones are being animated too. What moves when that body bone is moved?

I haven't really looked at 2008 rig. If that's the bone that moves everything from the hips up, I'd say that is not a natural place for it to be. It's not a natural pivot point of the body and would complicate making natural motions. The hips are the basis of all body motion and that's why you want a main control located there.

One thing I notice is that the "body" bone is in the chest. That is unusual. I guess that's not TSM2, but I would expect a bone like that to be at the origin of the hip. At the same level as the leg bones are attached.

One thing first... All your animations are running at 33.33 fps. thats' not normal. Change your default in your options to 30, or better still 24. Change this project to 30 or 24 also. 24 is better because it's a time-honored standard and it's fewer frames for the computer to try to grind out. Or 25 maybe if you are in a PAL country like the UK. Second thing... if you character is too complex to run at real time in the chor window and pressing Pg Down still doesn't get him faster, and turning off decals doesn't do it, switch him to bounding box mode in the chor. It's one of those icons to the right of his shortcut in the PWS You can see the motion move smoothly in BB mode and switch to regular to check details. I did this frequently on TWO. Here are some notes however the jump still has the same essential trouble. jump_test_take3_leftnotesMP4d.mov What I've really needed to do for a couple of years is do a good tutorial on bouncing ball. The problems you are having and the problems everyone has with a move like this , the up and down motion, gravity, momentum and how to use the channel editor, are things that need to be learned with bouncing ball and learned really 100%, because there are just too many complications in a full character to be fighting with those essential concepts. But I dont' know when I'll get to that tut.

That's how Linda McCartney played in Wings. Which part was i not supposed to look at?

Here's a test scene I made to compare Anti Aliasing (Shaded mode) It's 4-patch model with a decal in the upper right that has 1,2,3, and 4 pixel-width lines on it. The model is tilted 0.5 degrees to create a severe aliasing situation. Here's a 4x close-up of Final renders (you'll need to full size it to see detail) You can see that the Final AA and 16 pass, while not identical, have the same number of steps of gray along the top edge of the patch and the interior of the decals are about the same. The raw edge of the decal is not anti-aliased in the Final AA version. You could solve that by clipping the edge of the decal with an alpha channel. I think Final AA is faster because it only has to work to anti-alias things that really need it... the edges. Multi-pass is a brute force approach to anti-aliasing; every single pixel gets anti-aliased whether it needs it or not.

A back claw? I'll also be making a saddle for him, but I'll probably get him rigged up first. You can select any group and >flip normals

per Martin. Think of a square. Divide its length and width once and you get 4 squares. Divide again and you get 16.

A hobo movie! Ripped from today's headlines! In that tutorial Rodney points you to, there's an "emitter" object that gives off the sprites. Basically you'd put something like that in your trash can. I second Rodney's suggestion that you do that tutorial, it will show you the steps to make such a thing.

If that was with multi pass ON, that would mean no anti-aliasing at all. The regular Final render with multipass OFF has the same anti-aliasing as 16 pass, multipass ON. More passes will mean better anti-aliasing but longer render time. It's possible some pixelization is being introduced by the quicktime codec being set to too much compression, but I don't know what you've chosen there.

yeah, I've always felt that the thing that got me the most result in animating was trying the action myself. And testing a pose out in front of a mirror is big too.