robcat2075

Nice Run! I finally broke down and got Richard William's book. I shoulda done that a year ago. Tons of great stuff in there. Much better than trying to furiously scribble notes at his $1000 master class. So amazing that there are people who can actually draw all that and get it right. And we imagine CG is hard In addition to what Dalemation said, to make the jump more "credible" I think there's room for more squash in the takeoff and landing. Right now he doesn't seem to go much below the "down" position of the run. I realize he's got rather short legs. Maybe the takeoff point shouldn't be so close to the wall for a more natural arc, too? But that's a great first clip.

That's a cute scene! Like "Jot" in 3D Two itty-bitty things I notice: - when hopping forward, the small ball appears to jump straight up with no energy directed towards the forward motion, yet he moves forward anyway. You do have a good pose of him leaning forward when he's examining something. Could you mix some of that into the beginning of the hop? -I think he sticks to the wall too long when he's bouncing off of it. Maybe cutting out even one frame would be enough.

That's one crazy, weird, far-out looking chick! The only detail that bothers me are the very blocky ribs (?) below the breasts. They suggest a state of emaciation that isn't apparent in any other part of the body. But the overall proportions make for a very interesting fantasy film creature, perhaps in the same neighborhood as the ones Harryhausen used to do. Someone on this forum noted that whenever you deviate from "normal" proportions you'll have to take extra care on the animation of those features to make them credible. As long as you know that, accept that, and are up to it, I suppose you can pretty much do any odd thing you want, right? Looking forward to seeing it animated!

Only two Animation Showdowns got off the ground in August but here are my four-hour efforts: Queezy: Our character had to be so sick he had trouble standing. I never really got the counter action of the arm working right. Mirror: Actually the topic was "You lookin' at me?" but it was defined as a character reacting to a mirror. So that's what you get. See them on my Showdown Page. You too can test your skill at the Animation Showdown (usually) every week. Find out more about it at http://www.digitalrendering.com in the "forum".

Great shots! You'll start a fad with this! Fencing at least, if not 2D. Actually, I can't detect a turned edge on him except for the skin parts. Maybe it's too subtle to survive the compression?

Hey Dale, i would have voted for that one! Glad you saw it through. [quote name=Mark' date='Aug 25 2004, 05:01 PM]Is this like Music allot of talented animators unemployed and a few or best can pay the bills? While waiting for a show to start at the World Animation Celebration in Hollywood a few years ago I overheard this joke: Q: What's the difference between an animator and a large pizza? A: A large pizza can feed a family of four. I think your analogy to music is insightful, but don't let that stop you from giving it a look, especially since the entry cost is so low now and the software is so good.

Wow! Very cool motion on that bug. If they do a Starship Troopers III they should get you on board.

That's a nice scene and cute character. And I like the lighting too. You should get him over to the Animation Showdown How about a fish jumping out of the water and following him around? Did you use fog to tone the background down? That really helps give this shot depth. The relative scale of the various elements is a bit ambiguous, but I won't ponder that too much. I'm surprised that even though he's constantly turning there's no apparent sideways slipping of either wheel. That's a good detail.

Hey, that looks really snazzy! two thoughts... the light yellow title against the white clouds is hard to read... and the falling text seems to be falling too slowly. But those are probably the two items from the trailer that won't carry over to the finished show, so... never mind.

Clever idea! Lots of work goes into something like that. I was quite impressed by the quadruped walk at the end. I always have trouble with the "subtext" of these things: she draws her fantasy... and then it walks away? hmmm... Instead how about if the horse and rider jumped off the page into her room, sweeps her off her feet and yada yada yada. Also, while they were swinging each other around I thought, "field of daisies... somebody cue the field of daisies, please!" Good job!

The flatness doesn't bother me at all. I like flat, graphic things. I suppose part of the problem will be not losing that flat quality in animation? (meaning: keeping the flatness would be a good thing.) I have trouble reading the forshortened poses, like #2 and #3. I think it's because of the all dark-brown costume not being defined by outlining. Eager to see more!

That looks really good. It needs a Tex Avery cartoon to drive around in. Is this one of the models that had a brake light the size of a postage stamp on the trunk lid?

How to do it...

Hi Steve, If the problem is how to rig it to make a more wormlike crawl, here's my stab at it. I just did this with a simple tube, but you get the idea... Basically he's rigged like a single leg taken off a biped and turned horizontal . The "head" bone is like the hip and the "tail" bone is like a foot and the knee makes up the middle section of the worm. An aim target keeps the hump of the worm always pointing up. This makes it so all you have to do is alternately move the head and tail and the rest of the worm takes care of itself. You can see it in this prj file in the "Crawl" action. I've set all the motion graph CPs to "zero slope" so the head and tail don't slide around between moves. I hid all the bones you don't need to animate, but you can unhide them to look at the constraints in the relationship ("Pose 1"). hope this helps! crawler10b.prj

oooooh... I wish i could do that! Great piece!

Great stuff! I like the way that showing the result is funnier than actually seeing it

Ok this is more snailish...

I'm not sure what you're trying for... is it anything like this? This is done with the duplicator wizard rather than the extruder...

Well, there are better wings to get under than mine, but now that you're animating you too (any anyone else reading this) ought to try... the Animation Showdown at digitalrendering.com (goto the "forum" to find the showdowns and read all about it.) Every week you get a new bit of classic animation action to put together in 4 hours. Then you get to see how other people solved the same problem, and if you're lucky... blistering feedback from the whiz kids!

The psychedelic outfit and the beard made me think... Ringo Starr Looking forward to seeing him move!

There's some unbelievable work happening at the Animation Showdown... not by me though; I'm coming in last every week! My entries for July: Chop (the only entry that didn't do an overhead chop) Pinch (burned up way too much time on the clam) Shiver (in retrospect, combining the knee knocking with the vertical torso motion probably wasn't realistic) You can see them on my Showdown Page.

Hey that's working very well! I've been waiting to see those guys move, I was wondering how they'd walk with such big feet and short legs.

Jumps are a great choice for animation tests. There's no end to the ways you could do them. I think the second clip works much better than the first, so you've obviously made good progress in just a couple days. The first clip didn't seem to have any 'anticipation' between him getting off the barrel and going on to the jump. The second clip fixes that. How about even more? I would move the cam to the side somewhat so we get a more interesting view of the action. Then, to get off that barrel he should lean forward to get his center of gravity over his feet before he rises. Looking forward to take 3!

That's quite good! (cue "Yakkity Sax") Somewhere Benny Hill is regretting he missed the CG age.

I enjoyed that. I like seeing what people are doing with toon rendering. I can imagine that just making the set and all the props was a lot of work. One way to get better camera angles is to draw an imaginary line across your set. Keep all your characters on one side and the camera on the other and it will be almost impossible to get a confusing view.