robcat2075

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.

How about somewhat bigger eyes? "The better to peer at things, my dear" Since they have no pupils, will they slide around on that flat area to indicate direction? That would be novel, we don't see much of that in 3D.

HA! I think I voted for that one! I rather liked it. I appreciated it's brevity compared to others in the field. And while the motion wasn't perfect, it didn't have that stiff, robotic feel that we see too much of. Reasons it may not have gotten more votes...(and I'm just guessing)... -Even though it's an "animation" contest, i suspect many votes are cast based on visual complexity of the models and textures. -It wasn't clearly on topic ("mad"). True of other entries as well. -The camerawork (I'm really digging here) could have been clearer. For one thing, I think it needed a wider establishing shot at the beginning. We don't see the whole caveman until the sixth shot. -Something else? We really have no idea what people are basing their vote on. They just vote.

Hey, that moves wonderfully well! How much time was the "spare-time"?

Lotta great stuff there! Two notes: -I still think you gotta hide that "11" until he actually goes for it. The punchline is being given away too soon right now. Redesigning the way the dial shows the numbers would be the easiest fix. -the ground plane looks too much like a squished decal at the low angeles. Maybe a displacement map to roughen it up a little?

Getting those edges highlighted really helped. How about a roach clip, an ashtray and an empty 20/20 bottle?

Perhaps a more cinematic treatment... Long Shot: GreenGuy sees dinosaur Close Up: GreenGuy's reaction of disgust and beginning to walk Long Shot: GreenGuy walking up to dinosaur. Doing everything in long shot can leave the audience looking around the frame at something other than the detail you want them to notice.

And just how active would you be if you been hanging by the neck since Scene 8? Hey, wait a sec... how did Pinky get out of jail and into Peking Duck's Lair?!?! The idea of Pinky turning out to be a "he" has potential, however.

That looks quite promising. Developing toon rendered characters that actually look like cartoons and not like 3D models with a black line around them has been a back burner interest of mine. I'm finding it's quite challenging, because 2D animators would often "cheat" the shape and placement of features from one angle to another, for maximum visual effect. *Especially* the mouths on 50s-60s era characters like Tony the Tiger. Consider the almost Picasso-esque treatment of the mouth in this Fred Flintstone model sheet. Note also the traveling part in his hair. It is very difficult to make a 3D mesh of a 2D character that is "on model" at every possible angle. But I know you can do it!

Spiffy weapon! I was actually trying to model something of that vintage a few days ago; wish i'd seen yours first. Think how much lower the murder rate would be if people still had to load their own powder and adjust their own flints before every shot!

I've updated my site with my last three misfires from digitalrendering.com's Animation Showdown, the four-hour animation race: Who's at the Door? I never quite got the rhythm of this one right. Doing more leading with the hips might have made it less floaty. Hug. The moderator warned that doing this with two characters would be too hard. Turns out he was right! Crawl. Why he didn't just step over that thing? These versions are re-rendered for better lighting. See them on my Showdown page.

Hey, that's a spiffy spot! If you have the rights to the music secured you should enter that in some video festivals. They love pieces like that. Dallas Video Festival Some German Festival -I thought the assembly line segment near the beginning needed a bit more rhythmic action to fit with the music. Something on every downbeat.

Great action editing! One of the rare ZachBG films where no one gets squashed. Not on screen anyway.

That's quite spiffy looking! Now... how about a guy to play it?