robcat2075

Ask him here! I love reading this sort of nuts and bolts animation stuff.

A fine lookin' roach. He looks like he's been polishing his exoskeleton. I should do mine more often.

That's a ton of robots! Reminds me of the SNL sketch where senior citizens were buying robot insurance. They look quite promising. I look forward to seeing them crush , kill and destroy!

Great Gnome! Very thin and scandinavian looking. I have relatives like that. Yeah, the first thing I noticed was the beard. "How's he ever going to animate that?"

Another frantic stab at the digitalrendering.com four-hour animation showdown Last night's topic was "Dance." Had grander visions but... oh well <_> The soundloop by "DrLoop" was from Flashkit.com 234KB QT Sorenson3 dance.mov

Interesting logo treatment. How about if the laser beam were brighter? It does have a glow to it but the core seems too dark for something that hot.

Fine work! It's wonderful to see a great character step out of the modeling window and stretch his legs.

Ha! That's very amusing! I might swing the hands a little bit less, and tilt them out (with palms down) for that "i'm trying to be elegant" look. Like Thurston Howell doing Ginger Grant.

Looks cool! I think the wings would need to beat through a more substantial and vigorous range of motion to get that creature off the ground. Fantasia has some neat pegasuses in it.

Thanks for the positive feedback, guys! I was pleased with how this one turned out. I'm still a novice though and I'm afraid some of the best things about that clip were happy accidents while messing with the channels. I'll note those and keep them in mind for future outings. I'm sweatin' to make it! Getting anything done in a reasonable amount of time wouldn't be feasible without a good rig, which in this case is the Anzovin TSM rig. I like it because it makes it makes classic contrapposto poses easier to construct. Brought to you by A:M Dynamic Constraints!

My entry in last night's four-hour animation showdown at digitalrendering.com. The topic was "a rough landing." (QT Sorenson3 143KB) rough_landing320.mov

Great looking Stuff! That bump map reminds me of the grandfather in Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Crazy people never know they are crazy. However, I did DL your project and see the same problem you do... I can advance to any frame then step back and the particles won't be positioned in the same way they had been before. Upon stepping back the smoke things seem to take on a more orderly, circular arrangement as if a turbulence was being omitted. Just a guess. I don't think this is the way it's supposed to work; particles are supposed animate the same no matter where you jump into your animation. If that's not true then rendering in passes for compositing purposes would be a hopeless technique in A:M, no? If you need to get this sequence rendered quickly in one "take", how about a 4-pass "multipass" render. I got 640x480 frames in about 35 seconds each that way and they didnt' look bad. There was detectable aliasing only on the ship itself and since it's crashing into the ground... who's going to notice? This is a neat looking shot you're putting together. Since you've got it all zipped up, you might as well ask the Hash folks about it. Either there's an A:M reason it's doing this, or it's misbehavior that needs to be corrected.

Thanks, Alonso. #7 was great, I think I voted for it! I'm impressed at how well the others do too... even without Animation:Master.

I tried running A:M in the background and did the first 60 even frames at 320x240. Render times went from 4 mins at start to 40 mins at end. It's quite a globulous liquid! It sort of resembles oil in water. (QT Sorenson3 123KB) water30.mov

My stab at last nights Animation Showdown. Actually the topic was "Cat Burglar! steal something valuable" but I was trying to do this in some way that didn't call on the ghost of Preston Blair. Again, some of the other entries were knock-outs, far above my results. QT Sorenson3 287KB steal_something_valuable.mov

I really love the fact that you've found a way to use A:M that doesn't involve starcruisers, dragons or double D's.

Hey looks neat! I saw two facets flicker out just briefly but otherwise it looks like the transition to Flash went well.

Hey cool! That looks like hip, now, happening stuff. Was there some sort of display situation that prompted the unusual aspect ratio?

BTW, all i get in your .mov's is one still frame. Is it supposed to be just one frame?

They look quite promising! how about a fold in his chin (a double chin) to give it some detail? It looks like there's a bulge between his upper lip and nose?... that looks a little odd. But they look like real animation characters!

Hmmm, I missed that part of the question the first time.... as far as the finger bones... you have to unhide them in the AM 2001 rig and associate CPs with them, much like you do for the arm and leg bones. exercise 3 has a section on making the hands work. I'm presuming the rig in that Rabbit is the same as the AM 2001 rig. I've been using the Anzovin rig so I admit I haven't really messed with the standard AM rig.

He's alive! I think its a good first outing. I'm not a walk expert, I'm still wrangling with 'em. but... During the brief point where we can see him head-on the effect is somewhat robotic because he's not shifting his weight from side to side as he's being supported by one foot at a time. We very rarely balance ourselves evenly on two feet. And it's impossible when you're only on one foot. The side view doesn't make it as obvious. in most casual walks the motion of the hands and arms will lag behind the shoulders by a few frames. i also think doing the arms in FK instead of IK will get more natural results in walk situations. The hard part of walk cycles is getting the end frame to match up with the first frame. yeah I know... copy keyframes and paste and all that... but you also have to get the slopes of the drivers at the beginning and end to resemble each other too. Actually I think walks are a rather complicated first exercise. A super hero like this would do well to start with a big broad jump and landing. "Up up and away... to pi r squared and beyond" and all that...

Hey, thanks! Yeah, there's lots of room for improvement. Original plan was to have him slip and fall backwards after lifting Thom, but... tick-tock and all that. I'd like to get to the point where I can put something like this together in two hours and use the last two to review it and tweak it. But right now I sit down and four hours later it's "huh?... wha?" I went to the DivX's mouth and yes, there does seem to be mention of an alpha encoder app for OSX. I generally hate weirdo codecs, but it does encode small. I wonder how it compares with the "pro" version of Sorenson? Seismic cultural events like the Super Bowl can shift the schedule by a day, but usually wednesday is it. You can start anytime on Wednesday though, morning, noon or night.

Too general? Exercise 13 "Show some backbone" is all about putting a skeleton in a biped character, just like yours is. nice character, it oughta work well with that rig.