robcat2075

A complex rig, I'm not familiar with it yet, but here are four things i notice in my initial look... -when lifting the heel (IK foot), the toe doesn't appear to stay put. Part of it may be because the origin of that controller is rather unanatomically too far forward. -moving the shoulder bones seems to stretch the skin between the elbow and shoulder but doesn't seem to take the arm with it in a natural fashion -rotating the hips on Y causes the IK feet to roll. The IK feet really should stay put. -When I rotate the hand on Z the mesh twisting is all happening above the elbow, rather than inthe forearm where it normally occurs.

That was cute. I wanted to frame thru it to diagnose some things but I dont have a player that can single frame a divx avi. The best practice for this sort of test is to do it in quicktime and with a regular quicktime codec. That would be Sorenson 3. the slight additional compression of a 3rd party codec is lost if someone can't actually watch it. I do have divx installed, but divx quicktimes still don't play. For your next test.

Something like this: -place a null where a foot has been planted -measure the distance a footplant has moved relative to the body as the body leaves it behind -test if it has reached a certain limit -at, say 90% of that limit, start moving the foot forward to it's original position relative to the body -at 100% finish moving the foot forward -reset the null to the new footplant location -back to step 2

it won't be enough for the waves to reduce their height inthe distance, they would need to scale in all dimensions. One trick I saw in an old 3D book was to make the plane hi density in the foreground and low density farther out. Use hooks to reduce the density of your mesh. the last few patches could be stretched WAY out to the horizon.

First thing I notice... the horizon isn't flat. Unless we're looking at the top of a huge wave and not the horizon, the horizon will be flat because it's so far away that the height of any waves on it will be negligible. But the water looks great!

you could use the same fan bone for several CPs if they all are intended to have the same percentage of the target bone's motion. The fan bone doesn't necessarily have to point at a CP. In fact, when you use offsets it could point just about anywhere and get the same result.

I'm not sure I follow? Are you saying to use the rotate manipulator when you are trying to create an animation vs just moving the bone pivots? Yes, using the rotate manipulator assures you are moving the bone on the desired axis and not being fooled by the prespective of the viewing angle you happen to have at the moment. Professional animators (the one's who have to get it right) almost always use the rotate manipulators and crane those bones one axis at at time. That's a lot of fan bones, does each one really have a different enforcement percentage? Try closing and re-opening?

What's the difference in the way the two are casting light that prevented you from just using one "reddish" light? Looks great! I hope you'll be able to do some lighting on "Tin Woodsman of Oz"!

You were Renfield? (imagining you eating a bug) I wish I coulda seen that!

Were they greenscreened? Looks like a very fuzzy edge.

I think that's an unnecessary constraint. If you always use the rotate manipulator to rotate bones you never have to worry about it going at an undesired angle. How about just animate the bone up and down and it won't move side to side?

Long time, no see, Grubber! - I wouldn't constrain the camera to the character as it appears it is here. It negates much of his motion. --when he lifts one leg he doesnn't really accomodate it by shifting his weight. - when he lands on his hands after the flip, his arms hardly give at all even though they're bent and probably couldn't take that weight. - when he does the flying kick his leg stops in mid-air then starts moving again - think the lunge into the sideways hand stand has the best weight to it in this clip, but I think he culd do even more crouch into that jump. - on the kicks he doesn't seem to be counter balancing himself adequately.

Everything David said and... I've noticed that if I have been testing something out in an action, then go back to a relationship window to add a constraint, the new elements will sometimes get added to the action (I can see them appearing in the PWS) not the relationship, even though I'm not working in the action window. close all the action and relationship windows, then right-click on the relationship in the PWS and select "Edit Relationship" I always watch the realtionship in the PWS to make sure it's aware of what I'm doing.

People often say they want solid Comment & Criticism... I was referring to the unruly behavior of the characters

Not sure that any of this applies, but... First, did you try saving, exiting, and re-opening the project? I often find that the last constraint I've added doesn't kick in until I've done that. Also, you're doing testing in the original pose? Do your testing in a separate "action."

tough group!

Wunderbar! Sehr schöne Animation!

Those look real good!

Aw, you can tell it's cg because it has that same plastic look all over. No, really, that looks great! I guess the next step is to get them to make those in flexible plastic with an armature inside so you could animate it. What's a "box modeler"? Care to reveal the cost of a one-off model?

I've been playing around with squetchy Thom some more... The squetch controls on the head are very interesting. Thom only has two spine segments so I'm wondering what the provision is for characters that have more. Also, the heel raiser is just raising the rear stub of the foot. Really, the heel would include everything that is not the "toe". So when the heel is raised that would affect the leg bones above it.

I like that. A great rig test.

Cigar Wars, eh? Good looking bag!

If forcing a key on just certain bones is the issue ( not sure I read it right) you can CTRL-select any arbitrary set of bones in the PWS and force a key on them. If the bones had some clever naming convention they could be easily found with the selection filter (tiny triangle at top of PWS)

Congratulations, Zach!

Today Germany... tomorrow Hollywood!