williamgaylord

Here is another eye test. This is a test of the full rig, based on Raf Anzovin's approach with the "lid line" control, and my own rig for controlling the size of the pupil. This is a rough cut that is runs by a bit too fast and lacks some refinements I would have added for a more important test. Marshmallow Eyes 2 I'm pretty pleased with the controls. I've tried to express puzzlement (Huh?), shock (OMG!), and abject horror (Aaaahhh!!) in rapid succession using just simple eyelids and "black dot" pupils. The idea is to get more expression with less anatomy. Let me know what you think of the design. Bill Gaylord

Me too!! These guys have a lot of appeal. Any maidens or damsels? (Oh, yah...now I remember...you do have a damsel in the mix...) Interesting asymmetry in his armored footwear. Is this second-hand armor? Nice style. I plan to experiment a bit with your face rig approach this week. Pretty darn clever, that! Bill Gaylord

That is pretty cool! Look forward to learning more about it. Most of the scripts I have lined up for the Marshmallows do not involve much dialog, if any, with one exception of a talkative french marshmallow. Most depend more on sight gags, so a simple means of lip sync like this would be great. I like the background designs. Using discarded barrels, tea pots, etc., for buildings is a nice touch. Kind of shifts the sense of scale in a humorous kind of way. Sort of like the giant Lego blocks in the evil castle of "Time Bandits". Bill Gaylord

How did you do the facial rigging and animation for the mouth movements? The Kapsules are very similar to my Marshmallows (especially since I recently simplified the mouth to match the approach on your Kapsules ). Bill Gaylord

This is your Marshmallow...This is your Marshmallow on drugs! This is a simple test of the Marshmallow's adjustable pupils. Any comments or criticisms welcome. This is an abstract way to get more expression out of very simple eyes. Marshmallow Eyes Bill Gaylord

Any opinions out there about whether or not I should give the marshmallow teeth? It might make the lip sync look more natural for certain sounds. I could perhaps use multicolored "jimmies" for teeth... Bill Gaylord

simplified the mouth following John Henderson's "Kapsules" as a guide. Much better behaved mouth mesh! Threw in a tongue. The eyes will have simple pupils that will be adjustable in size as explained in my cartoon eye tutorial. Cartoon Eye Tutorial Any comments/suggestions are welcome. Bill Gaylord

Thanks, Robert! John's Kapsule mouths are much simpler than mine and look like they behave quite well. Think I'll try something very similar. Thanks, Bill Gaylord

Need some help with the mouth. Since the mouth is a big factor in the expressiveness of the face, I want to make it one of the more "high performance" parts of the model. Here are pictures of how I've integrated the mouth. This may limit how much I can manipulate the mouth before I start getting serious kinks and creases (at least unatural creases I don't want...). If anybody has any good suggestions on how to improve the mesh in and around the mouth to improve it's smoothness when stretched and manipulated, I would greatly appreciate it! These pics should give you an idea of where five-point patches, hooks, and other potential "trouble areas" are located. Include sketches, if you can, showing how you might modify or replace what I have done. Any general advice on how to make sure the mouth mesh behaves--gamma tweaks, etc.-- will be appreciated, too. Thanks!! Bill Gaylord

Sounds like a good way to get an example posted...might try that. Bill Gaylord

Look forward to learning about special effects on this project. Lot's of potential for interesting sight gags! Any suggestions, recommendations, pointers, tutorials for special effects applications will be much appreciated. Bill Gaylord

Yet another project to keep me from getting enough sleep...but lot's of fun nonetheless. This idea for a series was one I suggested as a project for the Atlanta AM User's Group. The idea was to use marshmallows as the characters and have all sorts of horrible and hilariously funny things happen to them "by accident". We would call the series the "Marshmallow Safety Films". Being such vulnerable creations, accidents are pretty easy to come by. Colin Freeman took a first crack at modeling one of the characters while I developed several story boards. Shortly thereafter Colin had to focus the Egyptian project he was doing at IBM, and we have not gotten the group together since then. That was quite a while ago. I have just resurrected this little project, with a view to maybe getting two or three episodes done in time for a local film festival next year. I've changed the model somewhat to simplify it. Integrating the mouth into a cylindical head is a bit of a challenge. May need some help there, especially. My goal is to get a good bit of expressiveness out of just the eyes and mouth, plus gestures and body language, while keeping the model design as simple as possible. I have several storyboards worked out for the series: "Smoking can be Hazardous to Your Health." "Campfire Safety" "Hot Cocoa" "A Day at the Beach" "Home Appliances" and a horror film tribute "The Blob Invades Sugarville" Bill Gaylord

I love this character! Good job on the expressions! I noticed just a tiny flaw you might have already noticed: the lower left eyelid passes through the eyeball surface briefly during the "embarrassed" and "angry" expressions. Wonderfull expressiveness! Bill Gaylord

Yes, indeed the Euler constraint works! Here is a simple, unrefined animation of the elbow and wrist joints in action: Arm Joint Test Now I'll just have to get down to business figuring out the rest. Thanks again, Luckbat. Bill Gaylord

Euler, Euler, he's our man! Yes! Euler constraints do exactly what I wanted. Thanks, Luckbat. Are there some simple techniques for precision alignment of bones? Similar to using the "scale" function to align control points along a plane by setting the scale perpendicular to the plane to zero percent? Can you set the rotation of a bone in both global and local coordinates? Guess I should do a bit of homework and experimantation. Bill Gaylord

OK. Now it's time to rig up these guys for animation... Have you tried this with a mix of more traditional manipulation? Oddly enough, I don't want mechanical looking (linear) motion so much as just a limitation of joint movement. I want to be able to pose these guys for the most part like I would characters of a more organic ilk. I'll experiment with this technique, though. It might do the trick. Otherwise, does anybody know how to restrict the rotation of one bone relative to another to a single local axis without using a pose slider? Especially in the case of arms, I would like the freedom to manipulate them using both forward and reverse kinematics, without "breaking" the hinge nature of the joints. Thanks, Bill Gaylord

You have probably already done this, but I find editing the actual motion curves in the time window is easier when trying to tweak things (at least until you start getting a mass of "spaghetti"...). About the stride, you might keep the toe planted longer and roll the foot more off the ball of the foot before it leaves the ground and then come down on the heal at a slightly higher angle. That will also allow the knees to bend a bit more. Overall looking good. Just some relatively minor tweaks and you'll have a first class walk cycle. Bill Gaylord

OK...made the little guy a bit more "anatomically correct". He is a dog after all and will be doing typically doggy things during the script. http://wjgaylord.brinkster.net/RoboChihuahua04.jpghttp://wjgaylord.brinkster.net/RoboChihuahua05.jpg Bill Gaylord

Actually the tree animation project the brownstone comes from is a separate project. It was just a handy backdrop to use for a more interesting context. Yah, I think having the patches render with the mesh lines actually looks better than having just a mesh would have looked. Now I have to figure out how best to rig these guys so I can get them moving around! Especially the little guy! I plan to make the Robochihuahua somewhat "anatomically correct", as he will be doing distinctly "doggy" things according to the script. I'll try to keep things somewhat subtle so as not to spoil his cuteness. Bill Gaylord

Here is a picture of the two characters together: http://wjgaylord.brinkster.net/BotandChi.jpg Have more refinements to do to the Robochihuahua. Bill Gaylord

Modified the Robochihuahua to look more like a Chihuahua. Reduced the chest size, made his snout smaller, head larger, and eyes smaller, lower and more spread apart to get a more accurate Chihuahua look. Let me know what you think. http://wjgaylord.brinkster.net/RoboChihuahua03.jpghttp://wjgaylord.brinkster.net/Robochihuahua01.jpg Bill Gaylord

I'm not sure either. I think the legs might need to be shorter and a tad thicker, and the chest may be a bit large. The head might need to be a little larger compared to the body. Another thing might be the eyes. Chihuahuas tend to have round somewhat bulging eyes. But he is a robochihuahua after all--that involves some compromises. Some tweaks will improve the look, though. I live in Stone Mountain, GA and work in Atlanta. I have not obtained TSM 2 to use with AM version 11.0 yet, but plan to soon. Bill Gaylord

Yes. His waist and neck are "accordioned", like in the sketch. Tonight I may put him in a better context for showing him off. Adding control points to the ear mesh will likely work. It's likely to be very labor intensive though, involving tweaking a lot of gammas to get the curves right. I may just skip trying to make it a mesh...you wouldn't use a mesh anyway if his ears are acoustic. Oh...maybe I could just break some of the intersections? That might work, and might not involve as much tweaking. Even if that works I may not use it, since the render-as-lines seems to look more like ribbon than wire. I think the Robochihuahua will be lots of fun to animate. He'll be the source of most of the action. (I plan to make him "anatomically" correct, so he can do things you would expect the average dog to do... ). It's part of the script I have worked out so far for these two. Bill Gaylord

Thanks for the info! I'll try that shortly. Here is the RoboChihuahua as he stands so far. A few refinements left to go, but this is his essential form. Any suggestions for improvements will be appreciated. http://wjgaylord.brinkster.net/RoboChihuahua02.jpg Bill Gaylord

There is only one obvious color setting when you activate "render-as-line"--at least that I've been able to find. There has got to be a way to do this, though! May have to just add some extra control points as Biotron2000 suggested. Thanks for the suggestions. Bill Gaylord