williamgaylord

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. 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: 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. 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. 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

Does anyone know how to make a mesh render as only lines, with no patches showing? Below are the ears of the robochihuahua, which I want to appear as though they were wire mesh screens. Anybody know how to fix this? (I've changed the color and contrast to make the details show up better.) Bill Gaylord

I built him from scratch. I use the DarkSim Simbiont plugin for AM to get the corroded copper look. It is a free plugin you can download from the DarkSim Web site: http://www.darksim.com/ . There are a number of free "darktrees" you can download from the site as well, including a number of metalic textures. These textures are procedural and are calculated in volume space and mapped onto the model surface as it intersects the space...they are a bit computationally intensive, but they result in some very interesting textures. They also sometimes have aliasing issues on long views, but for relatively close-up scenes they are fabulous! Pretty clever folks at Darkling Simulations! Bill Gaylord

Dang it! I misspelled GeezerBot on the title. (That's interesting...the spell checker didn't catch that one! ) Oh, well. Here is a quick doodle I did during a break from working the Dragon Con art show in Atlanta. This is an idea I had for the GeezerBot's companion, which I plan to model soon. He's basically a robochihuahua. Bill Gaylord

I'm dusting off a project I've neglected for over a year. I want to rig him up for animation, but need a somewhat simplefied or restricted motion given how he is constructed. His knee and elbow joints need to rotate about a single local axis as they are simple hinge joints. Anybody know how to restrict the movement accordingly? Same goes for the "toe" joints on his feet and most of the finger joints. Oh, yah...he also only swivels around one axis at his waist as well. All the other joints are ball and socket joints, so they can have a very wide freedom of movement accordingly. This "poses" (pardon the pun) a challenge if you want to use a labor saver like The Setup Machine. There is no spine to speak of, which is the main challenge. This may be an opportunity to learn more about such rigs. I do want to be able to smoothly vary between forward and reverse kinematics in the arms and I want the typical null targets that make animating the legs easier, too. Any suggestions? I have Raf Anzovin's "Dem Bones" tutorials, which are very helpful, but take a bit of time to digest. I have used both the Anzovin TSM rig and the AM 2001 rig. Any updated tutorials on constraint setups for such rigs? Bill Gaylord

Wonderful work William! And thanks for being so generous as to share it with all of us! More constructive criticism (understandably far more easily said than done of course....). I think slowing him down, giving him more of a swinging gait would really help the feel of the animation. Also a very low view looking up from the base of one of the pillars (with the pillar base close up in the periphery) as the balrog walks by would also help. Also reducing the ambient light to a very low level, so the Balrog is essentially the only light source would give it more of an ominous feel, too. (Can the spriticles cast light onto other objects? Or do you need to simulate this with another source of light?...this also may be much easier said than done.) This is offered from someone who has greatly admired your work and has drawn much inspiration from it all! And one who has also greatly benefited from your helpful postings on the Forum. Here's a combination that might work well in the scary vein...put Collin Freeman's boy into the picture with the Balrog! That could make for a scary, suspensful nightmare scene! Would add a sense of scale, too. On a tangent, it might actually be a fun challenge to make a giant Thom animation don't you think? Sincerely, Bill Gaylord

I remember that character! This guy really has you wondering, "Is he dangerous or just plain weird?" Your character design and animation really have the weird dial set to "high". Love it! Bill Gaylord

Outstanding artwork. Are you doing the expressions by "hand" with the modeling tools? If so, wait 'til you learn how to rig the face for animation! Then you'll really begin to see where AM excels. Outstanding work so far. The ears are some of the best formed I've ever seen. (I notice ear details because I build my own dummy head binaural microphones--the ears are a very critical part.) Bill Gaylord

Really look forward to seeing this story develop. These capsules are "easy to swallow". Amazing amount of personality in such a simple design. Love it! I can imagine these little guys and gals in all kinds of situations... ..."Can you hear me, Major Tom?"...(space capsule)... ...How many capsules can you fit in a phone booth?... ...Dr. Who?...(time capsule)... ...the rock band Kiss...encapsulated... and the list goes on, ad nauseum... ...my apologies... At any rate, I love these little guys! Bill Gaylord

Intriguing design for the centaur! Bill Gaylord

That was great! Inspiring even! No need to be shy about it. Thanks for sharing it with us. Reminds me that I need to work on logos for two of my little company's registered trade-marks: Art-Techo and Arty-Joke Productions. Bill Gaylord

Very expressive face! Nicely done! Will he get a body to go with it? Is he perhaps an "air head"?... Bill Gaylord

This is somewhat of a trial and error process. I'm not happy with the density of branches near the trunk. I'm going to reduce the number of main branches and add more of the short secondary branches. This should give me a much better looking tree form. I'm also not happy with the uniformity of the arrangement. Doesn't have the aesthetic appeal I want. I'm going to arrange the branches less uniformly to give it a more natural look. More of a bunching of branches and leaves here and there, with some more space between "bunches". One reason this project is taking so long is the number of "rehearsals" it's taking to optimize the look vs. performance. The number of things to tweak each time is pretty huge. Definitely not an efficient workflow sort of thing at this point. That would take a software utility to build it for you, with some nice features to allow you to tweak it efficiently. I think I'm really pushing AM's limits in terms of the sheer number of constraints and relationships involved. Some of the branches are loosing their texturing during the camera rendering. And this is only one tree... May have to send another sample to Hash to figure out what's happening and fix it. Bill Gaylord

This is looking really good! It will be interesting to see this thing moves once it's rigged. Will you maybe add something extra to the webbing to get it to billow when he/she swims? (We need a new smiley with round eyes and a jaw drop! These eyes: ; and this mouth, only more exaggerated: .) Bill Gaylord

Here is a complete tree. Need to tweak the branch positions near the crown, but this should give you an idea of what to expect. Leaf coverage looks good. Leaf clusters are a bit too similar, but I don't think I'll go back and tweak the several hundred clusters again. More realistic lighting with substantial diffuse lighting should bring out the leaves that are farther in, giving it a more natural look. This lighting is not very good. A bit too dark a rendering, too. I may try rendering an animation. Stay tuned for more exciting developments... Bill Gaylord

I'd like to introduce the human cast of this production: Meet our tree planters, Missy and her brother Kenny. These are graciously being provided by Frank Hulsey, AKA Iham Wrong. He is refining these character models while I focus on the trees and the set. I really look forward to animating these two! Bill Gaylord