Gerry

This was something Nancy clued me in about for my christmas animation last year. On a multipass render, the dynamic constraint is still reacting between passes, and as a result sort of cancels itself out. I believe there was a second step in addition to "Simulate Spring Systems', like you have to then turn off/disable the dynamic constraint? Something like that. Someone else will chime in here.

Dude, you're hired!

Well, there's no decaling as yet. I have an iris decal but every time I loaded the prj I had to relocate it manually, so I deleted it for the time being. As for the Gmen kicking higher, I was getting some funny behavior in the legs when I did, but I may just need to get more familiar with the controls. Once I have Annie fully decaled I think she'll look a little nicer. Like having eyebrows, for instance. I think that horizontal line is an artifact from an unintended alpha channel, so that will go away. Thanks for the comments!

Here are two tests, one of a first stab at a dance routine for the G-men, very simple and a little spastic. Second is a first test of Annie all rigged, just trying out the face controls. Holmes was an enormous help with the rigging. GingerDanceTest_h264.mov AnnieRigTest_h264.mov

That may be part of it, I'll check over all the boolean objects. The odd thing is that with the first G-man, there's an artifact for one frame, then it goes away. And the others, the artifacts change when the G-men do their little jumps. When I had a problem with booleans two years ago, I found that with a different camera (or cam angle) the artifacts changed or went away entirely.

Yeah, the artifacts come and go. this is just a test so I'll see when the actual shot is set up how much I have to deal with. Maybe they won't even appear if it's at a different angle. EDIT: heck, I may just rerender this test with a different camera. You never know what will effect artifacts like these.

Here's a test render of all three G-men getting their bites. It appears all three boolean cutters are leaving artifacts. I may just deal with that in post if they're still visible. In the final animation they'll only be on screen for an instant. I noticed in an earlier test that having hooks in the boolean objects caused artifacts like these, only worse. So I'm making progress. Three_bite_test_h264.mov

Good suggestion Ken. As I'm working on these G-men (I'm gettin tired of typing out, y'know...) I just KNOW when folks see it finished they'll want to know why their faces aren't animated!

Here's a final quality still from the sequence. I do like those soft reflections on the stage!

Well if there's a question about it working, it would be easier to Save As... and have three versions of the action. I don't anticipate the settings changing much at all and the test I did the other day seems to be optimal, so it's not hugely complex, just trying to save steps and get familiar with different uses for actions at the same time. Here's a test of the "kickline" though the G-men aren't rigged yet. this is just to set up the lighting etc. The spinning plates re-use two actions, one a clockwise spin and one counterclockwise. Shot_6_test_h264.mov

Actually an additional consideration is that the sprite emitter is shaped and located differently in each model. But the material is the same, and I want each instance to behave the same, same timeline and birth/death rate, all settings the same. I'm assuming that since the action acts on the material and not the physical location of it, the same action would function for all instances. Does that sound correct?

Sorry , that's what I meant, that I could just edit the action to affect all instances of it.

I've got these three gingerbread men models, each with a slightly different boolean cutter for the biting-off bit. Then the sprite emitters spit out a brief spurt of crumbs. My question is, can I create an action for the sprite emitter settings, then just drop it onto each model at the point it's needed? then to tweak the settings I would just have to edit the action. Am I right about this?

Yeah, that's something to think about.

Yes, the files are 100% compatible. I'm currently working on a Christmas animation for the company I work for, and I work on the files on a pc at work, then bring them home at night and continue working on my Mac. There are some quirks in the Mac version interface, which have come up here on the forums in the past, but there are good workarounds for all of them.

That is a super generous offer Holmes. I believe I have a version I can send.

One other question: was it a mistake to model her mouth slightly open? Can I adjust the jaw pose slider to be able to close her mouth or is there a better way to adjust it?

Here's a before and after of what happens to the eyes. Top is from the modeling window. Bottom is from a chor with constraints on. Just discovered that in a chor the eyes return to normal when constraints are turned off. I suppose I was testing it in an action before. So the problem isn't as pronounced as I thought it was. EDIT: ignore those non-rendering eye patches.

thanks Holmes I will give that a go tonight or tomorrow. the comment about the mesh not moving was prior to that render, everything now moves that should move. the inner corners of the eyes is another matter. After my last post I looked at it again, and tested turning the constraints on and off. Each time I did so, the mesh at the inner corners of the eyes deformed further. I would have expected the mesh to return to its original place with constraints off, but it was exactly the opposite. As for properly weighting the left mouth that I overlooked, do I turn off constraints before working on this? Are there any considerations or special steps I should know about?

I have a version of the Santa model I tweaked for my Christmas animation two years ago, put a human head on him, etc. the head's not rigged but could be. I didn't include him in the Christmas models I posted on Contributor's Cue because it wasn't original with me. However, it rendered without the glow, and if I can post it here anyone who wants to can use it. I know that doesn't solve the present problem. but let me know and i'll post it.

Holmes, here's a quick and dirty face test showing some of the fine tuning I need to work on. When I turn on the constraints, the mesh jumps at the inner eye corners, and at the mouth corners. Watching this i realized I forgot to weight the mouth on her right side, so that accounts for some of what you see. Also the eyes don't close completely and close funny at the inner corners as well. The top and bottom lids meet midway, but is there a way to have the upper lids close completely if needed? So my question at this point is, what's the best process for tweaks of this nature? Do I turn off constraints to do additional cp weighting? If so, which ones? thanks for your help so far, and if I can provide further movies or screenshots, let me know! Anniefacetest_h264.mov

Nice looking model! Stick around, everyone here is super helpful.

He looks 'lit'! Smell his breath.

I worked my way through your instructions and I've run into these small probs: When I turn on the face constraints and mouth corner constraints, the mesh jumps a bit, enough that I would need to continue tweaking the cp weighting (I guess) but it seems this should be done with the constraints off, so I don't know how to go about this exactly. The other thing is that in the exported model the mesh doesn't move with the bones although they are all assigned and weighted. This is probaly a simple thing I'm overlooking. Maybe you could shed some light. the weighting tutorial is excellent by the way! I learned a ton from it.

Edit: redid this shot, made it longer and incorporated what was to have been a separate closeup shot. Shot1_2Combo_v3_h264.mov