tobinjim
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Posts posted by tobinjim
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Parlo!
Great new character -- and the other comments are right on: Instant appeal.
I have to say I like his modeled or painted hair back at the beginning better. It looked more Muppetish to me. The new hair looks like the face is a mask in front of a smaller head that actually has hair
Will you be animating him in Muppet style, using wire guide poles?
Bravo!!
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DEAR MR. SUTTON:
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THERE IS NO FEE FOR THIS SERVICE, BUT THERE IS ALSO NO WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED.
SINCERELY,
TOBIN STUDIOS
RISK MANAGEMENT TEAM
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Xtaz, what can I say that others haven't? That's really nice, and a lot of fun to see it all come together. For the next boost of "jump around the house with exhuberation" render it in DV, dump it to a DV mini-camcorder, and go watch it on your TV! Somehow that just makes it so much more "real" than watching for the 4,000th time on your computer!
If I had a 5-hour trip away from the computer planned, I might rerender with:
1) Slower camera dolly
2) Smaller leaves on those trees on the streets
3) Less of an ashen look (unless the story line is life returning to normal after the neighborhood volcano erupted a day or two ago!)
Keep up the great work! And thanks for sharing: Doing so keeps the inspiration going!
Jim
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Those are gorgeous -- from the choices of colors to the lighting and all that rich detail.
Just one question: Is she a friend of his, 'cause in that first image you posted, she ought to be worried that his arm might tire and drop that mace-thing on her head!
Show us more!
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I love it! Where'd the idea for the Xpando-matic Disco Tractor-Trailer come from? Pure genius. But is it using a percentage pose slider for narrow parking spaces?
What's up with the left side of the vest right before he kneels down and sprouts the afro?
Back to watching it some more...
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Good looking guitar, Zack! Perhaps a little definition of wood grain would give a touch of realism.
Do you think applying the decals as bump maps would give the definition you're looking for? I think it would help place the specular highlights properly.
Hi Zack,
First I should be more clear: At the top of the neck the area that is the color of puddy is what I was referring too. If that's a blonde wood, some grain there would give the detail that says "real" -- much like the simulated grain in the darker wood of the main neck facia (fret board? I'm not a musician).
A bump map wouldn't be expected, at least as far as I know. What I have seen of such guitars is that they tend to have a very high gloss finish applied and buffed to a brilliant shine. As an amatuer woodworker I can tell you that visually it's quite obvious when the shine and luster is coming from above the underlying wood, and that detail is what tells our eye we're seeing the real deal. You know from handling raw wood that it's anything but shiny, and from seeing a dining room table (ancient Pledge commercials come to mind) that "furniture" is highly polished but the wood grain is distinct below.
And while I'm on this soapbox, don't let wood grain wrap around three or more edges without significantly changing the width of the grain lines. Mother Nature doesn't do this, so you shouldn't either. In a department store, "furniture" that has veneer on it will have the same grain on the top and the sides, and the lack of end-grain is a dead give away of the quality of furniture you're buying. I'll bet a close examination of your guitar will reveal the same grain patterns.
Keep up the great work!
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Nice! Lot's of imagery there, particularly in the apple. Looked more like a magazine cover than a T-shirt design, but then out here a T-shirt is considered adorned if it says something witty like "I'm with stupid -->"
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Good looking guitar, Zack! Perhaps a little definition of wood grain would give a touch of realism.
But I do have to say it looks so perfect I'd expect to see those little styrofoam balls adhering due to static electricity... it obviously just came out of the packaging. So alongside the amp, through in the box, plastic wrap, styrofoam and the white gloves you wore unpacking it to keep finger prints off!
That way you can lay the strap on the floor because "some assembly required"
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As an aside, I am currently working on a building that I need for closeups and I made the walls one extrusion thick. This resulted in an insane number of uneeded internal patches. I may have been able to counter this prior to the initial build but by the time I noticed it, it was too late. So, I went back and added extra control points on the internal 'ladder' structure that were the walls and eliminated about 90% of the internal patches.
Wade, was adding CP's (changing internal 4-point patches to 5-point geometry) faster than just deleting the cross members? That's the technique I've been using, but am always looking for better ways. I figured by deleting splines I was speeding up load and save times as well.
Either way, I'm sure you and I have gotten very adept at "T" rotation and seeing those nasty little internal splines no matter where they hide!
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Bill,
What fun to be a voyuer on your project! Thanks for keeping us posted all along.
The SkyCast lighting to my eye is too flat. Could you add a spot light to give some better contrast, and let the SkyCast rig provide overall general lighting?
The way the leaves scale up is too obvious to those of us following along... I'd ask my wife to look at it and see if it bothers her the way it bothers me (she not having read the whole thread), but she's out right now. To be sure, actually controlling angle and size would be much more challenging than scaling a bone, but that's still what's bugging me about the animation.
Oh, a lighting question, too: Is the time-lapse meant to be real? In other words, if time is passing while those leaves and branches grow, I'd expect to see lighting changes (sun movement across the sky, cloud shadows zipping by, etc.) to enhance the realism and the sense of time passing.
Jim
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movie!... Movie!!.. MOvie!!!. MOVIE!!!!
(er, I missed the animated clip, too!)
Want to say WOW! but can't -- yet
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Okay, we now have LegoDude, and he's walking! Thanks to the folks who've helped me come to grips with the interplay of all those Action / Cycle relationships.
He's still sliding a little bit, but this is far enough along that he can begin life building the machines my son has been designing.
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Gentlemen, You are geniuses! I created a new walk Action and moved just his legs and replaced the Action shortcut in the Chor with the new walk and he's zipping right along. Will tweak for the up/down movement inherent in a hard-body and repost!
Thanks much!
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Gentlemen, You are geniuses! I created a new walk Action and moved just his legs and replaced the Action shortcut in the Chor with the new walk and he's zipping right along. Will tweak for the up/down movement inherent in a hard-body and repost!
Thanks much!
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Hmm, thanks for the insight... I probably DID move the model in the action file... I'll go back and check.
I hope you're both right... this would be so simple to fix!
<zips off to Master...>
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It does look that way, but I didn't. The only pose sliders I have are legs and arms, and I made sure I made no animation of any other bones.
There is the Model Bone, but the real guts work from my CenterOfGravity bone, to which Chest is a direct descendent, from which descend LeftArm, RightArm, LeftLeg, RightLeg, and Head.
If I observe LegoDude walk as in the first posted movie with his shortcut selected, I see that he does not walk away from the model bone.
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Hi Brain Trust!
Searching the forums for information on Walk Cycles was very helpful... Thanks to all who have contributed and explained things through "180 days and newer"
I have my LegoDude now walking, and as immensely proud of my first true character animation ever, he's feeling his toddler oats once I constrain him to a path... he literally walks away from his Model Bone! There have been other people mentioning this same sort of irradict walking behavior that I was seeing, so I created a movie of it to illustrate the behavior and ask advice on keeping bones and flesh together!
Here's his walk cycle not constrained to any path, for reference. Notice his feet don't penetrate the ground plane, due to my careful keyframing. Later, when I constrain him to a path, this careful work is negated. But what can one expect of a dude just learning to walk?
His walk cycle is 40 seconds. So in my chor I set the length of the chor to be 80 seconds and drew a path. Then I dropped LegoDude into the Chor and added a Path constraint for him to the Path1. Then I dragged the his Walk Cycle action on top of him.
I haven't played with the ease channels at all yet. Mostly I noticed very quickly this jerky forward/backward motion along the path and wondered why, until I happened to have his shortcut selected while playing through the timeline and could see him walking away from his model bone!
So, any thoughts on how to discipline this child?
TIA, Jim
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Dalemation,
Ignore those two previous posts about uniformity and hair color! That's exactly what a white haired dog bathed in orange jello looks like! Just ask my kids!
(No animals were harmed in the creation of this post)
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Legions of Legos are battling for control of the galaxy. At least, that's what my son has been dreaming about in his play time.
Some day this will all be animated.
Photoshop created the energy beams and composited the individual shots.
My daughter believes there needs to be some visible form of propulsion, even if the advanced technology that is pictured here uses invisible forces.
What do you think?
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Hi Jay,
My kids were playing with clay today, and I think the swirl texture would help people's eyes clue in to the material. It might help to take two colors of clay, squish them into a ball, then roll them out in legs and arms and see how the swirls play out.
Okay, that was my girls' way of playing. My boy tends to press clumps together, an all together different look...
Jim
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And I thought it was a disco ball that fell in Alien Song, but I guess a lunar lander does look a little like a disco ball.
You know, there's a symmetry here, just like when Dorothy's house fell on the witch...
Oh, and Vern: There can't be more debris from the lander scattered about by the big foot, because remember the lander isn't in the same space-time continuum! Silly Vern!
Jim
-- I Will Survive --
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Could the "doesn't feel right" be coming from the difference between your drawing having larger eyes than the 3d model? The smallness of the eyes has been bothering me all along. If it weren't for that, I would have asked for her phone number.
Tell you what, I'll buy you the upgrade, but I'll send it along with some lipstick for her -- the poor dear needs some color! (the entire preceding sentence is 100% joke, unfortunately!)
What are the render times like, given all those hair patches?
Jim
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Okay, figured out what I mean by eye movement being too "bug-like" (as in "Bug's Life-like"
When I try to move my eyes there is either a bit of "head follows" movement or the eyes will stutter across the motion. The eye movements in v4 seem to snap to their final destination.
Am I right that the eyebrows are adding emotion? Sometimes even moving a little independently of one another? That's way cool. Really helps add personality.
Jim
My last animations...
in Work In Progress / Sweatbox
Posted
Ernesto! Great job! Particularly loved the anticipation as the silvery character turned. Looks like he's losing his head, though... might want to have a talk with him about watching where he's going