Shelton

Thank you Rodney for the kind words. What David has done with the squetch rig, in regards to the face rig is incredible. Really for the whole rig is incredible. What Mark demonstrated with his face rig was, well, wow! Holmes' face rig was totally cool as you were in control to add to it. What i have found is no matter how much i wanted to get away from bones in the face, there is nothing better to give the beautiful motion as the bones do. That being said, the poses created with muscle mode and smart skin in combination with a bone is pretty awesome too. So some of the poses are bone based and some are strictly muscle mode poses. what i am doing is installing the rig in laurie with the poses already created. I will then create a smart skin based on a bone and then transfer the relationship into laurie. On the stand alone face i am creating a rig with a bone and a null with all the poses in place and with the relationship created. Hopefully this will work. Then actually move the mesh or the bone according to to the relationship. I have window for a couple weeks as Chris will be out of pocket for a few days. I did a quick render here and wanted to show that I put a rotate around the head on the face cam of the face rig. I positioned the base at 0 and that allows the face cam to rotate around the head to give different angles rather than move a camera in or add another camera for the angle shots. Others may have done this and it might be old news but I thought it was cool.

I want to compliment David Simmons, Mark Skodacek, Mack Chappelle, Holmes Bryant and anyone else that has created a rig for our use. Working on just a small face rig for my characters I have found that a lot of work and planning have gone into all the rigs. I also want to say thank you!! David I have so many questions on the face rig. I have answered a lot by digging into your face interface or by trial and error. If you have time you can email me at steves at desdyninc dot biz. I am trying to create the rig based on face poses and activate those poses with the nulls, and thank you for excellent instructions, plus bone movement. There are some other areas that I need help on to finish up this process. I can see this will be a ongoing process as I have found that I think I am about done and then I want to add one more thing ...... Steve

Yes Rodney the one at the top is for moving and sizing of the face rig of the bones, nulls, and geometry Steve

Thank you Nancy. I will have labeled and connected tonight.

Thanks Gerald.

Here is a screen shot of where I am at now. The face rig is built so I can import the base to the individual models. Steve

Still having issues with the geometry. I will do something like you did as far as the nulls and bones worked like a charm!!! Steve I will post a shot later tomorrow

OMG, how is that David. Wow, I was killing myself and there was the answer So Easy Thank you.

David Now I have the face and nulls and set up ready to install on the model. I have created a pose slider 0 and 1 to hide all the bones, nulls and cps/mesh.. O = On for hidden 1 = Off for visible Questions: 1. I can get the face bone to hide in the relationship, but how do I create another key in the relationship to turn off hidden. How do I add all the bones and nulls into the relationship? It states add bones but when I select the option nothing happens. 2. Also, all the mesh items for the face rig will need to be hidden as well. I have grouped all the cp as face and if expand drivers to see the groups the only thing I see is transperancy. I want to hide them. Will all the mesh items hide since I have them tied to the face rig bone? Am I asking the right questions? Steve

David i also noticed in the tools that mirror mode was set back to 0 in modeling dialog box.

Thanks David I had forgotten the control key, but, well, like I said mush. I created a face outline and placed the nulls on it for my rig. Now one more question, When rendering, the group of mesh and labels need to be hidden. On your face rig how do you keep all the items from rendering? Your pose slider for the face interface turns them on and off, and does the split system. Do you just make sure it is off before rendering? I cant remember Steve

Ok next question and it should be an easy one. I have been working on a face rig that will lay ontop of the model. I have nulls that will be driving the pose sliders and bones. I have a master bone on the rig in which all the nulls and controls are children of. I can move all the bones and nulls to the correct location and scale accordingly. However, the mesh and labels are not moving. My mind is a mush bowl and can not think of how to get both to move together.

Ohhhhh. I think i got it now. I will try that this evening. Thank you sir!

David Simmons, back in August you showed me how to link a null to a smart skin. I am not getting it. I know you are busy but I still could use some help Steve

This program still amazes me. I have applied the apron to Laurie and cp weighted 80% and smart skinned 20%. We have set a pose to turn the apron on and off and everything works. Here is a shot Laurie admiring her new ring.

I was looking for Kat's area and i dont see it. Anyone else

Here is the one of the main stars of PapaFixIt. The talking toolbox and her domicile

Thank you Robert Over the weekend I found a treasure trove of all my past projects. I lost a server in 2009 and I thought all these items were lost. I had made a back up on my wife's WD passport. Now I have access to characters I created from 2006 when I started in AM to 2009. I am still missing a few items but was excited when I found this folder. This is from a children's video I animated for called Papa FixIt. It was my first paying gig in the realm of character creation and animation. The characters were crude and I would have not have made it without the help of David Simmons. He rigged three of the characters for me! I created the background in Vue 4 and all the foreground in AM. I had two sets the tool shed and farm house and the field where the fence was being built. With that I created a dog, a cow, a horse, a talking pencil, and the main character a talking tool box. All the things in the tool shed and all the things in a tool box were created in AM. This was before Handy Manny, not saying they copied Papa Fixit, but I finished the video first The video was a thirty minute live action all filmed in front of a green screen with my animated characters interacting with the live characters. I said it was a paying gig, Well, I think I calculated one time all the cost in being the animation department for the the video and I think I got paid 1.65 an hour. The sad deal it was a good idea of a project and if the producer would have let me finished it would have been alot nicer. I actually had all the animations in block mode / pass when he stated it was good enough for what they were doing. It is still hard for me to watch the video today knowing all the issues. We tested with kids from 5-9 in age and was received well. Lowe's and Home Depot agreed to carry it in their stores but due to some legal issues they wanted some parts refilmed. The producer decided to sale it on the internet and maybe sold 500 copies. Here is Papa's Pencil from 2006 Steve

John I know i have seen the procedures on how to make feathers but do you have ptoject you could show? Steve

Found this while cleaning up the Drive. After the coffee shop I will begin to work back on Cupid One with the shield for Aries

You did a great job of putting him together. Were you able to use him throughout the classes?

Was that the character you created in AM or is that the rig from Animation Mentor. Very nice by the way

I have a copy and I am currently looking for it! thanks Steve

Excellent, once i finish this installation i will move on from this to finalizing the face rig/puesdo face rig! Thanks Robert

Thanks Robert. I had discussed with Chris on Tuesday about that very issue