Shelton

Now that we are back I hope that I will get Cupid’s wings finished

Face rigging is in and now it is onto the wings again. I started with a premise as the wings are more like another set of arms. So I rigging them that way for now. Robert thinks each one of the geometry feathers will have to have a bone. I have completely reworked the jaw and lips. I have also modeled new teeth, mouth and tongue. When I created the model many years ago I found I had a mesh within the mesh. I could not separate the two around the teeth and mouth and lips. So I deleted them and started over. I have weighted the entire body and face and the last thing to weight is the jaw and the neck. Then it will be off to finalize the shorts and decal his face and body and Cupid will be ready!

Holmes Bryant did a lite face rig located here . David Simmons has a face rig in the Squetch Rig. I built a face rig but never published it as it got so complicated. Barry Zundel completed his face rig with poses. I use poses and and bones to complete the face rig I need for the individual characters. I hate to be vague but I do the minimal that is needed to accomplish the desired affect.,. So for Cupid he will have a great deal of camera shots so I want a lot of control over the face. while other background characters may have only brow movement or smile. so I may only do that in a pose. Saturday at 12 noon cst, Live answer time has helped me a great deal. Robert does a great job of hosting and answering questions such as yours. I plan to be there this saturday. here is the link.

I have been going through all the old models and I have noticed how some of them have held up while others, well, are not very good. Cupid is one I am pleased with and the rig is in and now rigging the face. Here is an action shot of cupid.

I have been busy working on a project and have not uploaded anything in a year in this year. That project is nearing completion and with the my retirement after 35 years of work I will have more time for the things I love. I built this character 11 years ago. A lot has happened in those 11 years. I was never happy with the geometry of the PM's face. So this past weekend I completely re did the head, shoulders bicep, and stomach areas. Here is a quick rendering of the PM2. I have included a new wire frame as well. The old PM was rigged with the 2008 rig by Mark. I am rigging the new PM2 with a cross of Zundel-TSM2-Robert Holmen-Steve Shelton rig with a little bit of the Saucy Rig. I have the geometry in and now completing the control portion and will work on the poses. I hope to have him finished in the near future.

I really enjoyed the video. Your concept was well thought out and I enjoyed the look of how you composed the animation. Thank you for posting.

I talked many times with Gene. He was always willing to try something new. When I would think something was too hard, Gene would find a way to get it done. I am very sad to hear of his passing. I know he is free from the constraints his body had on him. Rest in peace Gene.

That is awesome. Excellent.

Nicely done.

Thanks for doing this

Here it is 10 days later and work has been full blown. In fact, I just stopped working about 1 hour ago. So i thought it was time to back with the new guy. Here is a shot of the render front and side. I have done some polishing of the mesh. and started rigging just a few minutes ago.

The last three weeks has placed me in a funk that has been difficult to get out. WE are bombarded every day with bad news after bad news. In the last week I have decided that I will break out of this funk. One thing I have always done when I am down is to create something. Weather it is art work, models, model railroad, wood working items or even something with AM, it allows me to focus on what every I am doing and get away from all the news. We received some good news this week as our tests came back negative. Even though we have been sick the news lifted our spirits. I decided to create a character that has a "Jay Leno Chin". I wanted the character to be one that was once in good shape but has let himself go a little. One whose upper body was bigger than the larger for design style and the face is happy but that has some features that will allow for "large" facial expressions. I really wanted to concentrate on the shoulder area as I have always had issues on deformation. I decided to model the character with the arms extended down in the first position to see to rotation. Most of the character design wishes I had in my head are coming out. I still have a few things to tweak, but I am happy so far with the results. Anyway here is the New Guy

I like this idea.

I love the sparseness of the scene. The use of 1/3 screen of the the placement of the character is fabulous. The lighting is spot on. I did like the more orange shot you showed Tuesday. Great work

In the technical manual, it states while in the chor, we can be looking through the camera view and hold down the shift or control key and move the mouse to change the camera view. Has this been disabled or is there something I am missing? Needless to say I can not get this to work Steve Edit Center mouse key plus either control or shift got it. Sorry

Amd dropped support for Win 10 and the 5450. I believe the lowest gpu is the 6450 for support in win 10. I have a 6950 and the catalyst driver crashes. so I pulled the card and got a nvidia low end card. I know its a laptop so there is no pulling the gpu. Some folks found drivers by individual support groups. You might have to check there.

Is there a way to copy a relationship from model to model?

I have been wanting to get back to several ideas I have had. So yesterday I pulled up several character models created in ver 18 or 19. I am running the current version of AM and all the groomed hair was sticking straight up. Opened the model in 18 and it is fine. in version 19j1 the hair guides are groomed but the hair is sticking straight up. Also, all the maps either png or tga were no longer alpha channeled. I had several maps with color and bump maps. Has anyone else opened a previously created model with the hair issues?

Merry Christmas to you!! Thank you for all you do!

I just saw this! Very cool!

I have a question that I have just begun to notice. I have applied ver 19j and now each time I save a project I have a new set of folders for each save. Each save has several sub folder. The main folder is titled the name of the project and then a series of numbers that I could not decode. Under the folder there are usually two folders. The first is a capital letter such as E with a dash, so E-. Its contents are then followed with another folder with the name of the project and its folder has the project file. The second main folder under the top is labeled the name of the pc such as Steve-PC. Under its folder are several folders. one has a listing the the textures. One has a folder with all the decals, another has all the rotoscopes, another has maps, etc. Each save seems to vary with the content. As I load my project into AM it may take 3-5 minutes to load the file. I am wondering if I need to reinstall a earlier version. So my question to eveyone has anyone else noticed these folders as well? I thought it might be a problem with this machine but it is doing to my other copy of AM as well. Steve

Thanks Mack.

This is good news. I tried several times to watch the install videos. Thanks Mack!!

Hey Steve try going to your profile on hash. Download am again. Get the key from your profile history and run the activation again. That will reset your license.

I was able to go into am and tell it where all the folders were located. So as of yesterday I am good to go.