Shelton

Thanks David I will take a look at this!! Steve

I am at the end of my ideas. I have made a mov file in after effects of letters being written out. I was going to animate the pencil chracter to follow the mov file in rotoscope to get the action and AM allows the rotoscope to be rendered as well. So I have tried for four days to get this to work without success. It appears to be working in the chor or action but when rendered the rotoscope is not in the correct location and it plays from the beginning of the animation even though it has been key frame to start and end at certain location. So does anybody have a thought of how to follow the script I created in after effects or is there another way to create the handwriting look in AM? Steve

Look like this was going to work and render on net render and the rotoscope started playing at frame 0. I animated the model to the rotoscope and everything seemed fine. Saved all files and redered animation and the rotoscope was off by 210 frames. Just not sure what I am doing wrong. Steve It appears that AM is not recognizing the mov in frames but rather smpte

Thanks Vern That is huge help. I was not rey framing the decal/rotoscope but only the model. So as soon as the animation would start so would the rotoscope. Thanks a bunch will try that tonight. Steve

I got that working and started working on the animation but ran into a problem that I don't know how to solve. The rotoscope/decal needs to start playing about 8 seconds into the animation but as I put it into the chor window it matches the time of the of the chor. What I mean is that the rotoscope/decal needs to start at 8 seconds and run through about 16 seconds and hold. The character moves for the first 8 secs of the animation and then sees the rotoscope/decal and at that point the video should began playing. But instead the rotoscope decal begins playing at 0 frames. I have tried several things but nothing has worked. Any help is appreciated. Steve

David You were right!! I had it turned off at the end of the animation but not at the beginning. Once I turned it off, the animation went right through!! Steve

I think I may have a problem. I have turn it off and rendered the frame on the workstation and no controls were visible. Then exported the project to the render farm and when it is rendered on the farm all the controls are rendered as well Steve

David How do you turn off the face interface in the rendering of a chor? I have looked everywhere to turn it off and I have to finally ask for help Steve

Thanks David!!!! I will check in the face rig tutorial. I have applied the pose slider on the eyelids but the slider has the lids going way past the meeting of the lower lid. So I tried to adjust the slider in edit relationship and I could not get them to work. So do open the relationship and then go to muscle mode and adjust the eyelids? Steve

Vern your idea worked and I can render the animation and the frames. Hoever I can not see the video in realtime so that i can animate to it. What I am trying to do is have a animation playing and have my character move to the animation. the video is a handwriting on a paper. I want my character who is a pencil to follow the scritping. Do I need to put in a rotoscope of the video and then make it as a decal? Steve

In the face rig what are the bones in the lip area that are tied to the lip geometry? I am trying to get all the lip movement with sliders. Steve

I am working on a scene that I want a video playing on a screen inside the animation. I have tried to import the mov file and assign it to the page but it will only show the first frame of the video and the image is flipped and and there a four images pasted on the screen. Any thoughts? Steve

David I think you are right. AfterYou helped with the rig on my character, I have removed and started over at least three times that I know and care to remember. But Mark's suggestion about Thom was a big one. I have learned more from him in how and whys of the setup. Now to get things smooth movement. Steve

David Something happened last night. The techtalk by Bob Croucher was excellent advice. I had watch a tut on weighting but thought the process of weighting was going to be so hard that was more inclined to try to smart skin. Now i have three joints moving smoothly and working on the fourth. I will u/l video of the movement tomorrow. Steve

Hi Steve I really have made life difficult for myself. Jumping ahead then having to go back and start over and then I jump ahead. This rig helped me get the hands smoothed out. Now if I can get teh face and arms I'll be in business Steve

David I am so thankful for all that you have done. It is just me, as I am must have a roadblock or something. It is just not sinking in like I had hoped. Keep up the good work Steve

Hi Mark Thanks man I have been going nuts with this. Steve

Hi Mark The installation version? I have d/l all the tutorials is there something else I missed? Steve

Does any one have a squetch rigged character they are willing for some one like me to look at? I am struggling with the installation and weighting of the cps. Not to mention the assigning of the cp to the bones as well. I have two characters I need to get rigged and would really like to use the squetch rig on them as well. I have pestered David to death already. Steve

David After installing the rig, none of the eye movements, lips etc. so I thought the assign bones did not work for the installation. I thought I would have to reassign cp to the bones, however, after installing the rig I can no longer find the bones to assign cp to. Help Steve edit I found the bones finally. But the sliders are not moving the bones. Do I need to edit the relationships? Steve

I am impressed. I have wanted to model a container ship and with what you have accomplised so far You have motivated me to pull out the plans for my ship. Keep up the excellent work! Steve

I am embarrassed to say that I have a few models that have never come to life due to the fact that I am afraid of the rigging process. I have two characters I would love to complete but felt I could not do them justice in the rigging. So any help would be appreciated. Steve

Rodney I think that would be wonderful. I am still having problems with rigging. Steve

Thanks for the suggestion about the hands as I have increased them from 1.5 to around 2.5 times normal and it looks a lot better. We have been shooting a video since first of March in front of a 40 x 20 green screen. Our live action will be completed June 21 at least that is what the schedule states. The video is a children's video and the characters I posted are some of the important ones as they will be interacting with the main character. The web site has been built and I am not sure if it has been turned on yet. www.papafix-it.com. Each one of the videos will be based on "how tos" for children. The first one is "Becca and the Fence". It is the story of Papa (granfather) teaching the children how to build a fence along with his helpers toolbox, pencil and the other animated charcaters. The target age for the children is 3-6 year. This has been a real challenge as we have had to shoot our video with the understanding that every shot will have some animation in it. Either as a background moving or a small animated character interacting with the children or papa. Most of the back grounds will be props and not much interplay with it, except for the large animated tree and fencing. Working with kids in the age of 4-12 has been tough. Even though I have a 3 year old it has been difficult in getting them in position and lines ready and then filming then in front of a green screen and acting with a animated character that is not even there. Our hope is by the third video all characters will be animated, we have propsed this as the children change som much in just 2.5 months of shooting. Steve

I have not posted anything in a while. We have been working on the video and the modeling and animation have now started. Here is one of the characters in the video. Steve I have already increased the size of the hands. And here is one of the other characters as well