Shelton

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

I am working on a project and decided to create an object in Version 13 beta one. I have created a face and began to work on the mouth portion of the character. I tried to extrude the inner lip and then scale. The extrusion will only scale on one of the axis. If I create a extrsuion outside the character's face the extrusion and scaling will work correctly. Also, after I copy/flipped/attached the face, the mirror mode works only some of the time. I have sent a report on both but wanted to know if anyone had run into this or do I have a setting wrong after installing beta one Steve

Sounds like snap to grid is turned on. Under the options and I beleive modeling tab there is a check mark for snap to grid. Remove the check mark and you should be good to go Steve

I have started working on a new childrens video. I have the responsibility of putting the animation sequences together. I have created most fo the models but I am looking for a good example of a cow. Has anyone put a cow model together? I saw the one on the TWO project and it is wonderful but I need some guidelines or directions. Steve

Thanks Guys. I was working to late last night and nothing was working out Steve

Ok this should be an easy one. I am working on a children's video and I decided I would quickly add a animated pencil. I started working on this thing and I can not get rid of the crease around the mouth. I now this is basic stuff but no matter what I do I can not get rid of it. Its late I know but any help? Thanks Steve

Very nice model! Her face has really transformed! Steve

David Had to start over again. That is the beauty of saved copies on the network!! Anyway when I started and imported the model into the rig, the model changed to a yellow color even items that were textured! I then lost all control and I am starting over again. I will keep you up to date Steve

Very nice!! Excellent work! Steve

Thanks guys. What you guys have done has helped all of the AM community with this rig and it is appreciated. I will keep you updated. Steve

Ok, I started over and got to the foot control ik,. The instructions state to rotate into position, however, i cannot get the large grey ik bones to show. David, I know you are busy with the TWO project, is there a video tut yet on how to install the rig? Steve

Thanks for the reply. I will keep you informed as I will get back to when I return Steve

David As I stated earlier it could be me and yes it was me. i found the bones. I don't know what I was doing but I restarted the process and the appeared. So I am starting the rigging process. Ok wait I reread your post. You start the installation plugin? Here is what I did: Loaded the rig model and then imported the unrig character model, went to bones mode and found the rig waiting. Did I miss a step? Steve

Hi David Downloaded the newest version (1-21-2006) of the rig and I am running v 13 alpha 8. Since this has been an area that I have tried to stay away from I come to you not knowing if I have done something wrong or what. I opened the 1-21-2006 rig and then imported my unrigged character into the rig model. I can not see any bones. I have gone through the bones list and made sure all are visible and to date I can not see any bones when I switch to bones mode.? Can you help me Steve

Hi Colin I love the look of this guy / demon! The wire frame has helped me with the body of my comic character. Any way keep up the good work. Steve

Thanks. I have saved him in several locations believe me, on the server on removable drives and everywhere else. Anyway, I will upload a smoothed version as well. This was the first try at a character with defined muscle. I am still working on the comic book style character. HAIR. I can not get this aspect yet. It is driving me nuts! Steve

I think the look is wonderful. As a claims adjuster in my real job, I have not seen this level of detail in the reconstruction of an accident. Most of the time it is modified blocks running into each other. Anyway great job. Here is a link to adobe page for AE http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/331305.html It states it will receive open EXR. Great job Steve

HASH was able to save the prj after I had a system and software crash. So here is an update. I have decided to use this model to learn the other basics, such as rigging and movement and so on. So I apologize if I upload this character alot to help me learn AM. thanks for all the help Steve

I recently had a system and software crash that made the prj file not accessible. Sent the file to the guys at HASH. I then went on to another project. I received an email late yesterday afternoon with the corruption removed and the prj file restored. I did loose two models inside the project but received 90 of the file back. This has caused me to back up files off the system and back up individual models on so on and so on. So thanks to the guys at HASH for the help Steve

Of the five characters I have modeled, none have had hair I liked. In fact, two of them I hid the hair with a cap. But this character I wanted to have blond flowing hair. I have tried twice and well I am not going to u/l the file because it is embarassing. I need some help on hair. I have looked at this forum and I am impressed with the hair I have seen. Any help would be appreciated. Steve

Hi Dan I have gone back and reduce the count on the chin upper lip and check. I am starting on the back and top of the head. The eyes I will leave alone for now and the ears are a nightmare. I have hooks and altered the cps until I am tired of looking at ears. I will keep working on reducing the patch count as I go. Thanks for the comments Steve

Here is an update on the head and chin. I have started on the texturing not having much luck. Will post to see if I can get some help Steve