vnavone

Big Bang is lying low right now for various reasons so I'm not going to repost any content at this time. Rest assured that it is not dead and will return sometime in the future...

Thanks! What happens next is a part of the story that I don't want to reveal just yet, which is why it may feel like there's a beat missing at the end.

Only thing I can think of is to reinstall a fresh copy of Quicktime on your machine. Or maybe try downloading it to your local drive and playing it back in Quicktime Player rather than in your browser.

I know what you mean. I'm actually stretching the neck pretty far it you check out frame 98 or so. I suppose I could start the reaction a couple of frames earlier...

I went back in and made some more changes. Redid the hands AGAIN as well as some other little tweaks. Enjoy! 1.5mb Quicktime Movie

Damn you, Keates. Damn you and your valid notes. Now that I look at the hands again I don't like them. Back to the drawing board, I guess. That may be a preferences issue. I've ammended the title.

Here's an updated version of the animation (I left the original version up on page 1 for comparison). 1.5 mb Quicktime Movie Caveats: Lighting, textures and background are still temp. There are still problems with deformations in the neck and shoulders. Notes: Timing has been adjusted in various places, and more time added to the end. The spacing on the flip has been reworked and I moved the center of gravity for the midair animation from the chest to the base of the skull (seemed a more reasonable place given the size of his head). I tried having him flip in the reverse direction and didn't like it as much. After reanimating the hands 3 times for the rocking sequence I finally just decided to keep them simple and stuck to the planet. Next: I want to start playing around with v12's multi-channel rendering and improved raytrace shadows! Comments welcome, as always. Enjoy!

I'm using expressions for gross squash & strech in the head and body, but that's all. I'm not a fan of using limits because I often like to "break" joints to get a good pose. I can switch between IK and FK in the arms and legs. Nothing else fancy. No automation going on; everthing is hand-keyframed. I'm just picky that way.

It's my own rig created from scratch. There are no real lids. Each eye has five or six pose sliders to control blinks, bends, tapers, etc. They can also rotate, translate and scale via bones. You get a closer look at them in this old face test I posted: Giant Face Test thread

Nothing yet. I've been revising the animation in this thread, which I will post when it's done. Then I'm going to start experimenting with rendering and compositing techniques to figure out the final look. I'm also revising the story reel right now, which is why it's taking me so long to finish the animation. Sorry for the delay!

Mmmmmmaaaayyyyyybbbbeeeee....

I'm not so sure...

Good suggestions all! That's why I love this forum!

That's what they do already, but sometimes I run into a pose where I can't tilt the rings any further out of the way without them intersecting somewhere else on the body. I'm also trying to avoid really extreme movements of the rings over a few frames that would draw the eye unecessarily.

I thought about this, but it doesn't feel right to the "material" of the rings. Even though they are technically composed of lots of particles, I see them as being rigid rather than flexible. Once you see them bend they would cease to look like planetary rings.