phatso

Just a question, Mel - how much is your time worth? Unless it's only about a buck an hour, you are going to burn up enough time dinking around with this that you could have just as easily upgraded... and when you're done, you will still have an old version of A:M.

Depends on how realistic you want the animation (says the "master" who hasn't yet got anywhere near dealing with this problem himself). If you look at most of the models on the Extras disc, you'll find there isn't any body at all beneath the clothes. That solves the problem pretty neatly. The cloth system with its sophisticated collision detection makes for amazingly realistic movement. But I speak from observation, not experience. If someone speaking from a position of equal non-experience may venture a suggestion - master the easy way first. If your project requires a real cloth system, maybe it would be better to choose another project.

I assume you are just going to use the image sitting in one place, at one angle to the camera. If you're going to turn it, you're going to have to model it. But you needn't go overboard. Decals are magic. A featureless model like Thom with a decal can be amazingly convincing if you don't turn it too far or let the camera get too close. I once did something for a museum where we took a white plaster bust of Ben Franklin and projected on it a video of an actor in costume. The actor stayed in one place, of course, but talked and made facial gestures. The angles were chosen such that it looked like Franklin in a dark room with just a key light coming down from about 60 degrees. You could walk all around the bust and it really looked like a living Franklin.

Here's a suggestion that wouldn't work in most any other case: Why not create a second instance of the model and delete almost everything except the arms? Resize the second model so it can "live" inside the first. That way whatever rigging complexities may be in the model will still be there. You won't have to worry about losing them when you transfer. Admittedly, this is the "wrong" way to solve the problem. It's a quick and dirty workaround and you wouldn't use it if you were building a model you were going to use again and again. But given the stylized form and movements here, it might be a quick shortcut that will get you through this project.

Yep. You just know instinctively when you get that "yeah, that's the way it should look" feeling. (I think it was Renoir, the painter, who was asked how he knew when he got a girl's cheek right. He replied, "When I get the urge to pinch.") Now you need to add lamppost flexing. And then, the actor should have arms and legs flailing when flying, and bounce off the pole a little, and realize he's falling and wrap arms and legs around it. I know, nitpick nitpick nitpick. But yer gonna have a really nice animation when yer done. God is in the details.

I think the default light is pretty much omnidirectional, and it shows up in shaded mode so you can move it around and judge the effect in real time. I'd start with one overhead and in front of the model (toward the camera). Might I also suggest that you play with the surface properties of the dress so it looks less like she's been encased in chewing gum.

Almost right already. Nice follow-thru on landing, but the actor leans so far forward he/she would almost certainly fall over unless the feet had velcro on them. Model either needs to come in at a more acute angle or step/stumble forward after landing.

Yes - and I should have clarified that the technique I mentioned also results in 3-point patches, but larger ones - thus less curved - thus less likely to crease. Also, with fewer patches, fewer creases. The other technique is to create a sphere with as many splines as needed, both longitudinal and latitudinal. This will create a point at the pole which can never be completely closed. Then rotate the sphere so the part sticking out is the side. This results in a hemispherical protuberance whose surface, at least the part that is visible, is a standard easy-to-model 4-point mesh grid. First time in my life I've been able to use the phrase "hemispherical protuberance" in a reference that was not scatalogical. "Eschew sesquipedalianism."

Another way is to model this kind of thing using only 4 splines. Then you can splice opposite splines to make 2, and splice the CPs on the 2 splines to make a standard crossing with a patch in each quadrant. When I'm lathing an object and I know I'm going to be bringing one end to a point, I set the number of lathe sections to 4 so I can do this. One possible issue with the method Ken shows is that it results in four 3-point patches, which may crease a bit. If you need real smoothness, say you're modeling a chrome bumper hitch, this could cause a problem. The 8-patch sphere in the primitives library shows how good modeling a round object with crossing splines.

Atchully, you'd get a fabulous improvement if you added a nice yellow-white light to warm things up. Better than any modification you could make to the model.

I haven't seen stuff like that since the 70's.

He say he dunno how to model, and then he comes up with something good like that... I'd suggest that the vest looks too much like a straitjacket; needs more texture to look like cloth. Then again, if it's going to be tooned, that won't matter. Penguin had a cigarette holder. I think they're just called "cigarette holders" unless there's a name in some other language.

At the risk of completely perverting this thread - but then I think of that alien and say to myself, "How can you pervert what's already risque?" - educated speculation seems to be that, because it takes so long for human children to reach maturity, strong pair bonding of parents is advantageous. Pair bonding is enhanced by face to face sex (as opposed to doggie/ape style). Face to face sex is encouraged by big knockers.

Who modeled the "boy" model on the new Extras CD? I've been trying to make a 14-year-old by "youngifying" Jimmy, but I'm getting better results by "oldifying" the boy. Now I wanna talk to a pro. I could probably track this down, but it's easier just to ask.

I'm animating a character tentatively named Ray Tracing, so you can't have that one. (Now I'll probably find out someone's using it, so I can't have it either.) But "Ray" always works for a hi-tech hero.

How did you get the president of Martin's old bank to pose?

no worries at all, let me know if you need some other view, more detail, higher resolution other pose... ops... no skeletal yet ... Vince Dhar - I didn't know you were making a movie about an alien named Minnie. Speculation I've heard from evolutionary biologists is that symmetry started out when a 1-cell animal divided but failed to separate, and the variation proved beneficial. Why do we have two boobs? Two nostrils? I can answer the first question - because it's twice as much fun!

Hmm. I have the same problem, but other things I mirror and paste aren't anywhere near x=0. Maybe others are as confused about this as I am?

Hmm. I wish there were an emoticon colored green. (You know, envy.)

Jirard is really good with smooth surfaces... (sigh) This bears repeating: 1) The smoothest work results from 4-point patches with splines intersecting at right angles. 2) 5-point patches are next best, but try to avoid a 5-pointer where one point is pulled way out of plane. 3) 3-point patches "work," but they crease like mad. Avoid them. 4) Hooks don't have bias handles to tweak, so if a hook creases you can't fix it. Therefore, hooks are best placed across patches that are nearly plane. 5) You can get away with many sins if you arrange your splines so problem areas are banished to places you can't see - under hair, for example.

Everybody is going to get sick of me saying this, but creases are normal, you just have to work the control points and bias handles until at some point they're smooth enough that the remaining creases aren't worth the effort to fix. I find that the process goes much faster if you have the model open in two windows. In one, you have a shaded view. In the other, shaded with wireframe, with the option to go wireframe alone when needed. You can set the two views to different angles: set the shaded one at whatever angle the creases show up worst, then rotate the wireframe view as needed to move the CPs and bias handles as needed to eliminate the creases. Coupla other hints: 1) Stretching a bias handle, so as to make its associated curve more gradual, often eliminates a crease. 2) If you're used to using polygon programs, this will seem counterintuitive: you can often make things smoother by building your model with less detail. If you're really struggling with a crease, save the model and then experiment with eliminating the offending spline altogether. I spose, since it's a puppet, you won't be texturing the surface much. Too bad, texturing & decals hide creases like magic. On the other hand, since it's a puppet, you'd expect it to be hand carved out of wood. Maybe a few minor creases are appropriate.

I like the guy with the big nose and chin. All he needs now is a pair of horns and a pitchfork. I've been having great luck starting out with one of the models on the extras CD, and squenching it around until it's barely recognizable. The hard part is getting the surfaces really smooth (I'm modelling a young kid) and that takes a lot of pushing and pulling CPs and bias handles.

That's what my first attempts looked like. Something I found useful: take the 32-patch sphere from the library and pull it around until it's shaped about like an egg, with modifications to make it human. Sort of like the featureless model heads stores use to display hats. Change the surface to some garish color. Then model a new head over it, pushing and pulling on the control points until they almost sink thru the egg shape but not quite. The garish color tells you when you've gone too far. From there, you just need to even out surfaces a bit. At this point, bias handles are magic.

There are those of us who need to get on with animating, or we can't afford to be doing this at all. I'd be perfectly happy to cheat, on the assumption that I'll learn to model as I go along. In fact, I've decided to cheat in a different way: taking one of the models on the Extras dvd and squenching it around to make it look completely different. (If we can claim "squetch" as a word, I can claim "squench." )

NOW, SEE HERE, BOY, WASN'T HE - I SAY, WASN'T HE A WARNER BROTHERS CHARACTER??