cory

Curtis, You are doing a great job. I would still like to see a little more muffling on the second screech. It's like a double take, two quick yelps. You can see the mouth closing in between. Sorry if I'm being to picky, it really does sound great. Give me a coupla days before you do anything else though, and I'll send you a new copy of the animation with the correct frame length and rate. Then we'll submit it to Hash and see if they want to use it. Cory

Yep, you are right. Hmmm....I'll see what I can do. Cory

Wow! Overall it's very nice. It seems to be edited a little slow, but that would be due to the lack of sound. I'm sure with the sound or dialogue it would look good. There is a little here or there that can be touched up, I'm sure you are your own harshest critic, and I don't need to point things out. It's much better than some of my daughter's Barbie animated movies. I suppose they were made by a studio somewhere. Keep up the good work. when can we hear some sound with it? Cory

Curtis, Good,good, good! Now, modulate the second scream to muffle a little more when the mouth closes. Excellent, I love the clicking sound. Uhhh...One more little thing, hope you don't get mad. The first version I posted is actually 110 frames playing at 15 fps. When I went back to do a final render I stretched the timeline to not quite double, and made some adjustments to the curves on the hip for the lunges. Can you make adjustments to fit ? Or will you have to start over? Sorry... Cory

Well, it might not be what you had in mind, but it fits the aforementioned criteria...[attachmentid=16845]...okay let's get to throwing down splines. Cory Thank you. I'm rendering one at DV resolution to submit to Hash. See if they want to use it in the booth. May do a little monster demo if they want. Cory

Sure, what do you need? Cory

Thanks, I appreciate it. Cory

Curtis, I like it so far, but I picked up on the pig squeal too much. Maybe tone the pig squeal down some, and add some more low end sound. More bass or something. This thing is about the size of a large doberman or pit bull, if that helps any. Keep going Cory I deleted the earlier versions due to lack of server space. I'll see If I can attach the sketches here... It's a combination of these sketches...[attachmentid=16766][attachmentid=16767][attachmentid=16768] Cory

A lot of my creature designs have no eyes. It's a little bit scarier if the thing can find you no matter wether it's day or night, because it's tracking you even with no apparant visual abilities. They say you can see the soul in the eyes, and this thing has none....oooh scary.... Cory I'll post one soon, thanks for all the compliments from everyone. Cory

[ I'll do some experimenting this weekend and see what I can come up with... I have one with Sorenson 3, but I had to drop the frame rate to 15, resize it to 480X360 and turn the quality way down to get it undr 5 megs. It loses some lustre after all that. I'll try just submitting it to the A:M Films site as a short work in progress maybe? Cory Okay, it's not as big and smooth, but it's pretty good... http://home.alltel.net/collinsfamily04/meatbugmapped4.mov Cory

Thanks, Who has to see it to get it in the Hash booth? Maybe a little compendium of Slap Happy, the mouth creature and this guy would look good. The joints and feet are not finished yet, So much to do so little time. Go ahead, add some sound and show me what it looks like, er, sounds like. Cory I'll do some experimenting this weekend and see what I can come up with... I have one with Sorenson 3, but I had to drop the frame rate to 15, resize it to 480X360 and turn the quality way down to get it undr 5 megs. It loses some lustre after all that. I'll try just submitting it to the A:M Films site as a short work in progress maybe? Cory

I'm using 5.1 , I would post the quicktime, but I only have 5 megs of serverver space, the qt files are huge compared to the divx. When I can get them under 5 megs they look horrible. If some one has some server space, I could upload some quictimes. Cory

New version with maps at- http://home.alltel.net/collinsfamily04/meatbugmapped.avi Cory

Yeah, the plates are more fleshy than solid. The one on it's left needs the dynamics tightened up a bit, it seems to bounce too much. I used 10.5 to render this one, and it seems there was a big differrence in the way dynamic constraints looked on the shaded render and the way it looked on the final. I thought it may be the motion blur makes it look like it's not as loose. I had to set the stiffness level back from 20% to 10% to compensate. Looks like I shoulda went with 15% maybe. Another neat little feature is I used relationships in the feet to straighten the toes as the foot is raised and to offset the shoulders as well. I may add some inward curl on the toes too. Man, that saved a lot of keyframing there, seeing as there are six feet with two, three jointed toes on each to deal with. Cory Not really "fight" but maybe a lot of eating (people) Cory

Okay, try http://home.alltel.net/collinsfamily04/meatbugjumpslomo.mov Cory

Okay, got her rigged up and trying to make her look mean! http://home.alltel.net/collinsfamily04/meatbugjump3.avi and slo-mo http://home.alltel.net/collinsfamily04/meatbugjumpslomo.avi Cory

Yeah, if it gets off the ground. Things are looking good though. Cory

Thanks again everyone, for the kind comments. This cycle was a couple hours in the making, it was rather simple, something I have studied before. I wrote an article for 3D artist magazine years ago on the same subject. I like to stretch muscles and bones once I get the basic skeleton in place. Lets me see what needs to be added, or taken away. This .mov file was me taking the new guy for a walk. Now I see a little how it behaves, I can go back and start refining both mesh and skeleton. Then I'll make a low res proxy and really try to animate some action. As far as being easy, I suppose it is and it isn't. I draw, paint ,sculpt, create things all the time. This is an extension of the same thing. A:M kinda fits right in there with the rest. But there is still a lot of work involved. Cory P.S. I'm still working on the tail, it may have a sharp, pointy object on the end. P.S.S. As far as disco lighting, there actually is a scene in the script where the creature is in a nightclub. Go figure

Looky here... http://home.alltel.net/collinsfamily04/meatbugwalkwire.mov The jump you see in the cycle is where I used a dynamic constraint on the head. Cory

Thanks everyone, I'm now on the daunting task of adding bones and relationships so I can get to animating! Cory

Okay, major re working on the legs, I left the exomuscle look and went for an exoskeleton design. I'm much more satisfied with how this one looks. I'll probably start adding bones shortly... http://home.alltel.net/collinsfamily04/meatbug2.mov Cory

Thanks for the advice everyone, I'm re working the "hands" now, although I don't want them to curl under as he'll lose traction. I'll see what turns up... Cory

I had to put down the mouth and eyeball creatures for a little and work on this project. It's a new creature for a possible small budget feature length movie. I still have a lot of work to do, but this is the start... http://home.alltel.net/collinsfamily04/meatbug.mov and the sketch I made... http://home.alltel.net/collinsfamily04/meatbug.jpg It's mostly based on the sketch with a few changes. Which head looks better, the one on the model in the movie file or the sketch? I like the sketch myself, what do you guys think? Should I go with the muscles as seperate entities or should I try to wrap a solid mesh in the same shape? Isn't there some sort of shrinkwrap utility I saw somewhere? Cory

Very nice. I agree, you'll probably have to thin him out when you add hair. Right now, it looks like a young John Goodman AO...this is a ver13 feature? Cory

Actually there is...but I don't know if I'll ever get to it. There is a darker side to the relationship between the eyes and the mouth...(cue evil laugh here) Cory