Uzzbay

Maybe I am missing something (browser has been acting up a bit lately) but all i see is the text "IPB Image"

It's people like you that both inspires us and causes so much frustration. This looks awesome, and you make it look so easy. <the inspire bit> But I bet it's not near as easy as it looks <the frustrate part> Thanks for sharing!

Yeah it's mainly a light/shadow thing in that view ...but by no means is it perfect...I'll have to check again tonight when I get home. Thanks

My new project.... Ito - Asian rogue Comments welcome

That's pretty awesome looking...and I like the lighting...gives it the "Alien" look. Nice work!

That's awesome....the more I read these forums..the more I realize.I don't know crap Nice work..thanks for the inspiration.

I am no expert by any means, but to give you at least some answer for now...... Basically I don't used 5-point patches anywhere where the mesh will bend or curve (within reason). I try and limit them to areas that folds would seem natural or can be hidden by other geometry. You don't have a lot of mesh between the nose ring and the center line so all I can suggest is that you make the 5-point patch as small as poosible and hope that it gets restricted to a smaller more flat section of mesh. With that said, one thing I would try is .... [attachmentid=15894] By extending the ring out and end in hooks, it may make the 5-point and it's possible folding appear more natural as it pushes it closer to the nasal opening..now you can adjust the "bias" handles to tweek it to a point that you feel is acceptable....BIAS HANDLES ARE YOUR NEW FRIENDS! I would place the hooks..a row or two away from the large mesh bending area EDIT---doh Paul beat me to the response My 2cents..

That's awesome! This is not a critique as much as a "I am having a similar dilemma" type thing. I am working on some large stone slabs as well. In using the stone texture on them, I notice that the edge close to my camera looks a bit irregular where the other edges look crisp. I have been toying with the idea of making my stone mesh a bit irregular so the "away" edges seem more like the "front" edge but i seriuosly don't want to add more detail to my mesh and slow my render times down anymore. Here with yours..it appears that a good use "scaling" the texture and the "perceived" size of the object makes for a good combination. If that is indeed what you did. If so, hope you don't mind me borrowing the concept Nice work, thanks for sharing it!

Hrmmm, thanks, but not sure what particles had to do with "dynamic collisons" and not even affect "dynamic movement" at all. But <shrug>. ..." and knowing is half the battle. Go Joe!"

To: Cypax CC: George Lucas BCC: Obiwan Looks kewl...make all those star wars fans proud...

Ok, face rigging completed.... Phifer Face Test Comments/Critiques?

Me likes seeing zombies get shot... Couple of things tho... Never been a big fan of shoulder shots taking out zombies, think they should be tougher The green splatter is a bit too crisp/sharp compared to the jacket. I think you need one frame of the smoke as a smaller size, this will give the smoke more motion. and now I need to see the rest of this project... Good times and very interesting project...good job!

Well the render i was talking about was the "give the cloth time to get into place before you start rig movement" stuff. I an lazy by nature, I can't wait for the cloth to settle down Actually the ponytail is dynamic, at least till I actually start venturing into hair/particles. But yes I solved the problem. I found this undocumented (as far as I can tell) keyboard shortcut that controls an unreachable (as far as I can tell) setting via a menu of any sort. <SHIFT>8 Aparently it turns off dynamic collisions??? I tried that. But I got a lot of errors. My brain tells me that if i put a deflector (apparently unrelated to specific cloth groups) on a cloth object, it will always be hitting itself. Haven't tried lately but, I think that is why I had CP's shooting off in all kinds of directions. In my tests, cloth objects sense each other because they are being simulated at the same time, whereas they do not take into account dynamic contraints that would act differently at a fast render speed. At this point I have ONE cloth material applied to ALL three cloth objects(each with different attach groups). The trick is getting the collision radius and the anchor groups to equate out to what you are looking for. So far I am running her at 0.5 collision. Less than that, it get hung up on her leg, and more than that makes her look like she if wearing a prom dress. I will post more test later...thanks for feedback!

Very nice....I love the detail. is that modeled in or textured?

Ok, I have tweaked my initial cloth test (which i didn't post). Bascially, she has 3 pieces of cloth on her: front skirt, rear skirt, and cape. Now here are some of the things i wanted: To have to render as few frames as possible to allow the cloth time to settle. Didn't want to have special actions to compensate for the cloth initially. Wanted 3 individual pieces. Didn't want it to look like she was wearing a skirt that is a foot thick. After tweaking my initial tests, I have came up with this: Tri-cloth test 2 It will take a few more tweaks but, I am getting closer to what I want. I am sure that once I run her through a full range of motions, I will start to see more places to tweak, but I am happy for the moment. Thank you!

Looks cool! I agree that the shimmering tree is a bit distracting. But as far as the skip, not sure if you are going for a "style", but with a normal skip...one of the feet almost slides across the ground while the other is up in the air.. what you have here is more like hopping..in which case there needs to be more upper body movement like a torso bend before the hop. Edit: i watched it again and for a hop..it's missing lower body squishing (not upper body like i said before) The reason i say lower body is because your character doesn't have legs, therefore the movement that usually is associated with them needs to be reflected in the lower body a bit.

Ok, for the record...I am not a big fan or shoulder joints! If anyone knows an easier way, outside of "trial and error", to get this joint to work properly faster, I am all ears! Phifer is a caster/magician/priest so she will use her arms quite a bit to perform spells. These are the clips of her current shoulder rig. Not as nice as I would have hoped, but need to move on.... Shoulder Shoulder Wireframe I may come back and revisit them, but...... Next, CLOTH! Ok so my first test was not that bad actually....I had just her 'body' set up as the deflector... Cape Cloth Test 1 So I went back in and added her skirt and belt as deflectors as well. I also changed the stretch settings, the cape was stretching almost through the floor. After a couple of quick renders I realized that I needed more geometry around the belt area in her cape, as the belt was protruding through.... Cape Cloth Test 2 I guess I need a bit more geometry around the belt area because it still protrudes through a little bit. I also need to play with the 'stretch' settings because the cape is a little stiff looking now. Eventually I will add cloth to her skirt, but I need to figure out how to prevent her dynamic ponytail from penetrating the cape. It did not do this until after I added cloth to the cape...

Hrmmm, obviously a poor attempt on my part to illustrate "muscle tone"..... [attachmentid=14507]

I took her to McDonalds and fattened her up a bit.... [attachmentid=14503] Was saving navel, eyebrow and eyeliner for texture ( haven't ventured into textures yet )

Yeah...been gettin that concensus...gonna work on fat'n her up a bit.

Not sure if me running 12.0s is a problem or not, but i get "invalid prj" error and it won't open. Yes, in my experiments, the larger I made the radius', the ponytail would float away from the cape when at rest. Even after making them larger, they would still do the "see-saw" effect, but just further away I will check into the "mesh shield" idea tonight and see if I can get that to work. Would really like to be able to open your sample project if we can figure out the compat issues .... shhhhhhh, you'll give him a big head! Thanks for the quick responses..

Soft introduction...my name is Busby .... I am new to 3D and (of course) Animation:Master. I work with Colin Freeman and hence picked up the A:M bug from him. I have been working with this software for almost 2 months. My wife has since put a divorce lawyer on speed dial, but I am confident that I can win a balance between the family thing and the A:M coolness. I will make a more formal introduction elsewhere on this forum later..but.... I wanted to ask a question... This is Phifer............ [attachmentid=14466] I basically designed her to give me the most challenges to overcome and learn as much as I can with one character. I have run into a bit of a "snag"...literally. I am trying to use a Dynamic Constraint on her bangs and ponytail. I am satisfied with the bangs at this point, but the ponytail is not adequate. The collision detection is great at sensing impacts. The problem I am having (and will face more of once I actually start rigging her cape and skirt) is when the mess is dragged across another mess. It appears like the bones "see-saw" over the impacted splines/control points. This is evident when she tilts her head forward. Is there something I am missing here or is there a better way to approach this? Here are links to files.... http://www.uzzbay.com/phifer/ponytail_high.mov http://www.uzzbay.com/phifer/Dynamic_ponytail.mov http://www.uzzbay.com/phifer/ponytail_settings.jpg Any thoughts or options in this would be greatly appreciated. P.S. Yes, I have only been modeling for 2 months, but I could not have gotten anywhere near this far along had it not been for the huge amount of help, posts, videos, tutorials, and individual websites that have been linked to from this forum. So....Thank You very much. I hope to be able to contribute my part as I learn more. Busby