Ilidrake

Well I've got the sound clip picked out and it rolls in at 5 seconds. So I'll write up the guidelines next. By the way, I'm thinking of giving everyone a 2 month window on this one.

Hey Roger it's just something to do. Win or lose I think it's something the community needs to encourage more animation with this amazing software.

Robcat, Rodney, quick question. How goes the best way for us to review and vote on segments entered?

Okay how about a nice 3 or 6 second clip? I feel at 3 seconds it would be too short to really have any acting. Anything over 6 seconds is simply to long, especially for any beginners who may try this.

For the record I'm not so much interested in length as I am the acting choices the audio clip will provide. I will attempt to keep it as short as possible. I'm simply trying to stir up a bit of interest in using AM for what it was intended. Animation. We will see I guess.

Careful consideration has been given after listening to everyone who posted here and below are the rules for this contest. I hope the 2 month deadline is enough for everyone who wants to get involved. And in case you are wondering to yourself, "Why pirates?". Everything is cooler with pirates. THEME: A Pirate's Life Any sort of animation that tells the story of a pirate. Any sound clip can be used if necessary, but is not required. We are mainly judging character acting, animation, and story. Deadlines: May 1st - Movies must be uploaded by Midnight est. RULES: •All modeling and animation must be done in A:M(after all this contest is sponsored by them ) •Compositing can be done in another program but why, when you can do it in A:M as well. •Final Movie must be in Quicktime movie using Sorenson 3 rendered no bigger than 640x480 •No explicit material, as these entries will be viewed by many people of all ages. •If participating, please post in this thread •WIPs and crits are allowed and welcomed. If doing this, then post in the WIP section and put AM Mini Movie entry title. This is not mandatory. •Use of premade characters and actions are allowed. It's more about the animation and story in my opinion. •Must tell a story Not less than 5 seconds, no longer than one minute. •Live action is allowed although there must also be animation composited with it. •HAVE FUN!! If you have questions, feel free to post or pm me. Now go forth and animate everyone. Good luck to all. Prizes being offered: HASH has been gracious enough to offer the following... 1st place - 100 dollar hash.com gift card 2nd place - 75 dollar hash.com gift card 3rd place - 50 dollar hash.com gift card The first place winner will also win a copy of: http://www.amazon.com/The-Animators-Surviv...rvival+handbook To recieve the gift cards we will need the winner's email address, but not until the winners are announced. Where to upload finished files? The address is as follows: "ftp://ftp.hash.com/incoming/apirateslife/" Simpy open My Computer on your system and type the address above in. After that it's as simple as dragin & droppin your finished file. Please be sure that your movie is 100% before uploading it. If you have a Mac then you will need an ftp program. There are many free ones on the web and you should have no problems getting one.

Big fan of the Walking Dead so I'm wanting one of those zombie spots for myself.

Welcome back

I believe you had downloaded the latest chapter and was working on marking it up. Let me know what you have. The broad jump is coming along slowly. I'm at work so i only have a couple hours a day to work on it. Should have something soon though.

I'm still plugging away at this! Been doing models and working on refining my animating skills. I am also still rewriting the script. Speaking of which!!! Hey Rodney, how's about some feedback?

I will be thinning the arms down a bit more. I have mainly concentrated on getting rid of the stupid looking coat and fixing the legs and the rig. I will be able to thin the upper torso down quite a bit now that the majority of the weighting is finished.

I've been working on jump animations with Robcat. And I have learned a lot!!! One thing I learned was that the rig I had installed in my main character just wasn't cutting it. There were some issues with the main body bone and the IK bones for the feet. And the more and more I used the rig the more and more I learned to hate these issues. Yes, I could work with them but it really made things a pain. The other thing it brought to light was that I just didn't like the look of the character. The head is fine and is exactly how I want it. The body? NO! So I changed it. I modified the mesh to look more in line with what I envisioned. It required a complete re-rigging but it was really worth it. So without further ado here is a render of the new modeled body, posed with a much better rig.

My basic rigging goes like this. Bring up the rigger. This creates half, the right side, of the skeleton. This includes the back bone, neck, and head bones. I set these in place. The I call up the flipper plugin and this mirrors the skeletal structure for me. Then I simply bring up the right-click menu and auto assign bones. Then I go in a tweak the mesh attachment to bones. Then I actually call up the rigger to rig the thing. Once the mesh is rigged I go in and start adjusting the weighting. Once the body is working pretty good I start adding bones for the eyes and setting up relationships. That's about it. I don't really like using smartskin or fan bones that much. The basic skeletal structure wrks for me.

Yep. I didn't add anything else or smartskin anything. Everything is default.

I have no idea. By rotating the handle of the bone you can bend the fingers in either direction.

I mean the fingers. The mesh around the shoulders won't be right. I did a lot of weighting and what not to get him where he is right now.

No I have one pre-rigged. I always keep a back up of all my models. I'm just wondering how well we need him rigged. Just a quick rigging won't take long but TSM2 isn't 100% as I am sure you are aware.

Yes I can rig it again but it will take a bit of time. I wasn't aware that the body bone is upside down in tsm. It could be error on my part so I'll see what I can do. What else do you see with the project that is wrong.

Standing by

What's your email? I may have it already but it's late and my brain quit working hours ago...

Yep I got that about the motion increasing as gravity really kicks in towards the landing. The spacing on this run is 6 frames on take off and 3 between the apex and landing. The arc of the curve is very much a nice curve. I mean I could change the spacing to 1 frame but then it's so fast you can't even see it. Other than these changes I am at a lost for getting this right. All in all I can say I have learned a lot from this jump and will continue to tweak it and experiment. But beyond rotoscoping a jump I don't know how much better I could get it. I guess for my poor animating skill set this is about as good as it will get. Like my modeling it is something I simply did again, again, and again before they started getting better. And this is the 8th time I have animated this. Each time I have started from scratch and worked through the entire process. side_jump_8th.mov

Just loaded it up into after effects and traced out the arc of the jump. At the half way point he simply drops to the ground. Back to the drawing board...

Okay so I am still at it. This whole jump thing is really more complex than you would think. I have to say thank you to Robcat for all the feed back and help that you have been giving me. I would have strangled me a long time ago. In any case as long as you strive to teach me I will strive to learn it and improve. So here are my latest attempts. I rounded out the take off so that it isn't as pointy. I also locked the feet down and rolled the ankle bone as you suggested. Much better look I quickened his descent back to the ground. Though if you watch it you will notice there is only one frame to slap the feet back down on the earth. And I changed up his stance at the end. I considered the over all arc of the jump. I see what you mean that it isn't a smooth arc but short of extending the distance he travels I am stumped on how to fix it. There are two versions. The 3rd is simply me working on the arcs. The 4th is with the shorter hang time. side_jump_3rd.mov side_jump_4th.mov

Okay here's my next go at it. I didn't bother to hide the arms, hope that's cool. Any who...it's coming in at 54 frames...not quite 2 seconds. I smoothed out the jump and lowered it. I also added a small amount of follow through near the end and made his motion standing more natural...I think ...... Let me know what you think. Edited: Here's a second pass with slight variation near the end on how he stands. I left bones showing so you can track curves. side_jump.mov side_jump_2nd.mov

Congrats Rusty. I'll have to give it a read.