Roger

So right now I am working on learning smartskin. I'm in bones mode, I right click the bone that I want to drive the muscle motion, then go to New smartskin (I didn't see an option to choose x, y, or z rotate though - this was listed in the technical reference, and the copy I have is pretty old so something may have changed). AM then brought up a new Action window. I then moved my bone where I wanted it, and went into Muscle mode to adjust the control points at that extreme position. It seems to be working, when I move the bone now the points follow. Is that more or less how it is supposed to work? Also, in Muscle mode, the points that make up the smartskin turn blue, correct? I think I made an error in the way I was adjusting the CPs, though. I probably should have moved the bone to the most extreme position I expect it to be in, then adjust the mesh in Muscle mode. I adjusted the mesh at a few different positions the bone was in, so now when I move that bone I get a sort of undulating look to the skin.

Well that's just it. Lawsuits due to a maiming or death at a meat-packing plant are expensive, so there is an incentive to contain those costs. If you fall asleep and smack your head on your Cintiq, its not quite the same as getting getting caught in a piece of industrial machinery.

That is one thing I just don't understand. I'm not sure it is healthy or desirable to work to work more than 60-70 hour weeks for extended periods. I would have to do a search, but I'm quite sure I've read studies that suggest that (unless you are one of the *very* rare individuals that can manage on 4 hours) attempting to get by on 4 to 5 hours of sleep a night is akin to being legally drunk. As far as the medical and legal fields, I know I wouldn't want someone operating on me or reviewing a contract/preparing a legal defense that is only averaging 4 to 5 hours of sleep a night. I suspect that a lot of the horror stories you hear about surgical mishaps are (wrong limbs amputated, wrong surgeries/procedures, medical instruments left in body cavities) at least in part due to sleep deprivation. Video games/movies may not be life or death, but mistakes still cost money. There was a story not too long ago about EA regularly working employees 90 to 100 hour weeks. I can imagine putting in some OT if you are in the home stretch of a project, but if these kind of hours are normal all the time, then its indicative of poor management or feature creep. Are these type of hours just the nature of these industries, that nothing would get done, otherwise? Or is it more a "well thats the way its always been, so thats the way it will always be" type thing? I imagine most people would be completely burnt out after 5 to 10 years of that.

Yeah, I didn't think there were either. I don't know what the global pool of animation jobs is, as far as major film studios or video games studios goes. I would guess that it isn't that high, maybe a few thousand? If you included anything that involved animation (flash for websites, games for mobile devices, casino games, outdoor signage, architectual pre-vis, forensic animation, etc) it is probably higher but I doubt it is anywhere near the number of jobs for say, the healthcare field. Still, $1400 to $2000 is a (relatively) cheap price to pursue an interest, compared to spending major $$$ for a degree.

This sounds like an interesting class. Too bad I'm not in that area. I am not sure I understand what is driving the demand for all these schools? Surely there can't be that many jobs going unfilled. Animation has never been more accessible, for $600 (price of a copy of AM and low-end pc) you have access to the kind of tools that cost upwards of $50000 20 years ago. So, things have never been better in that respect. Finding someone else to pay you to do animation work is another matter, though.

Thanks - its wending its way through the tubes presently.

Ok - got it. I'll try stitching another spline ring between the 2 rings that are on the thigh.

Where would you put the spline ring, another horizontal ring on each leg?

Ok, so I'm experimenting with simple walk with my penguin model, and the butt has some serious "junk in the trunk funk" going on. (see screenshot) I'm thinking smartskin would help here but am not sure where to start. Ideas?

Ok, I think I have it. That makes more sense.

I downloaded the bevelled prims off Yve's site since for some of the work on my buoy I figured it would be simpler to take an existing primitive and work it over to get the structural members of the buoy that I need. I tried scaling the cube primitive to get a long, thin bar but I ended up with something that looks more like a dog bone. I don't think the bevels were reacting well to scaling. Is this something I would probably be better off modeling from scratch?

Well, flippers are FK. Leg rig is your basic IK leg rig w/ no modifications. Bones that make up the torso don't have anything special done to them, other than the fan bones (but I may have removed most of those when I was experimenting and found CP weighting worked almost as well).

OK, thats why I couldn't find it. I was looking under File > plugins > wizards. Thank you.

Thanks Dave - that's what I was looking for.

Probably, its not listed in the default wizards though. Is it available for download at that link?

I am working on a buoy and am trying to create an array of rivets around the outside edge. I have my single rivet I modeled, it seems like there should be some way to array it around the buoy. I checked in plug-ins but I don't see anything listed in the default plug-in list.

Yes, that's more or less what I want to do. Probably not possible.

So I have more or less finished rigging the skeleton on the penguin, I may do some smart skin or make a few adjustments but I think I have it to the point where I can start doing some animation tests. I thought I would take a break from that and get back to modeling some props, so here is a buoy that I have been working on. I need to add some more detail, obviously. Thinking rivets, appropriate textures, etc. I am also posting the photo I'm working from, I think I have gotten the essence of it, I'm not trying to duplicate it exactly.

I know when you are pulling points you can constrain them to a specific axis, x, y or z but what I am curious to know is can you constrain a point along a single spline and adjust its position on that spline?

Robcat (or anyone else for that matter): Anything you would suggest adding to this rig that would make for easier animating?

I think I am probably better off leaving well-enough alone at this point and moving on to rigging my dragon. My only concerns with my rig are that if I do screw up the placement of the feet, there are going to be odd fluctuations in the legs over time.

Ok, you were right, poses weren't turned on. Doh. I saved it with the poses turned on like you suggested so that will no longer be a problem. If I translate the hips too far up, though, I still get the stretchy taffy feet. This is supposed to happen, right? Also, if translating too far down, the calves pass through the feet causing the geometry to stretch.

Ok so everything on my penguin is more or less rigged now. However, when I try translating the foot in an action, it doesn't move the leg. The foot moves away from the leg, stretching the splines behind it like taffy. The left foot is kinematically contrained to the left calf, right foot kinematically constrained to the right calf. My left thigh is constrained to aim at the left knee target, the right thigh is constrained to aim at the right knee target. The right foot and left foot are currently children of the Root bone (not the default model bone but a dummy bone I created). Should they not be children of the calves? I thought I removed them from that hierarchy per Robcat's tutorial so that the feet would not follow the pelvis. What am I missing here? I must have jazzed something up somewhere along the line.

So just translate the foot and the leg should bend accordingly. I will give that a try. I think I am going to use a pre-built rig on the dragon, I'm glad I gave this a shot but rigging is definitely my least favorite thing to do, and I can see that the dragon is going to be a nightmare to set up even with a pre-built rig.

An Aim-at constraint. There's no such thing as a kinematic aim-at constraint. There's an Aim-at constraint and there's a Kinematic constraint but they are two different constraints. You are of course, correct. I have no idea why I wrote that the way I did. Tired I guess.