Roger

I see what you mean regarding bone placement. That does make way more sense. I downloaded the 2008 rig and it seems nice, but there is like a 77 page PDF w/ it that does not seem terribly clear. I am trying to follow it right now to install the rig in my character but I am confused by some things: some bones seem to be set up so that other bones follow when you move the parent, others are not. For instance, when I move the top leg bone only the next bone down follows it, not the whole chain. Do I need to go and make sure that the hierarchy is set up correctly as well or should it already be that way? Is there an easy way to select several bones at once to move them? When I try moving them manually, I seem to screw up their relationships to each other. I understand that I am going to have to do cp weighting and set bone fall-off, that doesn't seem to be too bad after doing a few tutorials, is there anything else I need to worry about? Also, the million dollar question is: since I have one character that has a tail would I be better off using the TSM2 rig for both, or use the TSM2 or the char w/ the tail and the 2008 rig for the penguin, or should I use the 2008 rig for both and just add a tail rig by myself? (It does not seem that it would be that hard, but I may be underestimating the difficulty) Would I be creating problems for myself by using 2 different rigs, other than I wouldn't be able to reuse actions between the two characters?

I am rigging my penguin right now - I plan on using the 2008 rig for the dragon, but decided I wanted to try my hand at rigging at least one character by hand ( I am assuming I am still going to have to modify the 2008 rig for my main char, anyway) as a learning experience. Does the placement of the bones seem about right? I thought about putting 3 bones in the arm (upper arm, forearm, and hand) but 2 seem like they will work just as well.

Will this work w/ v15? I saw a v13 installer -

This may sound like a dumb question, but where can I find the 2008 rig? Did it come w/ the AM subscription I downloaded, or do I need to look for it on the ftp site?

Rigging my models now - following the Dave Roger's book as a general guideline, using my model instead of the one from the book. I have created a rig for the left leg so far, and am trying to copy it so that I don't have to redo it for the right-hand side. The tutorial I am following says to hold down the alt-key and click and drag in the PWS but when I do that all I end up doing is screwing up the hierarchy of my bones. I also tried to do this in one of the bones windows but that did also not work. Any ideas what I might be doing wrong?

Found it in render options finally. Let me know what you think - its a little dodgy but its exciting to have a rigged character moving (even if it is just a sack) flour_sack_hop.mov

AM keeps rendering AVI files even when I tell it to save as .MOV - not sure what I am doing wrong.

Yay! Finally something moving - I need to redo the cp assigning/weighting and play with constraints so the body stops doing goofy things when I try to move the bones, but its a start. I tried to upload an AVI file but it says I'm not allowed. Wonder whats up w/ that.

Well, my main character is just about done, here is a screenshot:

Updated dragon feet - I haven't spent nearly as much time on this yet this week as I'd have liked, but I have been tweaking the feet on my dragon, specifically the ankle/heel region. I think the foot on the left looks markedly better. I am going to make a few more tweaks, maybe add some nails/claws to the toes. I think its just about right but maybe needs to be a little narrower. Once I get that foot closer to where I want it I am going to delete the other half of the model and do another CFA (thank god for copy/paste I would hate to have to sculpt one side then the other) I have attached a screenshot of the new foot w/ the old one in frame for reference.

I'd skip the breasts and do thick eyelashes instead Thank you I'm starting to get the hang of where to use hooks and my 5 point patches seem to be fewer. I don't have many 3 pointers any more, at least. And no more splines looping back in on themselves. Ugh. I am probably done for today, I should hopefully be able to get close to finishing this model by tomorrow. I want to try and enter the Christmas contest - I've never entered one, I figure I probably won't win but its good incentive to stay on track. As long as the deadline is the 20th of Dec. or so I should make it.

Ok - here it is so far: eye sockets, attached feet etc. I still need to add a few details: bow, beak, eyeballs, maybe a suggestion of breasts?? ( I know of course this is silly but am wanting it to be obviously feminine)

You don't need to go to all that trouble on my account, but it would probably help me. I always have problems trying to join geometry w/ odd numbers of points. I try to keep my segments (for lack of a better term) w/ even numbers of points. I think I more or less fixed this spot, there probably is a more elegant way it could have been done. I have attached a screen cap of the fixed foot. And yes, I suppose my progress could at best be described as glacial. I don't have an excuse for that, I guess I need to come up with a schedule for this project and stick to it. Reality always seems to have a way of intruding, though.

I guess it depends on how the surface is deformed when you are modelling with actual modelling clay. But I suppose it needs to be tightened up. I am working on eye sockets right now, but currently it looks like its going to be way too close together. What do you think?

Here is a shaded wireframe closeup of the feet and legs. I am not sure how much time it makes sense to spend on smoothing it out, it is meant to look like a clay model after all. Feel free to make suggestions, but I don't want to invest a ton of time on fixing that part of the model. I am going to be working on the beak/face today and will hopefully have a more or less complete model to post.

Thought everyone would be interested in seeing the feet attached to the body. (I really need to start working on a more regular basis, last post was almost a month ago) Anyway, here it is.

This is probably it for tonight - I think I need to scale down the ankle so it is thinner, as Rob suggested. And I ned to add some nails for the toes, maybe try and scuplt some webbing (or not, it looks ok and probably no one will ever see it). I think this is much closer to what I was going for.

Pixelplucker, I looked again at some of the photos I found - you are right, there is a 4th claw...however, in the photos I found, the fourth digit which is very small, appearing almost vestigial. Its no wonder I missed it. On other penguin breeds, it may be much larger and located more to the rear. I think all the photos I found were of Adelie penguins. Anyway, let me know what you think.

Ok After some tweaking, I am pretty pleased with this. It is starting to look a lot more like a penguin foot. Not perfect, but not bad for about 20 minutes. Still needs some more work, but looking good. I like it a lot more than the first version. Roger

Pixelplucker, Did some google image searches and your foot is very close - didn't realize how clawlike they are. Although I didn't see any w/ the rear spur/nail though. How do you get your 4 pt. holes to be so circular? Usually it takes me 6 points to get it to look like a proper circle. I am going to play around w/ min and see if I can't get it a little closer to what I've found, using those images as well as your foot for reference. Roger

Its a foot.... What do you think? Again, I'm going for fairly simple but I can't help thinking its missing something.

Pixelplucker, that is a gorgeous foot and if you did that on a break I am even more impressed. I am not sure I feel comfortable using it though, but the offer is very kind. I am attempting to do as much of this myself as I can and my chars are meant to be on the less realistic end of the spectrum (think Wallace and Gromit as opposed to Shrek). I would like to have a look at it for learning purposes though. What is a pigtail ( in modelling terms) ? I don't think I've heard of that before. Also, do you use 4 CPs for the body or just the limbs? That might make things a little easier, in terms of there being less to kep track of.

Anyway - here is an example of what I was talking about. I continued the leg splines up the back and ended them in hooks to help smooth some things out -it looks perfect on the back of the penguin but on the front I end up with wierd artifacts. You can see what I am talking about if you look at the patch/patches just above the leg on the right if you are looking at the front of the penguin. Before both the front left and right patches were doing that, now it is just the one. Not sure what is causing this, the geometry on the front is the exact same as the back. I have posted screenshots. The one on the left is the penguin front, the one on the right is the back.

That's generally what I try to do, hands, heads, and feet get modelled separately. Other than that, it is not always clear how to proceed. I try to make my body and limb segments out of cross sections with 6 points ( as opposed to 8 or 10 ) to keep spline density down. I have found fewer than that makes it hard to sculpt the limbs, more than that is unwieldy. And an even number of points as opposed to odd, because then it is a pain trying to attach a hand made up of a 6 point extruded ring to a 7 point wrist. No matter what I do, I can never seem to get the perfect immaculately smooth models that others do - I don't know if I'm making models that are too dense still and that is the problem, or if there is something else I'm doing wrong. I try to avoid 3 point patches whenever possible, but it is harder for me to avoid 5 pointers. Maybe I'm not using hooks enough. Maybe I'm worried too much about having an ultra-perfect model, when it is going to have clay shaders applied to it and is supposed to look a little imperfect. I have done the Giraffe tutorial, the Cooper tutorial, and the Fokker tutorial (as well as some of the simpler ones - the flower, for instance) and found that helped clear some things up. I have the Animation:Master: A complete Guide by David Rogers that I am going to start going through because I know rigging my models (as simple as the penguin is - it is essentially a sack with stubby feet and flippers) is going to be a nightmare. I appreciate the help and feedback that Rob and others have given. Hopefully before too much longer I will have some animation tests to show everyone.

Yeah I started doing something like that but I needed more geometry to shape the legs, so I ended up adding some extra points to the leg holes. I think it looks ok, let me know what you think.