Darkwing

Y'know, just looking through your pics, but when you finish Amuk Time, you should really do a Vlog or something on the production process. Mainly, I (and I'm sure others) would like to know how you manage to produce so many assets so quickly. Like I know it takes me forever to complete a model and in the time I've done one, you've done like 10! Ok maybe I exaggerate, but still, I'm sure many would like to see a video version have you accomplish so much so quickly! And of course any trade secrets your willing to part with and all that fun stuff. But yeah, just a suggestion/hope cause I think there's a lot to learn from your project!

That's so strange, I was thinking of it's a wonderful life not half an hour ago! And I'll check it out, if this let's me use my debit card online, I'll pledge, if not, well, we'll figure something else out maybe or something, or I'll borrow my folks' card!

Fudge. I gotta stop putting of getting one of these credit card things, it's beginning to become an impairment not having one.

If one pledges and you reach your goal, how does payment work? Does it have to be via credit card, or will just a regular paypal account or something like that work?

Y'know this is all very interesting. It's very neat to see how essentially the "same" task has so many different ways of being accomplished. It's really quite a diverse topic, rigging that is, isn't it?

Oh that could be it! I only just recently upgraded from 16a to 16b and come to think of it, it happened while I using 16a

I've had the same thing. Hair is very finicky to maintain groomed. In most cases it seems like it will only stay groomed in the original model groomed in. I'm pretty sure this works for importing groomed models into another model as well. EDIT: And of course the time I go and do it to show that it happens and it works fine...

For the 2008 rig, if you readjust geometry bones, all you need to do is re-export the model from an action to realign the control rig (following the instructions for exporting as you would have from the original installation). I could trim down quite a few bones in the rig, but you would lose a few feature and it wouldn't really make the installation any easier. I don't know how much easier I could make installing the rig. You position half the geometry bones, use the mirrorbones plugin to mirror the left side bones and weights, then export from action to position the control rig. I know what I'm about to say isn't all that helpful to this discussion, but Imma throw it out there anyways, because I'm definitely the beginner that Robert refers to earlier on. First of all, about 50% at least of what you guys are talking about has gone in one ear an out the other for me basically because of what Robert (and others) have sort of said: a beginner like me has very little concept of all this stuff. Basically, this is all I know when it comes to rigging: I can add a bone. I can click the bone and click and drag around it to attach some CPs. I can turn IK on and off. I can rename the bones. Two weeks ago I learned that I can do bone weighting or whatever and it made building my face rig a lot more functional as now the CPs were weighted based on bone rotation size thingies or something and the mesh would move more smoothly than a whole conglomeration of them at once. So that said, I have never built my own rig from scratch. I'm pretty sure I never will. When in bones mode, a simple right click to display all of those options that are there and I'm lost, so I do something else I know a bit about constraints from the point of view of constraining my camera to a character in the chor, or a prop or something, but that's it. I can't do stuff with knees always pointing a direction, or feet staying on the ground while you move the hips and all that jazz. So if I have a point, it would be a testimonial more than anything. I've only ever used the 2008 rig. I use it every time. It's easy to use, the instructions are clear as day and I only ever have to do half of it! It even has cool slidey things for the fingers so that they can bend! As a beginner, the 2008 rig does everything and more than I could ever hope to achieve by building a rig. Of course the day's probably gonna come where I'll want to rig something other than a human. If that day comes, pretty sure you're all gonna know... I understand this discussion is really geared more for those intermediate users who are above my level of ability and want to modify pre-existing rigs and to do so, want/need a better understanding of what everything does and why, but like I said, this isn't probably helpful to the discussion at all but at least it's 100% from the POV of a beginner when it comes to rigging.

Well, what I meant by one keystroke was in only hitting Delete once. For example, I import a hand model but for whatever reason, don't want the rigging that was associated with it. So I go to bones and there's the main "Hand" bone of which everything underneath is a child. Clicking and deleting Hand doesn't delete it's children. More importantly though, what I wanted to know this for was say some of the child bones are themselves parents to other child bones (as is the case in a hand). Expanding Hand in the PWS and then shift selecting all of those bones, then makes me have to do it to every child parent that was in Hand as well. I hope that clarifies it a little by what I meant by one keystroke, it's mainly in those cases where some of the children are also parents to other bones and I just want to get rid of them all at once, that sort of thing. Also, I never would have thought to do something like Nancy suggested, I think I'll play with it a little next chance I get cause I find myself deleting bones fairly regularly...

This is only a lightly related question, is there a way to delete groups of bones at a time? What I mean is delete a parent and all it's children in one keystroke?

Thanks! Yeah, I think I see them, in the walls right? Also, the bridge has been making leaps and bounds in its progress. It's quite the set, they really went all out when they designed this bridge! I should note that lighting still isn't done. This set has quite the set-up for lights!

The shot involving the corridor specifically calls for some windows, so I modeled a new section that had windows! Also, seeing as you're all animation folk, I figured you might be interested in seeing each individual section. The cool thing being of course that one can arrange them in whatever fashion one sees fit!

Here, now time to show a bunch of things! The list of modeling assets is becoming significantly smaller and the voice actors have been sending in their files so things are coming along which means it'll be animation time within the next month I think! Both excited and nervous over that as I've never really animated anything before, so this should be interesting! I'm also quite sure I'll definitely be relying heavily on this community for guiding me along with the animation, I have a lot to learn! But now, some pictures! (Oh, I should say, I haven't properly lit any of the sets yet )

Finally Rodney you get to see that corridor! Though it is still a WIP... The cool thing about the corridor is that I only make like one chunk of it and then repeat it. Currently I have 2 types, one with a door and one without.

Thanks! It marks the beginning of like 7 months of intensive work that is to come.. And yeah, same, doesn't seem to play here but oh well, works on AM:Films, thanks Jason

Thank you! I will try sending another e-mail later today

Oh I'm fine with that, it's just I received no acknowledgement whatsoever that they had even received my e-mail or that this quality check was going to be done at all. From my point of view, it didn't work and was given no explanation why is all. I can wait, I'm cool with that, but I just need to know in a reasonably timely fashion that it's at the very least, on the to-do list (or not on the to-do list, but at least told) because otherwise after waiting 4 days, it does simply seem like I'm being ignored or missed or something, that's all.

Thank you!

Sorry to sound rude, but I'm getting kind of frustrated and beginning to feel like I'm being ignored. I sent an e-mail to support@hash.com 4 days ago with no response (not even a "we're busy, we'll tackle this later"), posted 2 days ago with no response and I'm going to try once more just for kicks before I get all so fed up that I just leave. I want to upload the Red Squad trailer to AM Films. It's uploaded to Youtube so on AM films I used the upload Youtube video function. It said completed successfully. There is no sign of it anywhere! I've seen others do it, someone else posted about having this issue and was told to e-mail support@hash.com. I don't know if they ever got a response, but I presume they did cause their video is on AM films but maybe they just uploaded it directly, I'm not sure. I at the very least would like someone to answer who knows what's going on. Even a "this feature doesn't work, don't use it" would be nice, an acknowledgement, anything!! Again I apologize for the rudeness and rantingness of this, but I honestly feel like I'm being ignored. Now if I've missed some important bulletin posted 4 days ago or something stating that the hash team is away from their computers for a week or something, then I apologize as it would then be my fault, but otherwise I'm just left to assume I'm being ignored! So please, at the very least, acknowledge that someone who knows what's going on has read this or my e-mail or my other post!

I basically have the same question. I tried a couple days ago to add the Red Squad Teaser from Youtube to AMFilms and it said it worked, however, it's not there. So I sent an e-mail a couple days ago and haven't heard anything. Does this mean this is a no-go endeavour? I'd really appreciate not having to upload an 80MB file to AM Films directly as that will take bloody forever with my internet.

I tried adding this to AM Films but it seems it was a no go or something, I dunno. Anyways, Teaser Trailer #1, here it is!!!!!

Still some hours to go on the render, here's what is rendered so far and it's looking pretty slick I'd say! There's a slight jump halfway through as I'm rendering it in two halves simultaneously, so part one hasn't caught up to the beginning of part 2 yet I must say though, volumetric lighting is pretty spiffy and worth the extended render time test.mov

My two main concerns of the living being black and white and the dead being colour, is that the audience is immediately going to jump to the conclusion that this is potentially a Wizard of Oz ripoff (which it isn't.) This is going to lead them to having certain expectations of where the plot will be going and might actually lend to people not seeing it for what it is and spend more time comparing it to Oz than anything. Secondly, if you go black and white for the living, you're going to really have to flesh out the metamessages you're sending about dead vs alive, basically what Rodney said earlier about perhaps sending the message that the living is a horrible place and that death is where the party's at. This obviously means really refining the plot so that it's almost blatantly obvious to the audience that this isn't the message. Some alternatives might be to actually base the colour scheme on whatever mood Latimer or the plot is in at the time. So perhaps initially, it's not black and white, but the saturation is down. When he arrives dead, there's a bit more colour due to the newness of it all. But as the plot darkens and things get "worse" the colour scheme darkens, potentially to the point of being monochromatic. But once everything is resolved (mind you, I haven't gotten to the end of the script yet) and things are good and everyone's learned what lessons they need, then it's in full colour. That's just some ideas, naturally it's your choice as to what kind of artistic direction you wish it to go, but this seems like a good opportunity to play with some things that don't always get played with

Thanks Rodney! I suppose you're right...I should really get on facial controls hehe I've noticed however, that there's a slight pop when the video loops, so one of the latter keyframes must be just a little off. For the hips, I presume they point slightly downward on the leg that is pointing forward? I'll say one thing I'm very pleased with, is how organic the mesh is, I don't think I've ever built a mesh that moves and contorts so smoothly

And now I get into something I haven't really done very much of with AM....animating! Now the teaser comprises on my part of a lot of walking, or strutting more than anything. So here's try #1. I've already done a bunch of tweaking and followed TAoAM, but then remembered Robert had some walking tuts, so I played through those and tried to apply some more tweaks from what I gleaned from that. Unfortunately, I think even though it's better, it will be just as easy to re-animate using Robert's tuts more thoroughly. Regardless, I'd really appreciate pointers and advice on the strutting. Like I said, I've not done this much so I could really use some advice! walk.mov