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Exercise 15: Eat My Dust


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Note: Users of A:M 2006 (Yeti CD) please read information at this link for more on troubleshooting a problem with the Knight's knees. Read about it HERE .

 

The Art of Animation:Master (Online)

 

Please add your exerices to this topic and others will join in.

 

The Art of Animation:Master is being completed on a continual basis in the New Users Forum. Meeting deadlines can be an important skill to master early on but this course is self paced to allow each person the flexibility they need to learn the basics of Animation:Master. The course can be completed in as little time as necessary or as much as is needed by each participant.

 

Note: You may want to download the videos first.

All available Video Tutorials related to TAOA:M can be found on one page:

The Art of Animation Master Video Tutorials

 

The Art of Animation Master Part III: Technical Directors Training

 

 

TECHNICAL DIRECTORS TRAINING

14 - Playing Marble (Materials)

15 - Eat My Dust (Volumetrics)

16 - Smoke, Wind, and Fire (Particles)

17 - Cosmic Bowling (Dynamics)

18 - Waving the Flag (Cloth)

19 - Flying South (Flocks)

 

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Exercise 15: Eat My Dust

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View the online video:

Web (3MB)

 

Download:

Zip (2.8MB)

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Name:  Den Dotson

 

Exercises Completed:  Fifteen

Date Completed:  Wednesday April 6, 2005

 

Instructor:  Rodney (ready to hit the dusty) and that guy on the web tutorials kinda gettin used to the new web guy

 

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement: No comments.

 

Here is a link to the 15th completed exercise with the night strutting his dusty stuff (dust cranked up to show on web):

 

http://homepage.mac.com/animateden/hash/eatMyDustsm.mov

 

Thanks Rodney,

-Den

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Hehe. ;)

 

That actually scared me! Not the animation... that was cool.

While waiting for it to download I went back to reading forum posts...

Right in the middle of answering a post the scratchy walking sound started followed by the laugh... and I thought... what the heck???

 

I thought my answering machine on my desk was possessed or something.

Good thing I remembered I had opened your movie or else I'd still be afraid to go near my desk! :blink:

 

Now that I'm recovering... I'll go back and watch a few more times.

Nice touch! Ypu make this animation stuff look easy. :)

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Hehe.. sorry for the startle!

 

I couldn't help but add KeeKat into the scene. I was watching the Knight "resolutely" walk... and kept thinking he looked like someone had just given him a big wedgie! :o

 

Then I started laughing... so I thought KeeKat would find it just as funny as I did, so he had to laugh and point too! :D

 

 

Ahhh.... I'm so easily amused!

-Tommy

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I'm trying to do this exercise and I'm finding that the knight's feet are twisted when I apply the walk cycle in an action. I had the same thing with some of the other models. Any idea why this is happening? Can I download or get a different version somewhere else? I am using V11.1.

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Thanks for the reply Rodney. If I turn off the IK, the walk doesn't work. In any case, I reloaded both action and model from the CD and only the right foot was twisted. I easily fixed that, so here is my exercise:

 

Name: Paula Waslen

 

Exercise Completed: #15 Eat My Dust

 

Date Completed: Jun 21, 2005

 

This was a very straight forward exercise and something I had never done before.

 

Eat My Dust

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Name : Chris Wheeler

 

Exercise Completed : # 15 Eat My Dust

 

Date Completed 10/06/05

 

Instructor : Web Tutorial

 

Ok I created a new "zombie walk" action for the night, rendered a test (see attachment) Ok good, dust!

 

Then decided to drop Nighty into the wharehouse scene from the AM cd folder. Rendered 4 secs worth- eatmydust

 

Owe noe! No dust! So I scaled nighty down a bit when I dropped him in there and checked that particles was on.......so what did I do wrong?

Chris

eatmydust2.mov

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Name: Melissa "Elissa" Heldenbergh

 

Exercises Completed: 15

 

Date Completed: Oct 14th, 2005

 

Instructor: A few years of A:M use, the book, and web tutorials, plus also doing the mentor program with Paul Daley. David Rogers book... Jeff Lew's DVD.

 

Comments: I swear this tutorial refused to work in version that shall not be named. (cough, cough v9.0 & v9.5), but those dark days are behind us.

dustyknight.mov

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Name: Jody Krivohlavek

 

Exercise Completed: Exercise 15

 

Date Completed: January 3, 2006

 

Instructor: AM Handbook, Video Tutorial and everyone that's ever posted to these forums.

(Been around since the Playmation days )

 

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement:

Had fun playing with this... still don't have the motion quite right, but I'm eager to get on with the next lesson. B)

EatMyDust.mov

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Name: Claudio Ravenstein (fybs)

Exercise completed: 15 Eat My Dust

Date completed: 28. February 2006

Instructor: The handbook

 

Had problems with the knights legs so I used incredible hulk instead.

Fybs.

 

 

Name: Claudio Ravenstein (fybs)

Exercise completed: 15 Eat My Dust

Date completed: 28. February 2006

Instructor: The handbook

 

Had problems with the knights legs so I used incredible hulk instead.

Fybs.

01EatDustAgain.mov

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Done with Exercise 15

 

Name: Bob Koonce

 

Exercise Completed: Eat My Dust

 

Date Completed: 3-21-06

 

Instructor: Individuals on forum, TAoA:M, Video tutorials, and other material.

 

Remarks/Suggestions for improvement: None at this time

 

Any comments or constructive criticism will be appreciated.

 

Thankx,

Bob Koonce B)

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Name: Stephen Molloy

 

Exercise: #15

 

Date: March 31, 2006

 

Instructor: Wed video

 

Remarks: this is done with two actions (resolute walk and trip )...i put the dust in both actions ( making dust 1 and 2 ) this was a mistake ......i found the dusts where overlaping and had to hunt around to cut out dust 2 for the first second and cut out dust 1 from the last second. next time i think just add dust to the chro that would have been easier. (That's after walking away for a day and come back to the project lol)

knight_dust_four.mov

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Thanks Leo

 

i'm just having a great time doing them.

 

i was finishing the cloth exercise, i grouped the flag wrong ...when i selected the cloth group i couldn't right click on it ...so i just group the whole flag myself ...i set the wind and run the sim ...the flag blow off and hit the ground .....hehehe even mistakes are fun.

 

SM

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Great dust clouds and a foot stomping walk.

 

The only thing I noticed was that she sinks into the ground. With each step part of her foot disappears. You could probably fix it by going into bones mode, select the path and from a front view, tap the up arrow until her feet are above ground.

 

That's the only suggestion I could come up with. Good job.

:)

JohnnyB

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Great dust clouds and a foot stomping walk.

 

The only thing I noticed was that she sinks into the ground. With each step part of her foot disappears. You could probably fix it by going into bones mode, select the path and from a front view, tap the up arrow until her feet are above ground.

 

That's the only suggestion I could come up with. Good job.

:)

JohnnyB

 

 

Actually my original idea was feet sinking into sand/dirt but changed my mind and forgot to raise her again

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Name: Al Dinelt

Exercise Completed: Exercise 15: Eat My Dust

Date Completed: October 26, 2006

Instructor: TAoA:M

 

Here is my attempt for exercise 15. The knight didn't want to cooperate with the resolute walk, so I used the Hero Dude instead. Just needed to fix the arm movement.

 

One thing I noticed is that when I did the initial single pass of the video, the dust clouds were nice and white and quite visible. However, when I did the final multi pass of the video, the dust clouds all but disappeared. Anyone know how to make the clouds more visible?

 

Thanks...

Al

 

[attachmentid=21733] [attachmentid=21732]

exercise_15_multipass.mov

exercise_15_singlepass.mov

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Name: Al Dinelt

Exercise Completed: Exercise 15: Eat My Dust

Date Completed: October 26, 2006

Instructor: TAoA:M

 

Here is my attempt for exercise 15. The knight didn't want to cooperate with the resolute walk, so I used the Hero Dude instead. Just needed to fix the arm movement.

 

One thing I noticed is that when I did the initial single pass of the video, the dust clouds were nice and white and quite visible. However, when I did the final multi pass of the video, the dust clouds all but disappeared. Anyone know how to make the clouds more visible?

 

Thanks...

Al

 

[attachmentid=21733] [attachmentid=21732]

 

Hey Al,

 

I love the Hero dude walk. It fits him perfectly!!!

 

I had the same problem when I rendered my CGI X-Wing shot. Because I was pressed for time, I had to settle with a single pass.

 

I never tried it but I contemplated maybe increasing the density of the dust so that when the multi-pass did it's blending, it would smoothen out.

 

Here's my X-Wing take. If you look close at the nose as the X-Wing falls, you'll see the dust. I deliberately kept it subtle.

 

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?act=A...st&id=21470

 

George

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Name: Caroline Begbie

Exercise: Exercise 15 - Eat My Dust

Date Completed: 25th November 2006

 

Here's the knight:

[attachmentid=22544]

What I learned:

I think if you put the volumetric directly into the choreography, it works more predictably then when you have it in an action then the chor. I had no multipass issues when I transferred my dust out of the action and into the choreography.

 

And if you're rendering with multipass=off, then the dust is white, but when you put multipass on, the dust takes the colour that you set.

 

Here's my little volumetric fun:

[attachmentid=22545]

Exercise15.mov

GreekVacation.mov

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Name: Joseph Gamblin (Achilles Desire)

 

Exercise Completed: Exercise 15

 

 

Date Completed: January 22, 2007

 

Instructor: None / Just the book

 

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement:

 

Anyone ever seen Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within? It always drove me nuts how the characters were stomping around in ruined cities for half the movie, and there's almost zero dust!

 

About the exercise, I really wasn't too happy with the outcome. I really do think that you would get better effects by using a particle emitter in the shape of the foot and animate it so that you get some better directional control over the dust. First of all, it seems like the dust is coming up thru the foot. what should happen instead is when the heel is just coming down, the dust should be rushing towards the front of the foot, and then as the foot pushes off, it should kick out the back.

 

However, I still think that the dust has its uses. You now the kickup from a jet's straffing run that we've al seen in the movies? This would work great for that.

 

Oh, and I used the hulk instead and just used a little clip. Like I said, I wasn't happy with the results, but I'm too lazy to do it right, esp. when I'm this close to the finishing line. :)

Hulk_Dust.mov

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Name: Joseph Gamblin (Achilles Desire)

 

Exercise Completed: Exercise 15

 

 

Date Completed: January 22, 2007

 

Instructor: None / Just the book

 

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement:

 

Anyone ever seen Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within? It always drove me nuts how the characters were stomping around in ruined cities for half the movie, and there's almost zero dust!

 

About the exercise, I really wasn't too happy with the outcome. I really do think that you would get better effects by using a particle emitter in the shape of the foot and animate it so that you get some better directional control over the dust. First of all, it seems like the dust is coming up thru the foot. what should happen instead is when the heel is just coming down, the dust should be rushing towards the front of the foot, and then as the foot pushes off, it should kick out the back.

 

However, I still think that the dust has its uses. You now the kickup from a jet's straffing run that we've al seen in the movies? This would work great for that.

 

Oh, and I used the hulk instead and just used a little clip. Like I said, I wasn't happy with the results, but I'm too lazy to do it right, esp. when I'm this close to the finishing line. :)

Hulk_Dust.mov

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