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Hash, Inc. - Animation:Master

*** Paul's Playground ***


Paul Forwood

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I have made a few changes to this character

 

This design makes him a lot more accessible. I like him.

Very nice.

 

So, is this an additional character or have you redesigned all the previous characters?

They certainly look like they could inhabit the same world.

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So, is this an additional character or have you redesigned all the previous characters?

 

Well, it's an additional character really so they can all be given a role to play.

The first model is loosely based on the proportions of the male lead in Disney's "Tangled/Rapunzel" and the second is loosely based on the proportions of Hiccup from Dreamwork's "How to train your dragon".

 

Yes, I think that they could occupy the same world.

Thanks, Rodney. :)

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Another diversion:

I usually use the Setup Machine 2 to rig my characters but after experiencing a couple of glitches with it recently I decided to have a go at building my own simple rig. It's still pretty primitive but I was able to squeeze this out of it:

post-183-1297024160_thumb.jpg

Walk_Test_A00c.mov

Walk_Test_A00d.mov

Not good, I know :D but I'll keep playing with the rig.

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I see that you too get these black line artifacts in your volumetrics. Guess that this is rendered multipass in v. 16 rc1, which is where/when I get them. Maybe you should file an error report?

Nice walk, by the way :-)

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Thanks, ToreB! :)

 

Way back in this thread I thrashed my way through this volumetric light artifact problem before. I will have to read up on what I did to overcome the problem last time. I recall a problem regarding alpha, ie. if there was no background image or skydome the streaks would appear. To test that I enclosed this scene in a skydome, or rather sphere, but the streaks are still there. Back to my notes ...

--------------------

Edit:

Here is a quote from my earlier explorations into volumetric lights and the streak anomalies:

I have been concentrating on the light and model properties up to now and have found that I can eliminate the anomalies by keeping the width softness at either 0% or 100%. Anywhere inbetween causes a problem. I have eliminated just about every other possibilty.

I haven't tried messing with my current project yet but I will report back when I have. :)

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Haven't tried that - but it is still an error, that renders the use of volumetrics impossible...for my purposes anyway. And the 0% softness solution makes the volumetric look ugly and computerish. There are in general a lot of problems with the volumetric/fog/glow in both 15j and 16rc1, and I have posted error reports on some of them - not the streaks though. As you mention there is also strange things happening when using standard (transparent) background, which is the reason that I always enclose my scenes in a giant black sphere :-/

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sorry. I meant to say thank you. :unsure:

 

I meant to say thank you for all of the years of pleasure that I have had hanging out around here while my world was falling apart. Having this creative space full of diverse opinions and wide ranging talents helped to keep me focused on the important truth that, no matter how different... we are all the same. Here, on A:M forums, and some other forums too, I could feel connected with like minds and be inspired by people like you. It has been a great space that I have found creative value in. A place in which to inspire and in which to be inspired. A place where we could practice the art of telling our own story and writing our own endings. There have been a great many people here, past and present, who have touched me deeply and I just want to say THANK YOU...

 

...thank you.

 

The back ache of a decade ago, (just an industrial accident that I will continue to work around), is now a rapidly debilitating and disfiguring terminal illness that I was told would kill me by last November and is doing it's best to finish me off on a daily basis. I hold tight to my delusion that I will overcome this evil injustice and step back into my life that was so good.

 

At the moment I only have this primitive connection to the internet for an hour or so per day, with no access to any of my creative tools, but when I get back home I hope to pick up my tools and get back to telling my story, or at least improving my modelling, for in this cgworld I can still sore high with the eagles or dive deep with the aquatic creatures that my imagination can dream up. I am free and can live for ever.

 

Thank you all for making this place somewhere that I still love to come to.

 

Paul

-----

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  • *A:M User*

Paul

 

Thanks for letting us know the situation. And as Rodney has stated our thoughts and prayers are with you. You have been a source of inspiration for me and many others. I always look forward to updates from you. Keep splining!

 

Steve

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Paul, the poignance of your words is deeply touching. Thank you for sharing some of yourself with us over the years. You have become an indelible thread in the fabric of our worlds, reaching out beyond this humble forum. Thank you for that. I do hope you continue to post here for a long time to come.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm going to dump a load of test render images into this thread. They will mostly be collections of test stills that may be of interest or not. They will be simple rough images full of proxy models and very little finish, if any, but may inspire or educate or provide a laugh or yawn.

 

First off if a series of images produced while attempting a landscape test for a CG Society landscape competition which I never completed:

post-183-1299979012_thumb.jpg

YosemiteWIP.mov

 

The second is a similar sequence for a second image for the same competition. The sequence is not in the correct order but I may fix that later, or not.:

post-183-1299979206_thumb.jpg

SierraNevadaWIP.mov

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Hi Paul, i just caught your note about your back. That's very disappointing news to hear. :(

 

I hope there's a way to turn that around, for your sake and for us as we all do value seeing your work and your input on the forum.

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  • 2 months later...

I have been playing around with this model, making him suitable for a game model, low splineage and very simple rig. I was finding the TSM2 rig just too heavy for exporting to game engines as it uses more than 250 bones. My simple rig has about 38 bones at the moment, which makes it harder to animate, but makes it much better for exporting as X files. (I wish we had an fbx exporter though. X files apparently include separate CPs for every patch which contributes to large file sizes X file to FBX conversions can now be done in Ultimate Unwrap! ). :)

post-183-1306925883_thumb.jpg

MorphTest_A01f.mov

 

Anyway, what I wanted to ask concerns copying keys from one Action to another. I am fairly certain that it was possible in the past to select all the keys on one frame, copy them and then paste them into another Action for the same model. This doesn't seem to work anymore. Can someone confirm that it used to work or if there is still some way of doing this without starting from scratch?

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Thanks, Matt. I'm not too bad at the moment, though I am still the incredible shrinking man and I do have to be very careful how I move around, but all in all I am better than I have been for quite a while, even walking without a stick at times and without any pain killers.

 

Any ideas about copying keys from one Action to another?

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Anyway, what I wanted to ask concerns copying keys from one Action to another. I am fairly certain that it was possible in the past to select all the keys on one frame, copy them and then paste them into another Action for the same model. This doesn't seem to work anymore. Can someone confirm that it used to work or if there is still some way of doing this without starting from scratch?

 

I just tried it , it appears to work in v16.

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Two ideas to consider...

 

I have been playing around with this model, making him suitable for a game model, low splineage and very simple rig. I was finding the TSM2 rig just too heavy for exporting to game engines as it uses more than 250 bones. My simple rig has about 38 bones at the moment, which makes it harder to animate, but makes it much better for exporting as X files.

 

-rig and animate with TSM2 like you really want to

-bake the animation including constraint results

-swap in a version of your model that didn't have rigger run on it yet (it would have none of the non-geometry control bones, just the bones your mesh is attached to.)

-delete all the channels pertaining to now-unnecessary bones (you can make a filter to make it easy to do this again once you've done it once)

-export

 

 

(I wish we had an fbx exporter though. X files apparently include separate CPs for every patch which contributes to large file sizes).

 

You dont' want the mesh at all? Swap in a version of your character that has all the mesh deleted and leaves just the bones, then export.

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I just tried it , it appears to work in v16.

 

Really? I have tried it with the last two versions of AM16a, 32bit and 64 bit, without any luck. No keys are copied at all.

 

-rig and animate with TSM2 like you really want to

-bake the animation including constraint results

-swap in a version of your model that didn't have rigger run on it yet (it would have none of the non-geometry control bones, just the bones your mesh is attached to.)

-delete all the channels pertaining to now-unnecessary bones (you can make a filter to make it easy to do this again once you've done it once)

-export

 

That looks like it would work. Thanks, Robert!

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