Cupid's Sick Day

[TheSpleen]

I have a scene with my Aaron model dancing.

Aaron was modeled holding a rake, but I did not want the rake in the dance segment.

So I did edit model and selected everything except the rake and hit the hide command.

did my scene and it worked perfectly and rake was never a problem.

one model, just used edit model function to make rake be hidden.

 

Gene

[Shelton]

Here is some motion with the constraints applied. It has been too long since I have done somehting from scratch.

 

Steve

shoot.mov

[steve392]

That bow works real well Steve ,good job

[TheSpleen]

That looked good!

My only suggestion is speed up the arrow when fired.

[pixelplucker]

does look good, you could emphasize the bow pull and make him strain drawing it and like Spleen said add some speed to the arrow.

[Shelton]

David rigged the bow so I have him to thank.

 

this was an exercise to see if the character could shoot the bow, mainly testing the rig. That being said you guys are exactly right. I should have had the arrow excelerate away from the bow

 

thanks again for looking

 

Steve

 

edit

Here is the accelerated arrow

shoot1.mov

[Shelton]

I have created several actions files. I am trying to blend them into a chor. I was able to do this at one time without a problem. first action moves from 0-30 frames. the next action goes from 31 to 107.

 

The first action allows transition to the next action, with blend method set at blend. With what type of ease should be set?

 

The second action what settings should be set? OK, hows crop range work? what blend method should it be

 

As it is now it jumps from one action into the next

 

Steve

[robcat2075]

With what type of ease should be set?

ease is a percentage of the action that has been completed on a particular frame. Generally you leave that unset and let the action run it's course normally.

 

The second action what settings should be set?

 

 

OK, hows crop range work? what blend method should it be

I think "replace" is usual.

 

As it is now it jumps from one action into the next

 

hard to know without seeing the whole PRJ

[Shelton]

thanks Robert.

 

I was working on the action and got them blocked and wanted to see the timing, so I placed them into a chor and wanted to see the movement from action to action. I can not get the arms to ease into the next action.

 

I finally got the movement of the second action to work.

 

Steve

test.mov

[HomeSlice]

Set your last action to Blend. Make sure it is *under* the first action in the PWS, And make sure it overlaps the first action by 6 or 12 frames (more or less)

On frame 0, set the Blend Percent to 0

Several frames before you want to second action to be fully activated, set the Blend Percent to 0.

Several frames later, set the Blend percent to 100%

[Shelton]

Thanks Holmes

 

Here is a snap shot of the two actions in the chor. The first action is 30 frames, the second is 83. I tried what you said and the second action never activated. Instead it went to the last frame and stayed at that point.

 

Steve

[HomeSlice]

You should save all those choreographies out as separate chors. If your Project file gets corrupted, you will be SOL.

Are you sure you set the Blend Percent to 100% at the appropriate time?

You have "Transition to next Action" ON for both Actions. When you use "Blend" you usually turn those off.

In order to use "Transition to next Action", you can keep the Blend Mode to "Replace". And do not overlap the actions. In fact, space them out several frames. You should see the red action bar in the timeline slope down in the space between the two actions. However, I prefer to use Blended actions because sometimes the model does screwy things between actions when using "transition to next Action".

 

Instead it went to the last frame and stayed at that point.

What went to the last frame?

The last frame of the chor?

How many frames does the chor have?

What do you mean by "it stayed at that point?"

[Shelton]

Thanks Holmes. that worked!

 

Now if Ican remember that the next time.

 

Steve

[Shelton]

Ok started the face weighting, and I have not had much sleep lately so here goes my goofy question.

 

I assigned a set of cps to a bone. Realizing later that I had made a mistake, how do you remove a cp from an assigned bone. I know its late and I have tried without success.

 

Steve

[NancyGormezano]

I assigned a set of cps to a bone. Realizing later that I had made a mistake, how do you remove a cp from an assigned bone.

 

assign it to a different bone, ie click on the bone you want them to be assigned to, then lasso the cps that were assigned incorrectly

[robcat2075]

I assigned a set of cps to a bone. Realizing later that I had made a mistake, how do you remove a cp from an assigned bone.

 

assign it to a different bone, ie click on the bone you want them to be assigned to, then lasso the cps that were assigned incorrectly

 

 

And if you click on the model window background you can make the black model bone appear. That is the bone all CPs start out on by default.

[kwhitaker]

he looks like the hero type, will he be wearing a dark mask.? looking good :

[Shelton]

Thanks Nancy and Robert. I was too tired last night and the simple things were escaping me.

 

Hi Kay! No he will just wear the glasses as he will be substituting for Cupid

 

Steve

[Shelton]

Having problems on the cleanup of the shoulder area. I know it is more to do with the way I modeled the character. Anyway I when I smart skin I have found that I can lock up the arms if the smart skinning is not done correctly. Any advised?

 

Also, in the chor I have the background white and the ground not active as I wanted to see the shoulder area better. But yet it rendered with black background. Is there another place such as an action that can change the background and colors?

 

 

 

Steve

jumpa.mov

[NancyGormezano]

Also, in the chor I have the background white and the ground not active as I wanted to see the shoulder area better. But yet it rendered with black background. Is there another place such as an action that can change the background and colors?

 

Nice jump! very supermannish.

 

You probably had alpha buffer on when you rendered - turn it off. I always forget that qt mov's have that option.

[higginsdj]

Haven't been following this thread so not sure just how much critiqing you wanted..... There is not enough anticipation or follow through in the jump. His upper body bends up whilst he bends down in the knees. His body and head should bend the other way then just befor he launches with the legs the head and upper body shoudl then bend up. As he takes off there is only movement in his arms and legs - nothing in the head and body. Once he has left the ground the relative distance between the feet is maintained though one might expect the legs/feet to get closer to each other.

 

Cheers

[Shelton]

Hi David and thanks for the critique. I am mainly seeing how the rig is holding up. I wanted to put the body in some awkward positions and see how it moved out of it. I see a great deal of tweaking left to do in the upper body. I have weighted the lower and smart skinned some areas but the rig is well made (thanks Mark) that not much was needed. I am still learning about key frames and the basics of animation so any advice is helpful.

 

Thanks Nancy and of course you were right again. I had to reinstall AM after system problems and forgot to click the alpha off.

 

I am about to throw my machine out. It crashed several times last night (Hardware related). I got the dreaded blue screen of death several times last night. Finally, I was able to give it CPR and got it going in time to upload the last animation. So I am computer shopping tonight. Looking at the HP Z workstations and the Dell Percision workstations.

 

Thanks for the help.

 

Steve

[Shelton]

I was thinking about the sets this evening after talking with Gene in an email. It made me think of Robert's lighting thread, and I how was I going to light the outdoor scenes. I started looking at Paul's Playground and how he lit using AO. I have tried to duplicate this but had no luck. How do you set up AO rendering?

 

Steve

[steve392]

Here is som ething I kept ,sorry can't remember who it was from

AO_settings.txt

[Hutch]

I was thinking about the sets this evening after talking with Gene in an email. It made me think of Robert's lighting thread, and I how was I going to light the outdoor scenes. I started looking at Paul's Playground and how he lit using AO. I have tried to duplicate this but had no luck. How do you set up AO rendering?

 

Steve

You have to change the global ambience type to global color in the choreography properties, then set your occlusion rate in the area that will open up under it. Set it for 80-100%. You also have to turn on multi pass and ambient occlusion in the render settings. You can leave the AO settings there at their default.

[Shelton]

Gave it a try and the sss on his face remained darker. So a combination of sss and ao possible?

 

Steve

[Hutch]

Gave it a try and the sss on his face remained darker. So a combination of sss and ao possible?

 

Steve

I am not sure about sss but the skin shader doesn't seem to work with AO. I think maybe the shader uses ambience which the AO cancels out. Maybe sss is similar.

[Shelton]

Finally had some time to get back to the project work keeps getting in the way!!

 

I am still having problems in the rotation of the shoulder area. It seems to happen when I put the elbow in an L shape.

 

Steve

[HomeSlice]

I am still having problems in the rotation of the shoulder area. It seems to happen when I put the elbow in an L shape.

Looks like you may want to adjust your CP weighting and/or the fan bone(s) in the shoulder.

 

Great looking office super hero!

[mtpeak2]

Smartskin may be your best bet.

[Shelton]

thanks Holmes and Mark!!

 

Here is a shot of reworked smart skin. I deleted all the others in the arms and concentrated on the shoulder area. When I did that it seemed to help. Not sure if one smart skin was causing a problem with the other. Also I focused on the rotation of the bicep. Before I was looking at the shoulder area. I can live with this now.

 

Steve

[Hutch]

Looks nice! Did you get sss working with AO? Or is that not AO?

[Shelton]

I could never get AO to work properly with SSS. So I will threw it to others can sss be used with AO?

 

Steve

 

I started reading the book that Robert talked about lighting 3d. Wow so far it has been easy to understand. skipped ahead and not sure what some of the concepts they were talking about.

[Shelton]

I have finally felt good enough to start putting all the weighting in the face. Thanks to David and All that put the face interface together it makes it so much easier!

 

Steve

[TheSpleen]

looks good

got sets ready?

[Shelton]

Hi Gene,

 

Been sick most of the week with a stomach bug. I haven't done anything except read email and forum messages.

 

I did however, layout the park scene on paper. After we talked I got the office set built except for the props such as the desks and chairs. I have the street scene and Cupids house to complete.

 

Steve

[TheSpleen]

Just checkin'

[Shelton]

I have been reading the book about lighting and rendering from Birm. I have set up a few lights in the scene and I have a question. I have a fill / sun light, a light for highlight on the eyes, and two color lights to set the tones. My question is why is the mouth still lit?

 

Steve

 

Thanks Rodney

[TheSpleen]

I like to lower the fill light very dim then add rim lights and such to get the effects I want.

Fill will light everything.

[robcat2075]

My question is why is the mouth still lit?

 

There is probably a light with shadows OFF.

 

Or possibly you have a light aimed straight into the mouth. The eye lights should just be specular only if that's all they need to do.

 

Or the mouth is textured with ambiance not set to zero.

 

Less likely... the model is set to not receive shadows.

[Shelton]

Thanks Robert. I had turned off shadows trying to find which light was causing a shadow. I forgot to turn it back on. Now I know.

 

 

Steve

[Shelton]

This is getting close to the outdoor light I want. The ears still bother me with sss. I am pretty sure it is how close the mesh is from behind the fold that causes the color darkness. I will keep you updated.

 

Steve

[robcat2075]

This is getting close to the outdoor light I want. The ears still bother me with sss. I am pretty sure it is how close the mesh is from behind the fold that causes the color darkness.

 

Can the ears be a different group with different SSS settings?

[Shelton]

Well after a major loss here at our house (water damage) I hope to be back up and running shortly. I lost the server and my modeling machine. I had backups of almost all the data files. The main problem I have, is I lost all my netrender capabilities. Once I get my server in and the workstation I should be back in business.

 

Some really nice stuff has past through the forum over the last couple of weeks.

 

Steve

[TheSpleen]

keep plugging away buddy.

Sorry about your loss.

[steve392]

Sorry to hear that Steve .Hope you get it sorted soon

[Shelton]

I have not received my workstation yet but used AM on another machine. Here is shot of the eyelashes.

 

Steve

[steve392]

Looking good ,did you use hair Steve

[Shelton]

thanks

 

Yes sir. Just dropped in a emitter and it curled pretty well by itself because the way the eyelids turned.

 

Steve

[NancyGormezano]

character looks great - the sss skin has possibilities - but what's with the shadow in the eyeballs? is that because of sss? reflections?