Cicak

[Gerry]

I haven't watched this clip yet but it also occurred to me that sax players use a strap so it hangs around their neck which would also limit the movement.

 

EDIT: Watched the clip, very helpful!

[Gerry]

Here's a quick test of the girl dancing, and though it lacks some snap, I am, or was, totally jazzed by what amounted to a couple of hours (of company time!) of just playing around. I'm going to tweak some of the keys to add some of that snap back in, except for the following:

 

I think I may have created some complications and I need some advice here. I animated the girl with her skirt hidden, as I'll be doing a cloth simulation with it and I want to deal with it as a separate problem. But I just realized, the dance is an action. I believe the cloth simulation only works in a chor, is that correct? Have I complicated things by having the dance in an action but having to do the cloth in a chor? I have no idea.

 

If I have to redo the dance in the chor that's not a huge problem, but I'd like to save what I've done so far if possible.

SaxSoloDancetest_h264.mov

[robcat2075]

Your model still lives in the chor even though it has an action on it so you will be able do the cloth sim in the chor.

[Gerry]

Here's a test render of the guy doing a heavy walk with the world on his shoulders. There seems to be a pop where he puts his left foot down and I'm still tweaking keyframes, but comments welcome.

WorldOnShoulders_compWF_h264.mov

[Gerry]

Here's a quick test, working with simcloth for skirt in the girl's dance segment, and after a few false starts I've got it working *pretty* good! However now I'm not happy with the dance itself and been looking at YouTube dance videos.

 

Though I'm loathe to say there are any hard and fast rules for working with cloth, it appears that tweaking the damping settings is the main way to get wacky results under control.

SaxSoloDance_clothtest3_h264.mov

[largento]

I'd say the cloth simulation is working really well. Cool!

[Gerry]

I've got a better dance. This test is still a little floaty but it's mainly a cloth test for the skirt, and it's coming along pretty nice.

SaxSoloDance_clothtest5_h264.mov

[Paul Forwood]

Gerry, that looks fabulous!

[Gerry]

Thanks Paul! I'm playing with the keyframes now and getting it a little more lifelike. But I can't say enough about the cloth!

[mouseman]

Very impressive!

[HomeSlice]

I'm playing with the keyframes now and getting it a little more lifelike. But I can't say enough about the cloth!

Awesome, we are going to have another cloth expert soon. Please remember to record for posterity anything new you learn along the way. Cloth is still not understood very well by me and, I assume, many others.

[mouseman]

Awesome, we are going to have another cloth expert soon. Please remember to record for posterity anything new you learn along the way.

For example, in the wiki!

[Gerry]

That would be nice in theory! I've found that tweaking some things for cloth don't have a direct cause/effect relationship so I'm not sure if some of the things I'm finding are based in fact or just luck. I will report anything that makes sense, though that may be too high a standard!

 

EDIT: I wrote these comments whilst I was having a problem with the cloth that I didn't understand. At frame 385, her skirt would simply disappear, and it would disappear from the entire chor, even the frames where the cloth keyframes were created. I had worked on it all weekend at home (on the Mac) and hoped that the behavior would be different on my work pc, thereby giving me some clues.

 

Well as it turned out, on the pc instead of the skirt disappearing, I got an onscreen error message. It was general but at least gave me something to explore.

 

What happened was she did one kick where her upper thigh penetrated the geometry of the "attached group" waistband, completely messing up the whole simulation. I lowered her foot a couple of inches so the intersection didn't happen, and everything's fine now.

[Gerry]

Next test of the girl's dance for the sax solo, this time the full 16 seconds. Still smoothing out some keyframes but I'm pretty happy with it so far.

SaxSoloDance_clothtest14_h264.mov

[itsjustme]

Next test of the girl's dance for the sax solo, this time the full 16 seconds. Still smoothing out some keyframes but I'm pretty happy with it so far.

 

Great stuff, Gerry! I saw the feet penetrate the skirt a few times...are they part of the deflector group? If they aren't that may be the problem.

[Gerry]

Thanks David! No, the deflector group ends at the ankles as I didn't *think* it would be an issue! But she does kick high once or twice and that caused a separate problem that I remedied just by moving her one foot a little lower on that frame, so it's working fine now.

 

But when I saw it happen it was kind of funny. Her heel went through the cloth mesh just above the hem, and from that frame onward the skirt was completely tangled around her ankle and lower leg, exactly as if she'd torn a hole in the dress and her foot went through it. Since I could see what happened I didn't worry about it, and the fix worked fine.

 

Her foot may still intersect the cloth geometry but I don't think that will be seen in the final animation. There are a couple of small problems with her rigging that I'm not worrying about as the problem areas won't appear on camera. My main concern is getting the dance moves more natural-looking and less "puppet-like".

[Gerry]

One more, the whole sax solo in the scene. It will be cut differently (I've got 4 or 5 cameras in the shot), but this is essentially the whole scene.

SaxSolo_finalqual_small.mp4

[Zaryin]

I Love the whole scene so far. I especially love how good your cloth is here, nice.

[NancyGormezano]

I like! I like!

 

Nice composition, nice feel, nice cloth, nice dance!

[Gerry]

this is coming together slowly but I'm making progress. Here's the first 40 seconds, still with some rough spots, but substantially finished. Comments welcome!

First_Two_Verses_WCh264.mov

[HomeSlice]

I really enjoyed that Gerry.

[Walter Baker]

Most Excellent job, really loved your work with cloth.

Would really like to see your settings for the cloth seems a little more

thicker than when I did my model.

[MJL]

Looking very good!

[Gerry]

Thanks guys! Walter, I'll post something about the cloth settings soon, currently I'm spending all my time setting up shots and rendering. And re-rendering!

[John Bigboote]

Looking great, Gerry!

[largento]

Excellent, Gerry! I really like the look of it!

[tbenefi33]

That's coming alone just fine can't wait to see the finish project.

[Gerry]

Here's the sax solo. I think it's finished, though my wife says the girl's eyelashes in the closeup still need work.

Sax_solo_sm_h264.mov

[Gerry]

Here's the finished opening sequence. There's still some post work to do on a couple of frames, but I think it's done. Sorry about the file size.

First_Two_Verses_sm_h264.mov

[Gerry]

How does this gecko run look to you?

GeckosWalkAcrossDevil_h264.mov

[MMZ_TimeLord]

How does this gecko run look to you?

Looks pretty good from the top Gerry. I'd have to see it from three quarters or side to make a real call.

[Gerry]

Welllll, this is the only way it will be seen. So if it looks good from here that's good enough for me!

[Vertexspline]

Gerry,

those cute lizards look pretty good to me. BTW have read through the whole thread ...as was not active again only just recently. So - It was so interesting to see this project proceed and progress through the months. great effort Gerry ! look forward to watching more as you get to do it.

 

 

Rich

[Gerry]

thanks Rich, glad you like it. I'm shooting to have the whole thing done by Christmas, and though it's not a firm deadline, I'm looking forward to being done with it!

[Paul Forwood]

It all looks good to me, Gerry.

[Zaryin]

look at those lil critters go! I like 'em.

[Gerry]

Here's an updated version of the gecko run. this is more how it will be seen in the video, but there's still a lot of work to do on it.

GeckosWalkAcrossDevil_v2_h264.mov

[MJL]

Great stuff, Gerry. To my eye, however, the intensity of the devil image, if toned down just a hair, would allow those wonderful gecko's stand out a bit more.

[TheSpleen]

Great stuff! Truly.

[Gerry]

good point Myron. Fact is the devil portrait will be much faded back on a stucco wall in this shot, so it won't be nearly so dominant.

[Gerry]

Here's a rough render of the "Man Singing on Roof" segment. It won't all be in the final video; I'll cut to it and away from it, there will be closeups etc. This is just the body so far, there's no hand or face animation as yet. It will also be about 15-20 seconds longer than this. I would have burned frame numbers but couldn't get that to work, but comments are certainly welcome.

 

Edit: Attachment removed

[itsjustme]

Looks great to me, Gerry!

[TheSpleen]

Great job!

[mouseman]

Looking really good.

 

Two things for consideration:

1. The hands move a little fast and jerky the first few times they move; after that it's pretty good.

2. His upper body/chest does not move, even though the rest of him is relatively fluid. It would be nice to see that move a bit, both in size (as if breathing) and location/curvature (as if dancing).

 

Great work overall! You are going to be very proud of this project when it's all done!

[Gerry]

Thanks for comments and thanks Mouseman for your suggestions. I think I've fixed it somewhat. I've removed the earlier movie and I'm putting a new one here. This is the basic blocking of the entire 53 seconds still with no hand or face animation. Sorry for the file size but I hope you find it's worth it.

ManSingsOnRoof_h264.mov

[Paul Forwood]

I like it, Gerry.

 

How are you ever going to make the time for your annual Christmas video this year?

[mouseman]

The changes look really good! His body movements look a lot more natural now and ... they have a "read", if you know what I mean. It looks meaningful. Some of the foot/leg movement you put in there really adds something to it, and the changes in the upper body show some ... passion? about the song's meaning.

 

Only one small little suggestion/tweak ... each time he starts singing "Cicak", it looks like his head was still and he just starts singing. It might be neat to have him maybe look down (tilt his head down) at the end of the previous line, and if he's thinking, recouping, breathing in, etc., and then has a little bit of an attack on the beginning of the next line.

 

This is a really challenging animation project. You can't rely on just the visual aspects and amusing action. It's one that forces you to explore to get the right emotional performance out of the characters. You seem to be achieving that.

 

Your skills are really developing! You are moving beyond the level of just entertaining animation -- an important milestone in and of itself -- and getting to the magical level of believable animation, something for which I have a long ways to go to even come close. Keep it up!

[Gerry]

Thanks guys. the more I watch it the more I see "puppetlike" movement, so I'm looking more closely at those passages and tweaking keys as necessary. But I do feel like I'm more in control and can inject "personality" without sweating the technical means of getting there. I'm glad it shows.

[Gerry]

Okay, finally got one with a timecode. Better late than never I guess!

ManonRoof_timecode_h264.mov

[Gerry]

Test render of the rooftop singing segment that will make the final cut. Some of it will be more closeup in the final version.

 

I've got the face and hands animated here, but it seems like the more detail work I do, the floatier the small moves seem, especially the arms and hands. But I think that can be remedied mostly by tweaking some keyframes.

 

And btw I got a couple of "boy band" comments about this routine. That...that's a good thing, right?

ManonRoof_finalQual_h264.mov