ROBOT

[TNT]

I watched iRobot the other night and decided to give it a go with a little cartoony look added.

 

Not sure what to do with the face but it was fun to do a quick model.

 

I used the 2008 rig.

 

It's easy to install and has great instructions to follow, plus it gave the right amount of control for this character.

 

The only CP weight blending I had to do was in the palm of his hands so the joints would stay connected using the hand controls.

 

It needs some work but it's a start.

 

[heyvern]

Nice job so far...

 

... yikes... I would however, not buy a robot to work in my house with a but crack like that. This is just a personal preference. Others may like a good but crack on their robots... who am I to judge.

 

-vern

[TheSpleen]

He could shoot fire out his arse!

[Eric2575]

He wouldn't be very agile with those arthritic knee joints

[nino banano]

funny character TNT...go ahead...

[robcat2075]

nice Robot!

 

I forget the brand name, but he looks a bit like toy that was a bunch of snap together plastic parts that you could make figures out of. Not Legos. It was something way less brick-ish.

[TNT]

Thanks for the feedback.

 

He was a quick start and a long way from final.

 

He was looking to human for what I was after.

 

I wanted something a bit more funny.

 

Here he is with him proportions changed and a different start to a head, shorter legs, longer arms,new feet, and fewer splines.

 

Still a lot to do but he is only on version 3.

 

I think I am liking him better.

 

We'll see where he goes.

 

[MJL]

He looks like a very fun robot, like a kids friend. He also looks like he could express a wide range of emotions.

Nice Job.

[phatso]

Actually, he looks neurotic. Like the robot in "hitchhiker's guide...". Which is fun in its own way.

[TheSpleen]

very cool!

[TNT]

EVOLUTION!

 

He has had some changes.

He is now rigged with the 2008 rig.

I added a couple bones and set the colors to a bit more permanent settings.

 

He's more cartoony now which is what I wanted to end up with.

He still needs a lot of rigging, especially on his face.

His left hand is giving me a fit.

The right hand controls worked but the left are not fully functioning as all the fingers don't clentch.

 

Have to see where he ends up but I think this is close.

 

Critiques are always welcome.

 

[steve392]

That looks real good ,a sort of frendly look to it and very smooth ,nice

[mtpeak2]

Nice robot Tim. Looks like he's going to be fun to animate.

[itsjustme]

Very cool latest look, Tim! He keeps getting better.

[Gerry]

Wow, quite an evolution! You should keep all of them.

 

Hey Robcat, are you by chance thinking of Crazy Ikes?

[TNT]

Thanks for the encouragement.

 

Above I said I was having problems with the left fingers and hand not functioning correctly.

Well, I found the problem.

 

Short story is operator error and a laps of thinking.

When I installed the 2008 rig I added a few bones and constraints.

When I mirrored the bones as part of the install it mirrored teh bones and its constraints but not mine.

So, I decided to use the "Mirror Constrains" plug-in. Not the right choice.

 

After quite a bit of cleaning out all the extra constraint for the left half of the rig, all seems to function.

 

New rule, think, think, think.

 

Thanks again.

 

I'll try to post as I get more done.

[TNT]

It's been busy!

Working on the house takes a lot of time but I have been working on the bot when I can.

 

I have been focusing on learning rigging and how it all works.

The body is mostly the 2008 rig which works perfectly for this character.

The instructions to install it were really good.

For the face I purchased a few books to help with writing expressions, and have been going over David's tutorials on facial rigs.

David's tut's are wonderful and easy to follow.

I am finding some real differences to rigging a robot head and a plyable face.

It is proving to be tricky to get a full range of emotion with the more rigid mechanical features of a robot.

I have focused on the eyes so far and tried to balance a mechanical feel with a little deformation.

I want him to be believable as a robot but still have a full range of emotions to connect with.

I think I am getting there slowly.

 

The mouth is going to be next.

Not real sure how to make a "one liped" mouth work but I plan to try.

 

I attempted a few seconds of animation below to show a little of what he can do so far.

It was quick and the timing is not so great but animation is another skill to learn.

 

Any critiques or suggesteions are always welcome.

 

bot_2008_rig___animation_test___2.mov

[robcat2075]

that's a cool looking figure. I have one suggestion... flatten the ball that is the elbow joint, to make clear teh direction that it hinges. When we first see it it looks like the elbows are turned wrong or could go in any direction

 

It is proving to be tricky to get a full range of emotion with the more rigid mechanical features of a robot.

It's all in the body language and the poses he takes on. The face isn't always needed. Chaplin liked to say "I can show any emotion in silhouette"

 

 

Any critiques or suggestions are always welcome.

There are "weight" issues in that animation but as a test of the rig it shows you've got it working.

[TNT]

that's a cool looking figure. I have one suggestion... flatten the ball that is the elbow joint, to make clear teh direction that it hinges. When we first see it it looks like the elbows are turned wrong or could go in any direction

 

It is proving to be tricky to get a full range of emotion with the more rigid mechanical features of a robot.

It's all in the body language and the poses he takes on. The face isn't always needed. Chaplin liked to say "I can show any emotion in silhouette"

 

 

Any critiques or suggestions are always welcome.

There are "weight" issues in that animation but as a test of the rig it shows you've got it working.

 

 

Thanks for the critique.

Just to make sure I understand what you are saying; flatten the elbow so it is narrower the direction it does NOT bend and leave it round the other direction? Is that correct?

 

I know I need a LOT of practice when it comes to animating anything that looks good.

I hope to work on that after I have a well rigged character to work with.

 

I have read that the body language can be enough. I just want to get what I can from the face. I know it may be somewhat limited because of the character.

I watched some video of animated balls that showed how anything can portray attitude.

I'll try to keep that idea in mind as I set the rest of the rig.

 

Thanks again,

[itsjustme]

He's starting to round into shape, Tim!

[robcat2075]

Just to make sure I understand what you are saying; flatten the elbow so it is narrower the direction it does NOT bend and leave it round the other direction? Is that correct?

 

Yeah i think if you make it less spherical it will look like an elbow hinge. Unless you really do want it to be able to swivel in any direction, but probably not.

 

 

 

 

I have read that the body language can be enough. I just want to get what I can from the face.

 

I guess I shouldn't say it's ALL in the body language. But you can do a lot with that. Animated faces never have the same life that real faces do so getting the body to help is useful. Good taste should rule, it can get corny either way.

 

Watch some silent dramas made before , say, 1920 (like Rudolph Valentino in "The Sheik") and you'll see some pretty ghastly body and face acting.

 

On the other hand someone like Clara Bow had an amazing face that could say sentences without speaking. We don't think of her as a pantomimist like Chaplin, but she knew what she was doing.

 

I just looked at that Bow clip again and it occurs to me that between the lighting and the makeup her face has been simplified down to not much more than the mouth and eyes. Geez, in that last shot she's practically a panda bear! If she can work with that I suppose our robots can too.

 

If you have a chance to watch a Clara Bow movie she is a real study piece even in the weak ones.

[steve392]

Thats a good looking charector ,the eyes work well

[Zaryin]

Yeah, I can't relly speak to the animation, but I love the character.

[TNT]

I made the changes tht were suggested for his elbows and mouth.

I applied the ability to alter his color for some parts, and tried a couple facial poses for the eyes.

I still having some trouble with the way the sockets are distorting when I pose them so I have to do more work there.

 

Comments are welcome.

 

[TheSpleen]

I like the first render.

He has tons of character!

Be a joy to animate.

[TNT]

MIRROR BONES ERROR

 

I got this message when mirroring some bones in the eye.

Anyone able to interpret this error message more completely, or tell me where this file should be located as I can't find it?

 

Thanks,

 

[robcat2075]

I like the flatter elbow joints.

 

Anyone able to interpret this error message more completely, or tell me where this file should be located as I can't find it?

 

a search on your C drive would find it.

[TNT]

I like the flatter elbow joints.

 

Anyone able to interpret this error message more completely, or tell me where this file should be located as I can't find it?

 

a search on your C drive would find it.

 

Thanks, I like the suggestion also.

I also did the same to his knees so they look better from the back.

 

You were correct. The file was in the root drive "C:\"

Never would have expected it to write there.

 

For anyone else who may ever come across this self inflicted error, here is what was inside mine.

Problem resolved.

 

Thanks again,

 

[TNT]

Hi All,

It's been quite some time since I posted an update on the robot.

I've been slowly applying the advise I've got and forging forward.

He has really become my attempt to get a better grasp of all the phases of modeling, rigging, and animating.

I have modeled him from scratch, used the excellent 2008 Rig for his body with a couple mods to make his backbone and rib sections move like I wanted, and built his face rig from scratch using David Simmons (itsjustme) tutorials along with some other reference materials I found and a lot of experimenting as well.

Once the rigging is finalized I want to try learning to make believable animation.

One step at a time.....

 

This forum is a great wealth of information and I appreciate everyone who participates.

I especially want to thank David for his tuts, Mark for the 2008 Rig, and Jason for the recent tut on SSS (I tried it on his eyes).

 

Thanks for your donations and support on this forum.

 

As always, I appreciate any critiques to make my modeling and rigging better.

 

The MOV file below is a quick test of the phonemes I added from picking thru David's Squetchy Sam example model.

 

bot_talk5.mov

[steve392]

Looks and sounds good ,I think the eyes a graet

[John Bigboote]

That's looking very, very cool!

[TNT]

Thanks for the support.

He has been a lot of fun to create so far.

I still have a lot to learn about the phonemes.

I need to get rid of the jitters but I'm not sure how yet.

[robcat2075]

Good looking character!

 

 

 

I still have a lot to learn about the phonemes.

I need to get rid of the jitters but I'm not sure how yet.

 

That's a problem with the Phoneme method. It snaps to exact shapes and does that for every syllable. It works better in 2D than in 3D.

 

In real life we mush them all together.

 

A common work flow in 3D is to just animate the jaw up/down then when that looks good, add in more specific mouth shapes where needed.

 

But jaw up/down can do a lot. That's all Muppets can do and they've done well for themselves.

[TheSpleen]

I make my own pose sliders and work each word individually

never use phenomes at all, and with a bit of practice I am improving.

[TNT]

Thanks for the ideas guys.

I'm going to keep at it till I get something that looks good.

I'll try the up/down and then layer in some other moves to see how I can make that work.

Unfortunately I can't start today.

I'll give it a go when I get back in town Sunday.

 

Cheers,

[HomeSlice]

I don't use the dopesheet much either, but here is how to make the mouth move more smoothly if you do use it. It's a bit of a process.

 

After you enter all your words and get the timing all set up,

Click on each pose channel (for each phoneme pose ie. E, FV, MPB etc)) under the action in the PWS.

Switch to "Channel View" in the PWS timeline.

Delete any keyframes that are less than one frame apart. You want *at least* one frame between keyframes.

Click in the channel window and hit [ctrl]-A to select all the keyframes.

Right-click in the selection box and choose Interpolation > spline.

There will be a bunch of splines that dip below 0%, and probably a few that raise above 100%

Drag the keyframes where the splines dip below 0% up until the splines sit at 0% at their lowest point.

Drag the keyframes where the splines raise above 100% down until the splines sit at 100% at their highest point.

Do this for each Phoneme pose channel in the action.

[TNT]

OK, I finally had time to work on this and try the process from HomeSlice.

Thanks for the step by step instructions and the [ctrl]-A shortcut. I didn't know that one.

I removed several points and brought everything back between the 0% and 100% marks.

I tweaked the percentage of the phonemes to get what I thought looked good.

I also added some jaw movement and a little eye socket animation.

I think it's better.

My acting/animation skills have a long way to go but here is what I was able to do.

The main goal for this was to prove IF the capability I built into the robot for phonemes was good enough.

 

I plan to try to freehand a pass also like Robcat and the Spleen suggested.

 

Critiques and opinions welcome.

 

bot_talk_17.mov

[TNT]

I desided to take a little break from the lip sync and did a walk cycle.

I had some trouble with key framing but I got help in the Rigging Forum.

Here is a MOV file.

 

Critiques are welcome.

 

bot_walk_cycle.mov

[robcat2075]

I desided to take a little break from the lip sync and did a walk cycle.

I had some trouble with key framing but I got help in the Rigging Forum.

 

That's a real good start.

 

One part that's missing from the walk is the compression pose right after the heel contacts the ground.

 

There are some videos o n posing walks in the tuts link in my sig that have more of an explanation.

 

The talking clip works too. I think you could make some bigger mouth poses.

[TNT]

Thanks Robert, I'll take a look at the videos on the walk.

 

Sorry it took a while to respond, I just changed my internet over to cable yesterday so it was down most of the day.

 

I'm going to keep working on the mouth also but I think that is going to take more time.

[TNT]

Thanks again Robert, for the suggestion on the walk.

I made another try.

 

If I understood you, he needed to land with more weight.

I think this is better.

Let me know if it works or if there is still improvement needed.

 

bot_QuickWalk_cycle.mov

[robcat2075]

If I understood you, he needed to land with more weight.

 

Yeah, that bit of follow thru helps a lot.

 

The next two things i see.

 

- his front leg is contacting the ground bent. try to get that leg reaching forward as straight as possible. 99.9% straight. Otherwise it makes for a tired Groucho look to the walk. 100% straight is a problem because of a pop you can get going from absolutely straight to not-quite absolutely straight.

 

- his rear leg is picking up too soon. Just about the same instant that the front leg hits. Have it stay on the ground for a few more frames so it can straighten out to help push him forward thru the step that just landed. You need to lift the heel eventually, but he can still touch with the toe. This is where a rig that lets you raise the heel while leaving the foot bone in place is helpful.

[TNT]

I took another pass at the walk cycle to try to get the legs straighter at the contact position

and the back foot to push off more like Robert suggested.

Here is the latest.

I think it's looking more believeable.

 

Tell me what you think.

I appreciate the critiques.

 

bot_QuickWalk_cycle_2.mov

[robcat2075]

That's looking better. He looks like he has weight.

 

I recall one animator saying that when he's stumped on how to make a walk look weightier he'd keep the feet on the ground longer.

 

The way your legs are shaped they look bent even when they are "straight", so that's something you'd either have to live with or adjust the model so it can do a more obvious straight leg pose

 

 

There's some sort of overall glitch about when the right heel hits. Probably because the curves at the beginning and end of your action don't match.

 

Possibly related, the left hand looks like it's hitting a wall when it reaches its farthest forward point.

 

 

A further polishing thing on walks is to get rid of Knee pops. these are sudden front or back movements of the knee that are quite unlike the frames before or after. This is a plague of animate walks.

[Paul Forwood]

This looks terrific! I agree with Robcat about matching the curves at the beginning and end of the sequence.

[steve392]

I think its graet ,love the weight youv given it ,I allways copy and paste the 1st and last frames that should match but can never seem to get that weight in

[TNT]

Here is a final go at getting a decent walk cycle.

I think it's much better.

 

There's some sort of overall glitch about when the right heel hits. Probably because the curves at the beginning and end of your action don't match.

 

Possibly related, the left hand looks like it's hitting a wall when it reaches its farthest forward point.

 

I hunted for ever making sure every channel beginning and end matched for every bone in each arm and leg but was still getting jerks.

Then the light came on and I realized I had not checked the parent bones. Namely the hips and back.

Sure enough, they did not match at the beginning and end.

Once I cleaned them up, I think it's better.

I also found a bad frame on each heel where they moved off their arcs.

 

Thanks for all your time Robert and for everyone who looked and gave feedback.

I think I learned quite a bit on this exercise.... I hope I can remember it all for next time.

 

bot_QuickWalk_cycle_3.mov

[robcat2075]

That's working pretty good!

 

There's still something odd when the left hand hits the front, but I'd say put this one on the mantle and move on to the next challenge.

[largento]

Haha! He looks great!