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Schlitzy Movie


Rodney

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Cheers everyone for the compliments, I'm chuffed.:D

I think well over half it's appeal is down to Jim's excellent model, Schlitzy is just oozing personality. Not that being a drunk is a light hearted issue kids!

 

Parlo- I did originally have his 'hat droop' dynamically constrained, but no matter what i tried it never looked right.:blink: So I animated it the old fashion way. I don't know how you and others are having so much success with dynamic constraints, I just can't get the blasted things to work well for me. The stiffness settings on a chain of bones, to my eye, have virtually no effect, or not the effect one would expect anyway. It be cool if you could bake the simulation, giving you a chance to tweak the motion manually.

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I haven't really been having too much success with the dynamic constraint myself, it's a nightmare in netrender and it's very hard to get as much control over it as i would have liked. HOWEVER - what testing I have been doing in v11 has revealed that you can now bake the dynamic constraint and it works a dream. Being able to create the gross movement with the constraint then tweak after baking is a major time saver. This is going to make it a very powerful tool indeed.

 

If I was to make any criticism whatever of the clip it would be the movement of his pelvis - he seems to waft from the hips a bit. It's hardly a great criticism because the animation is so strong that you're not really looking there.

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oh, and if anyone is looking for the best piece of 'drunk acting reference' may I suggest Catherine O'hara in the chinese restaurant in "Waiting for Guffman". It's not what she says it's just the way she moves and double takes so brilliantly. I can't recommend it highly enough (though the film is peppered with mild profanity and sexual references - some would see these as 'no no's, I myself consider them prerequisites.)

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Cheers everyone for the compliments, I'm chuffed.:D

I think well over half it's appeal is down to Jim's excellent model, Schlitzy is just oozing personality. Not that being a drunk is a light hearted issue kids!

Thanks Stephen, but I can't take that much credit. You gave him so much humor, life and believability. You made him think and react. It was a real thrill for me to have one of my characters brought to life that way.

 

Ditto the comments about excess drinking.

 

Cheers (with a grande' vanilla cappuccino)!

 

Jim

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That a fantastic animation job, Stephen, on a fantastic modeling and texturing job, Jim. You know what? In just a few seconds, you made this 8th dwarf more likeable than any of the other 7 even though he's go a bad habit. That says a lot about the talent that whent into this animation and character. Bravo!

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Must add my cheers: Absolutely Terrific work! both the model and animation, very, very envious of you both -

 

And now please, please share some technique about animating with props. I am having the most difficult time (ver 10.5o, PC) with action objects and having them stayed "glued" to the character's hand motion - I am doing something very similar with a character trying to hold something in both hands while walking or doing other things (coincindently also trying to manipulate paper as well as other objects).

 

I have tried 1) action object translated to a hand bone, with compensation, without compensation, 2) having the hand bones translated to bones in the prop, again compensate, no compensate. In all cases the prop/hands seem to drift apart with motion, and I end up having to re-position constantly. And it doesn't look all that convincing (as yours is brilliant).

 

Stephen, What is your technique for animating? Do you work in the chor with the prop or in an action? and how did you get them to stay so attached? Did you use kinematic constraints? as well?

 

Another problem I am having is that if I create 2 different actions each containing the same prop, and then drag to the chor, the prop disappears in the 2nd action! Huh? wha? Anyone else experiencing this?

 

Please share the secrets... Thanks - Nancy

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That's superb acting. A very enjoyable animation.

As a viewer, I was totally unaware that it was a model. I was absolutley sucked into his character and mannerisms. There's a lot of subtle stuff going on there. Modeling, texturing, lighting, acting, directing, timing, the concept and it's all excellent craftsmanship.

You guys are up to good.

 

Mike

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And this you have done with A:M?

 

Why doesn't Hash document the obvious existence of a the Talent, Humour and Timing Buttons.

 

Check "Show advanced art properties" under Tools|Options|Global if you want to be able to do stuff like this...

 

Advanced%20Art%20Properties.jpg

 

 

Seriously, I'm stunned!

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Stephen, What is your technique for animating? Do you work in the chor with the prop or in an action? and how did you get them to stay so attached? Did you use kinematic constraints? as well?

 

Hi Nancy,

 

I tend to animate solely in a choreography. Animating in actions is for repeatable sequences where you have to make sure the character's movements look good from most angles........and this takes time. The advantage of animating through your choreography camera, (once it's setup for the scene,) is if your character looks alright from this view, then that's all that counts. I realise these are sweeping statements and AM's powerful NLA tools as demonstrated by Raf Anzovin show what good results you can achieve by blending actions. I do use the 'add' blending quite alot, especially on cycles. But, for this short, blending a series of choreography actions didn't seem necessary.

 

I've had a mistrust of action-objects ever since version 5, but I'm sure they are working fine now. :rolleyes: Even so, I find it much easier to keep track of constrained objects in a choreography.

 

Constraining the piece of paper to Schlitzy's hand was your basic 'translate and orient' two step. I always use compensate mode. Kinematic constraints are similar. Normally I would move the hand (arm) and the paper being constrained to the hand would follow. But at one point in the animation I needed the constraints to be reversed. I wanted both Schlitzy's hands to be constrained to the paper, so I could move the paper around and have the hands follow. I used kinematic and orient constraints for this. Exercise 6: 'The stuck door' in the manual that comes with the program is a useful chapter to read. It explains how to use kinematic constraints amongst others and also how important it is to keyframe the relevant bones before unenforcing these constraints.

 

My paper model had lots of bones which I rotated to quickly simulate folding and creasing. I also made sure that all these bones were children of a master bone. When I constrained the paper to the hands of Schlitzy I didn't constrain this master bone to his hands but instead used the paper's 'model bone' or 'shortcut to paper'. So, during the course of the animation if I needed to slightly move the paper in relation to his hands I could, and not worry about ruining the offsets that were created between the paper's 'model bone' and Schlitzy's hand.

I find constraining props difficult too. It was technically challenging to have the paper constrained to his bottom, to his left hand, then to both his hands etcetera, etcetera, and make sure these enforcements gently eased in and out without obvious jumps. I was making lots of keyframes and inspecting the channels to ensure that their wasn't any channel drift between them.

 

If you are doing an animation which has a lot of constraints popping in and out of hands like this, only apply these constraints towards the end of the animating process. Because if you decide to change the timing or readjust your hand movements for example, it can once again mess up the offsets on your constraints. This advise can equally apply to a lot of other details like secondary action (tails, floppy hats etc) which should only seriously be worked on once you are completely happy with the rest of your character's motion.

 

Okay, I've gone on long enough and you are probably more confused than before. If you've anymore specific questions you can ask here or email me if you wish.

 

Stephen.

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Thanks Stephen for the reply, and that wonderfully thoughtful, helpful & very understandable description of your technique for working with props/action objects. Lots of very good info. Especially new idea to me was about applying the constraints late in the animating process. Boy am I dealing with this. And boy am I dealing with transferring control without "jumps". Yikes. When I get a bit further, and some courage, perhaps I'll post my wip

 

Since I last posted - I had discovered my silliness by not also using the Orient like constraint as well as translate to (duh - didn't think I needed it as I wasn't trying to change orientation of prop) - and found out what was causing (as well as solution) to some of the problem with using successive actions with the same prop, however there are still problems with using more than 1 action with same prop in the chor, and so I have resorted to just starting a new chor - bit of a pain having to setup the end of the entire scene keyframes into the beginning of the new scene. (wish there was some automatic Command: - like "Start new chor with this frame for all active components")

 

As for animating in an action versus chor for non-repetitive activities, I had developed a habit of setting my keyposes in the action, checking the in-betweening, but not being real picky about the timing. I would then use the ease channel for the action in the chor to work on the more precise timing of the action - lazy way - that way I'm mostly dealing with only 1 channel for the actor, and it's easier to coordinate with the action of other actors in the scene. Also I find it very difficult to animate in the chor with the splines/images of all the other cameras, lights, ground plane, & other actors getting in the way of my view (even using front, side, etc), not to mention it's seems to have a more sluggish computer response, - just found it less distracting and more fluid in the action window. But I should probably rethink my lazy ways...

 

Again thank you so much for your response, I have read & re-read it many times as it contains very relevant, and helpful info for me (and anyone else, I suspect, trying to work with props) - Nancy

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Thanks everyone for the continued pats on the back! My head is beginning to swell to giant proportions :)

 

Nancy..... in further attempts to persuade you to do more of your animation in the choreography, here are a few more tips.

 

When you start to animate, try deleting all the lights in the choreography, you'll end up with that much clearer default light you get in an action.

Also, I make constant use of the 'active' option to hide models, lights etc that are interfering with my views. Be sure however to toggle the animate button off when you hide a model, so you don't create any keyframes.

 

I look forward to seeing your WIP.

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