sprockets The Snowman is coming! Realistic head model by Dan Skelton Vintage character and mo-cap animation by Joe Williamsen Character animation exercise by Steve Shelton an Animated Puppet Parody by Mark R. Largent Sprite Explosion Effect with PRJ included from johnL3D New Radiosity render of 2004 animation with PRJ. Will Sutton's TAR knocks some heads!
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Dan's Epic Gamin' stuff


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I saw it a discussion somewhere the other day about saved choreography's transferring whatever is in them when you used it last to a new project when imported. I was just wondering if there was a way of turning off this 'feature'. I have a chor with a lighting set up I like but I'm getting tired of deleting characters from other project every time I want to use it. If it's not possible I'll make do but if it is I'd like to turn it off.

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I saw it a discussion somewhere the other day about saved choreography's transferring whatever is in them when you used it last to a new project when imported. I was just wondering if there was a way of turning off this 'feature'. I have a chor with a lighting set up I like but I'm getting tired of deleting characters from other project every time I want to use it. If it's not possible I'll make do but if it is I'd like to turn it off.

 

Chors embed items that are not saved elsewhere. Look up in your objects folder. Every object either has or hasn't a floppy icon on it.

 

The ones without a floppy icon are ones not saved separately from the PRJ and if you then save a chor from the PRJ the CHor will embed those objects in it.

 

Right click on each object in the Objects folder that you don't want to be embedded and save it to your hard drive in some appropriate spot. Now when you save a chor those objects will still be loaded when the chor is loaded but they will be loaded from the spot you saved them on your hard drive, their data isn't saved in the actual chor anymore.

 

If you want something to not be part of the chor at all, neither embedded nor linked to, delete them from the chor before you save the chor.

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I saw it a discussion somewhere the other day about saved choreography's transferring whatever is in them when you used it last to a new project when imported. I was just wondering if there was a way of turning off this 'feature'. I have a chor with a lighting set up I like but I'm getting tired of deleting characters from other project every time I want to use it. If it's not possible I'll make do but if it is I'd like to turn it off.

 

Not exactly sure what you are asking or are having problems with ...but it sounds to me that you probably want to

 

1) open the project that you have in which you like the lighting setup

2) delete all the models that you don't want in the chor, but leave the lighting, ground plane probably, camera

3) SAVE this modified CHOR (not the project) as "mydefault.cho" or whatever you want, so that it is separate file from the project file

 

When you want to use this chor as a starting point:

 

1) New/Project

2) import mydefault.cho

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Yeah I've got a chor saved separately as lightroom.chor, but say I use it in Episode 1.prj, When I import it into Episode 2.prj it has all the models from episode 1 in it still (Even though I saved the chor when it was empty) So I just wondered if there was some way of making it not do that and just be empty with the lights.

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Yeah I've got a chor saved separately as lightroom.chor, but say I use it in Episode 1.prj, When I import it into Episode 2.prj it has all the models from episode 1 in it still (Even though I saved the chor when it was empty) So I just wondered if there was some way of making it not do that and just be empty with the lights.

 

This does not sound like normal behavior. Does the same thing happen when you import the chor into a brand new project ? (not episode 2.prj)

 

Quickest way to solution: Upload to the forum your lightroom.cho file and we can see what might be going on.

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does it bother anyone else that the hair 'brush' only affects the CP at the end of the guide hair?

 

For me it sways the entire hair shaft in the direction that the top CP is dragged.

 

If you need to make a more complex curve you can use the arrow tool to move CPs individually.

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If you need to make a more complex curve you can use the arrow tool to move CPs individually.

 

Yeah I know, it's just a pain to adjust each guide individually. When say all I want to do is add a little volume to the hair nearest the scalp. It'd be nice If I could run the brush over the Top CP in the line and it lift up that section. Not a big deal mind, was just something I was thinking about while I've been working on Gwen's new hair.

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Well you've seen Gwen's hair before, just like that only with particle hair instead of helmet hair. When I brush the starter 'afro' down it sometimes ends up looking flat at the scalp. So I was just saying it'd be nice to be able to use the brush to manipulate all the CP's on the guide hair instead of just the end one. Like using the arrow tool to manipulate a single hair only on mass.

 

There's probs a perfectly good reason from a programming perspective why that can't be done

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One thing to consider is that of placing a decal on the skin underneath the hair.

 

The classic example of this was demonstrated by the folks at Anzovin who rendered out a top few of a patch with short particle hair and then used the resulting image as a decal to make sure hair showed through fully from every rendering angle.

 

Without a decal (even one that is the same color throughout) the underlying surface of the head can show through the particle hair.

 

Another thing this lets you do is reduce the number of particle hairs you generate.

 

And... at a far distance from the camera... you may even be able to get away when rendering with no particle hair.

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Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls I give you Gwen with Sexy particle hair. I'm not entirely happy with it yet, so I'll no doubt be tinkering with it right up until the new ep is ready but for now I can live with it. Looks better than her old hair anyway.

Gwen_with_particle_hair0.png

 

The next step in my plan is to make a realistic skin and Eye texture for her.

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Definitely moving in the right direction Dan. Very good for a first attempt.

I would do something different with her eyebrows however.

The thickness of the individual hairs overall is working against you, especially in the eyebrows.

 

As you find time, investigate getting the hair to taper off and adding an image to it to further blend it in.

 

I admit that as a community we haven't done particularly well (pun intended) in the area of collecting and sharing particle hair settings. This is not to suggest that a lot of folks haven't shared their settings and the information isn't out there, but rather that we haven't been very effective in collecting the various hair settings as materials and putting them all in one place so that everyone can get up to speed quickly with just a drag and drop of a material. Ah, another thing to add to my To Do list.

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I would do something different with her eyebrows however.

 

 

Some eyebrow shaping might be felicitous. A hair density decal could do that. :)

 

She's somewhere between Brook Shields and Groucho Marx at present.

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I gotta agree with both of you on the eyebrows. I'd used a decal for her brows before but hadn't transferred the image to this computer so just did the brows in hair to stop her looking like she had Alopecia. Believe it or not Robert I'd done quite a bit of shaping and faffing with density etc on those brows lol. I think it's because the patches where her brows are, are too wide.

 

As for tapering the hair Rodney, it currently tapers from 0.3cm to 0.1 cm, Probs barely noticeable, I'll have a whirl at lowering that further when i get back from work later (Damn you money work and you cutting into my make money eventually work)

 

Edit:

 

Turns out 0.1 is as low as I can go. So the thinnest taper I could do is 0.2 - 0.1

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Transparency on hair can help make it look thinner. You could make the end more transparent to simulate more taper

 

It may look nice, but the use of transparency will increase your render time. I just ran a simple test and the render time doubled for 5 pass (no soften).

 

However you can increase jitter, decrease your hair density, and render time will go down.

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Thanks for the suggestions guys. I thought about transparency half way to work this morning and tried it when I got to my mother in laws (Had laptop didn't have internet) Nancy is totally right on the increase in render time. I'll try adjusting the jitter and density and report back.

 

Lol if I ever get around to making credits for the show (Seemed a bit pointless as aside from Gwen's voice it woulda just said me for everything) I'll have to put you guys in as 'trusted advisers.'

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And the Dan Skelton is a dumbass award for excellence in dumbassery goes to.....................Dan Skelton.

 

Spent the last few days trying to figure out why I could see Gwen's scalp in my chor window, when it's clearly covered in the model window. While I was eating lunch this afternoon it dawned on me that I hadn't attached her "Skull cap" where the hair is emitted from. To her head bone and it hadn't turned with the rest of the head.

 

DURRRRRRR!!!!!

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And the Dan Skelton is a dumbass award for excellence in dumbassery goes to.....................Dan Skelton.

 

Now there is an award I hope I never win. :lol:

 

I think moments like that are required so that we can remember how to laugh when we blinded by pain.

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Okay here's Gwen in her current state. I've tweaked and thinned out the hair (Now tapers to 0.01 at the ends), made her bangs flick up at the bottom, added her lip bump map back in (Lost it on the trip over to the new computer) and given her eyes a much more realistic texture. (It's kinda weird coz now when I'm working on her it feels like she's looking at me rather than just staring forward). Not totally happy with her brows but I'd say they're a marked improvement over her 'grouchio's'. once I have a nice skin texture made i think she'll turn a few heads.

 

Gwen_with_particle_hair_0.pngGwen_with_particle_hair_0.png

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey guys, for anyone who may have been worried I am still alive and kicking. As I mentioned I've been doing some work at the medical center my sister in law is the boss of (It's not what ya know, it's who ya know lol). Been making some fundage but it's not exactly conducive to getting much 'work' done.

 

Anyway some of you may have noticed during the intro to the Christmas episode that E.G was presented by Ace.co Entertainment. This is the name of my little animation company. I created it in 1997 and it's been kicking around in one shape or form ever since. One thing that has been constant about Ace.co is our mascot Ace. He's evolved over the years but he's always been there on our logo.

 

So as Ace.co Entertainment will be featuring heavily in my stuff I decided to make Ace in 3d for the first time (Well second time but the first was made using Corel Dream 3d 7 and doesn't really count)

 

So here he is.

 

ace_stand0.png Acejog0.png

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  • 3 weeks later...

Wheatley_Front0.png Wheatley_side0.png Wheatley_back0.png Wheatley_3_quarter0.png

 

Okay so apparently Ace didn't light up anybodies world......So I decided to make me a Wheatley. For anyone unfamiliar with the Portal series, Wheatley is a personality core.....Or rather an intelligence dampening core....but anyway he's your partner for the first third of the game and then becomes the games' main villain before finally being shot out into space at the end of the game. He's also hilarious and so I chose him to host the "Where the hell has Epic Gamin' gone" information video I'll be making shortly.

 

He's not textured yet but I was pretty darned pleased with how he turned out and thought that as he's a significantly more complex model than Ace, I thought I'd post him.

 

Dan

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Portal rocks! And so does this thread.

 

Ya know that's one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about anything I've done.

 

Thanks man I really appreciate that and thanks to everyone here that has supported what I do.

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Finished Texturing Wheatley. He's been floating around in space for a while now so i figured he'd be a bit dinged up. I've also postulated that as he was blasted from the moon he might still be fairly close to it. (Which he'd need to be for another idea I've been playing with).

 

Anyway I put a backdrop behind him and now i have a new desktop backdrop.

 

Wheatley_in_space.png

 

His eye lids are the only thing I've rigged so far, but I intend to rig and animate his inner workings/outer casing etc.

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Finished rigging Wheatley so i put together a quick test cycle to show a few of his moves. For some reason I didn't bother animating his handle bars but they're rigged too.

 

wheatley_test_cycle.mov

 

Just gotta record some dialogue and the where the heck is E.G video can get animated.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Needed a 'Cover' for the show's Facebook timeline Page (apparently they changed the show page over to timeline without mentioning it to me). It was a good excuse to start thinking of some promotional art for the new series so here's a 720p version of the image I used for FB (The Facebook one has a slightly different aspect ratio).

 

Promotional_Art_1.png

 

If anyone wants to follow the show on Facebook the address is www.facebook.com/therealepicgamin

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As Jason (Hampton) might say... top dollar!

 

It's a really short clip so this may not apply but... it'd be nice to see the intensity of the lighting on the wall diminish and intensify a little with the movement of the flames. That may be more than you care to mess with and not in your budget but if you have time to kill that would further plus it up.

 

If further perfecting... getting the fingers to fall a bit unevenly (tap... taptap or something like that) would give us the idea that there is a brain behind the hand and avoid any perception of floatiness in the fingers.

 

It's a beautiful piece of work.

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