Why?

[Simon Edmondson]

Revised it completely as I couldn't get the crawl to work due to lack of references. This still needs some work on finer details like hand and finger movements but they will happen over the weekend.

 

Any critical feedback or comments welcome. Only three more scenes to go!

simon

 

S16.mov

[Rodney]

Looking good.

 

I believe that if you removed just one or two frames from immediately after he does the face plant that would work quite well.

The delay in his body dropping to the ground is a good idea but it's just a bit too slow.

If delaying, I'd do that at the top.

 

In old world animation terms removing the frames would be the equivalent of transitioning from a slow action (on twos) to a fast action (on ones).

Up to the face plant you've got the slow action. As soon as that registers with the viewer it'd be good to let gravity FLOOOMP* the body down to earth.

Avoiding the Slow Ease down will help with the comedic effect while offsetting the pain we feel for the character.

Having the Ease downward is simply delaying the characters agony a few frames more and (if desired) it would probably be better to keep that delay as a moving hold up at the top position before the fall rather than during the descent.

 

If you can get away with having this sequence a few frames shorter I'd just removed the frames and press on.

That's be enough to tell the story.

 

 

*FLOOOMP being the techical term.

[thefreshestever]

i´d do the faceplant the other way round...i´d first let the belly and the chest land on the ground, with the neck held high up until then, after the chest hit´s the ground the head follows within one or two frames. i believe you´d get more impact that way. you´d get a nice fluid motion with a hard stop at the end. right now it looks like he wants to land with his face first.. if a body is exhausted, it will collapse in itself from bottom to top... if people where falling with their heads first when they fall down unconscious a lot more people would die because of that

 

 

here´s a little example i put together in a couple of minutes, could be done better, it´s just to show you what i mean...

breakdown_low.mov

[Simon Edmondson]

Rodney

I revised it after reading your suggestions. I think it may be a bit sudden now ?

Funnier though !

Regards

simon

 

S16.mov

[Simon Edmondson]

Sebastien

Thank you very much for your reply and your help. You are right of course about the dangers of falling in that way, spinal injury is no joke.

I will try a version as you suggest and see how it reads.

Regards

simon

[Rodney]

You've changed quite a bit here so I'm not sure what you did.

The frames I mentioned still appear to be there so I'll assume you removed some prior to the faceplant vs after.

 

I think I'm going to echo what Sebastian said here... my purpose of suggesting you remove the frames was to lessen the effect of what I percieved as an incorrect fall. This last one looks almost like he intentionally does the face plant... something only idiots do (and usually pay an extreme price for).

Unfortunately he's still easing into that fall/slump which makes it appear he is to an extent consciously controlling his fall.

It's almost like someone saying to themselves, "I think I'll stand on my head" then hitting the ground with their head entirely too hard... but reacting in an odd fashion.

 

Aside: My Mom apparently did something similar last week although she (luckily?) fell backward and hit the back of her head rather than forward into a face plant.

She is recovering quite well (after a few staples) but it does make me consider the effects of balance and weight on the aged... and youth as well. It's something that will (or does) affect us all. Gravity isn't just a drag, it's like the power going out (or on) and having everything immediately and uncontrollably fall. The only thing that dicates the how of it is the underlying bone structure.

 

 

Added: It's interesting to note that I thought your first face plant was painfully accurate up to the point of the face plant.

Even the scooting forward on the face immediately after the faceplant... painfully accurate.

It was only the lingering at the top with the prolonged ease down that was problematic.

...and only by approximately two or three frame at that.

I should have just downloaded and removed those frames to demonstrate what I was talking about.

[Simon Edmondson]

Rodney

 

Thank you for your reply.

I misunderstood your previous message. The frames I took out were during the fall rather than just before it started.

 

I'm acutely aware of the danger of spinal injury as I had a motorbike accident in 1991 that left me paraplegic. There was a bloke I was in rehab with who received SCI when he fell off a stepladder while decorating yet another was in a glifer that got caught in power lines and crashed to the ground. He walked afterwards the decorator did not..

 

Here's an attempt at Sebastien's suggestion.

 

Regards

simonS16E.mov

[markw]

Yes I think that last one following Sebastian's suggested body motion looks better.

I think though you need to keep a more backward curve to the body as he goes down. At the moment his chest hits the ground before his pelves gets there.

Here's a rather rough visual at what I mean;

[Simon Edmondson]

Yes I think that last one following Sebastian's suggested body motion looks better.

I think though you need to keep a more backward curve to the body as he goes down. At the moment his chest hits the ground before his pelves gets there.

Here's a rather rough visual at what I mean;

 

 

Mark

Thank you for your reply and help. I will have a look at doing that tomorrow. I went back to modify the first one with what I hope are the right deletions this time and just waiting for that to render before going to bed.

 

I prefer the movement of Sebastian's suggestion, although I think the other is funnier, partly because it is so abrupt ( violent ? ) in the landing.

regards

simon

[Simon Edmondson]

Follow up on Mark's suggestions.

Critical comments welcome.

SimonS16E.mov

[steve392]

Simmon I think thats looking good,only sugetion I would make for what its worth is the arms might look better landing in front rather than behind ,its a naturel instinkt thing to put your hands /arms out to try and stop yourself.but your probably looking for something other than that

[markw]

Oh that's starting to look better!

More screenshots here. The first is the contact frame for the pelvis and the second the contact frame for the chest. Note that the pelvis has risen up, it really needs to be touching the ground still at this point.

After the chest has made contact is when you want to start raising the pelvis again to get that little bit of body "bounce" in that you've got going there.

The next shot is from after he has come to rest and it looks like his pelvis might still be a bit high and not actually touching the ground.

Also I think I would try and give his head a bit more "weight" and have it droop more. At the point where he has pushed up going into the kneeling pose the shoulders want to be leading with the head following all the way up. See the last two screenshots.

[thefreshestever]

looking good.... if you speed up the very end of the fall you´ll get more impact, and it will get funnier again...

[Simon Edmondson]

Mark and Sebastian

 

Thank you for your replies and help. I will try to follow them up this afternoon and post something this evening.

regards

simon

[Simon Edmondson]

Simmon I think thats looking good,only sugetion I would make for what its worth is the arms might look better landing in front rather than behind ,its a naturel instinkt thing to put your hands /arms out to try and stop yourself.but your probably looking for something other than that

 

 

Steve

 

Thank you for your reply. The first one I did had him with his arms out trying to break the fall but I thought it would be funnier if he just flopped from exhaustion and nosedived. He's been through a lot at this point ?

regards

simon

[Simon Edmondson]

As threatened. revised version following Mark and Sebbastian's suggestions earlier today.

Hope this may be the last revision aside from finger movement and a bit of offsetting.

regards

simon

 

S16E.mov

[markw]

That was a quick turn around Simon and looking better yet!

This screenshot is of the chest contact and his face is pretty much touching the ground too at this point. I would still have the head lagging behind his body some at this point (just by a couple of frames or so), as indicated by the red line, so that his face clearly hits the ground last.

[markw]

...Hope this may be the last revision...

 

S16E.mov

Some ancient Greek philosophers thought that matter was infinitely divisible and that you could keep halving things forever.

I sometimes think revising and polishing animation is a bit like that at times. There's always one more little thing that could be improved

[Simon Edmondson]

...Hope this may be the last revision...

 

S16E.mov

Some ancient Greek philosophers thought that matter was infinitely divisible and that you could keep halving things forever.

I sometimes think revising and polishing animation is a bit like that at times. There's always one more little thing that could be improved

 

 

Mark

Thank you once again for your help. I've incorporated the suggested head changes but won't post another render untill I do the fingers and hand changes on the bit were he "walks" back with them from being prone.

 

I think Xeno's ( sp?) paradox is based on that.

If a figure falls 20 feet in five seconds, in half the time he will fall half the distance, in the remaining fall he will travel half the distance in half the time and so on.. proving that he will never hit the ground because thee is always half the distance and half the time to fall !

 

regards

simon

[Rodney]

I think Xeno's ( sp?) paradox is based on that.

If a figure falls 20 feet in five seconds, in half the time he will fall half the distance, in the remaining fall he will travel half the distance in half the time and so on.. proving that he will never hit the ground because thee is always half the distance and half the time to fall !

 

Something isn't right there because the object would actually be slowing down as it falls in that scenario.

It's not toward the downward (destination) that the half is divided but toward the upward (origin) for any accelerating object such as one falling under gravity.

If it were slowing then the division would favor that deceleration.

 

This isn't quite what you are taling about but... "Fourth Down in Half the Time" makes a bit more sense (to me):

ikQo5k7YtuU

 

[Simon Edmondson]

I think Xeno's ( sp?) paradox is based on that.

If a figure falls 20 feet in five seconds, in half the time he will fall half the distance, in the remaining fall he will travel half the distance in half the time and so on.. proving that he will never hit the ground because thee is always half the distance and half the time to fall !

 

Something isn't right there because the object would actually be slowing down as it falls in that scenario.

It's not toward the downward (destination) that the half is divided but toward the upward (origin) for any accelerating object such as one falling under gravity.

If it were slowing then the division would favor that deceleration.

 

This isn't quite what you are taling about but... "Fourth Down in Half the Time" makes a bit more sense (to me):

ikQo5k7YtuU

 

 

Rodney

I think the 'paradox' is supposed to be in the description rather than the actuality. The description makes perfect sense until you actually look at it and examine it. It sets up a 'logical' progression which is linguistically accurate but empirically false.

 

Plus ! I may have mis explained it ...

regards

simon

[NancyGormezano]

Rodney

I think the 'paradox' is supposed to be in the description rather than the actuality. The description makes perfect sense until you actually look at it and examine it. It sets up a 'logical' progression which is linguistically accurate but empirically false.

 

Plus ! I may have mis explained it ...

 

Maybe the paradox was explained more with the tortoise and hare reaching a finish line - I don't believe anyone was falling outta the sky and combating gravity, which adds another force (easily computed)

[Simon Edmondson]

Rodney

I think the 'paradox' is supposed to be in the description rather than the actuality. The description makes perfect sense until you actually look at it and examine it. It sets up a 'logical' progression which is linguistically accurate but empirically false.

 

Plus ! I may have mis explained it ...

 

Maybe the paradox was explained more with the tortoise and hare reaching a finish line - I don't believe anyone was falling outta the sky and combating gravity, which adds another force (easily computed)

 

 

I'd not seen it explained with the Tortoise and Hare, until I looked it up on Wikipedia. I Live and learn ( sometimes ! )

[Simon Edmondson]

Quick test for scene 18

Any feedback welcome

Rocks.mov

[Simon Edmondson]

Almost there.

This is a test for S19.

Trying for a double take.

Any feedback welcome.?

simon

 

 

S19.mov

[Simon Edmondson]

Not sure about the final edit yet but, this might be the final narrative. Only addition may be the goat shaking its head at the end.

I haven't added the water splash yet but hope to get that done this afternoon.

There is no sound yet, hoping that it reads without sound and that it will be enhanced by it when the foley is done. The intention is to use vocal sound rather than words for the exchanges and angst rants, similar to the way they did in Morph, Pingu and The Clangers.

The first 10 seconds are blank because that is were the Titles will go. its about 2mins 30 long. It was going to be about 20 seconds or so longer but have chopped those.

Any feedback welcome.

regards

simon

 

Why.mov

[thefreshestever]

i´m not sure if i get it... what´s the story? just a shitty day? if so, i think the end needs some sort of twist or point to it, maybe he´s transported in an ambulance to the hospital, and the nurse is the girl from the beginning or something like that. right now the first part seems a little bit disconnected to the rest of the story.

 

at the beginning, at second 57, there´s some background popping happening, the scene where the clouds are rising up could be a little bit shorter i think (there´s also some cloud-popping happening at that part). in the scene after that, from 1.18 to 1.23, what is he doing? is he throwing the flowers away? if so, it isn´t clear to the viewer, maybe you should use another camera angle, a closer one.

 

i really like the camera move in the scene after that, from 1.25 to 1.35... looks very dramatic! but what´s causing those weird lines?

 

when the lightning strikes the rock, it glows for a few frames, i´d keep that up much longer, so it´s really clear it´s hot! maybe ad some slight flickering to it, too.

[Simon Edmondson]

i´m not sure if i get it... what´s the story? just a shitty day? if so, i think the end needs some sort of twist or point to it, maybe he´s transported in an ambulance to the hospital, and the nurse is the girl from the beginning or something like that. right now the first part seems a little bit disconnected to the rest of the story.

 

Sebastian

Thank you for your detailed feed back, much appreciated. There is a pop at 57 seconds, its caused by a slight shift in the mountains in the background. I had thought it was the same until rendered. It really shows up at full res so will try to correct it.

 

The bit were he's walking along the cliff top was supposed to be him argueing with himself about being dumped. The angle was to imply his possible options or at least those he was thinking off.

 

The strange lines in the clouds are caused by the texture maps applied. It was a look I wanted to develop but am still working on. I made a series of tonal cross hatchings in PShop and applied those. The discrepancies are caused by the scalings in the chor. What I was after was a stylised render of a turbulent cloud. The maps cycle randomly in each cloud.

 

The 'story' is quite simple, he is bouncing along on the way to see his girl, only to be rejected on arrival, She walks off smiling, he is devastated and, goes to the mountains debating his life - teenage angst I suppose- just as he thinks it can't get worse, it does.

 

I tried several versions of the rock getting hot ( about six I think ), some where it went through two or three colours and flashed with the temp changes. It was pointed out to me that the hottest part would be almost immediately after the lightning hit and that it would start to cool from then, although still too hot to stand on. Its an exaggerated 'toon' but couldn't be too exaggerated so went for the shortest version.

 

regards

simon

[thefreshestever]

oh, it wasn´t clear to me that he got dumped... i thought he was just hitting on her and got rejected.

[markw]

I have to agree with Sebastian and also say it needs a more definitive end. Something to tie it all up.

The hospital idea would have a certain irony to it…

With the cliff top shot of him, maybe you could have him throwing the flowers away there and we see them falling as he walks away.

Just to clarify about the clouds, here's a snapshot of the lines. Is that caused by the texture maps? or something else?. I don't recall seeing them in earlier posts…

[Rodney]

Yes, I'd add some activity by the goat at the end even if it is only to turn and walk away.

Shaking of the head would work as well.

[Simon Edmondson]

Yes, I'd add some activity by the goat at the end even if it is only to turn and walk away.

Shaking of the head would work as well.

 

Rodney

Thank you for your reply.

The goat shaking his head is going through now. The cliff walk, angst has been removed in the edit. Hope to do the water spout tomorrow.

regards

simon

[Simon Edmondson]

Mark

Thank you for your reply.

Not sure what happened but, I posted a response with some ref's and it got lost. So, will try again.

 

I wonder if it might be a problem with the V17 toon render, similar to the one discussed the other week ?

 

I tried it in V15 with the following results.

 

This is a screen grab of the model

 

This is a png of frame 150 done in V15

 

and this is a screen grab of the same scene in the mov file. ( they were rendered in V17 ). Stepping through to find the frame I noticed that the lines appear and disappear quickly, 2-4 frames.

 

I will try to setup another render in V15 overnight to see if it works better that way. The goat shaking his head is going through in V17 at the moment.

 

regards

simon

 

Ps

started on in V15 but it seems to be doing the same in that.

something to sleep on methinks...

[robcat2075]

I'll note that you can change the interface colors in the Tools>Customize window to make those black lines on dark blue into something more visible.

[Simon Edmondson]

Just done some further checking and get some strange results.

 

This is a jpg of the first frame of S9. Its converted from a tga render

 

As you can see, it has the black lines.

 

This is a png file of the same frame

 

As you can see. no black lines.

Both rendered in V15 under OSX 10.68

 

regards

simon

[NancyGormezano]

I wonder if it might be a problem with the V17 toon render, similar to the one discussed the other week ?

 

Can you point to where that problem was discussed? What was that problem?

 

How did you convert from tga to jpg? (using what software? what settings?). Why are you converting? If just for posting here, then upload the original tga anyway and we can look at it, if that is the file format you want (before assembling the stills into QT movie)

 

How are you doing the cloud model that is giving you trouble? (eg: is it a 1 flat patch with a cookie cut decal?) How is it different from the other cloud model that isn't giving you problems? Is it only on certain frames that it is rendering funny? Is your lighting and or some settings changing on those frames(accidently?)

 

What are your toon rendering settings?

[Simon Edmondson]

I wonder if it might be a problem with the V17 toon render, similar to the one discussed the other week ?

 

Can you point to where that problem was discussed? What was that problem?

 

How did you convert from tga to jpg? (using what software? what settings?). Why are you converting? If just for posting here, then upload the original tga anyway and we can look at it, if that is the file format you want (before assembling the stills into QT movie)

 

How are you doing the cloud model that is giving you trouble? (eg: is it a 1 flat patch with a cookie cut decal?) How is it different from the other cloud model that isn't giving you problems? Is it only on certain frames that it is rendering funny? Is your lighting and or some settings changing on those frames(accidently?)

 

What are your toon rendering settings?

 

Nancy

Thank you for your reply.

The problem we discussed earlier was a render effect in V17 with the toon settings,

 

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=44941

 

Its in the WIP list under Render Effect.

 

All the Cloud models are flat planes with three texture maps applied, Diffuse, Bump and Colour. They are all planar applications, Bump and Colour use the same Decal and Diffuse has a second. Each decal is a short five frame sequence set to cycle repeat in the chor. The lighting stays constant throughout, as does the clouds position, only the camera is moving.

 

The tga to jpg conversion was done in preview on the Mac, the result was the same in Pshop. I didn't post the tga because it had been pointed out that was inappropriate for the forum previously.

 

After last nights findings I set up a test render overnight, only to find that the problem had returned with the png files.

I will try to isolate it today and post a test later.

 

regards

simon

[Simon Edmondson]

Further to earlier postings

 

Here is frame 000, rendered as png, last night at 22.34

 

Here is frame 000 rendered as png at 23.37

 

 

The only thing different was the time of the render. Nothing else was changed, except perhaps the number of passes ( see below ).

I am trying to repeat that on a smaller scale now so as to understand what the cause is.

A curious anomalie is the file size. I think one was rendered with 5 passes and the second with 3 passes. Could that be a cause ?

regards

simon

[robcat2075]

The file size is different because one has more detail to record than the other.

[robcat2075]

What are the clouds supposed to look like?

 

Are some supposed to be black and others not? Are they supposed to have a very faint moire-like texture on them? Or are they supposed to be flat filled shapes?

 

Part of the problem of diagnosing this is I don't know what the goal is.

 

 

Also... to be sure you are using the same render settings from one attempt to the next, save a render preset from the render settings panel and use that each time you want to re-run an experiment.

[Simon Edmondson]

What are the clouds supposed to look like?

 

Are some supposed to be black and others not? Are they supposed to have a very faint moire-like texture on them? Or are they supposed to be flat filled shapes?

 

Part of the problem of diagnosing this is I don't know what the goal is.

 

 

Also... to be sure you are using the same render settings from one attempt to the next, save a render preset from the render settings panel and use that each time you want to re-run an experiment.

 

Robert

Thank you for your reply.

The idea was to have the clouds change over time so that it would appear as turbulent storm clouds churning away. The values of the different maps was changed over time in the graph editor and then ping ponged or cycled for the duration of the sequence..

I've got some tests going through so I'll post them later.

regards

simon

[Simon Edmondson]

Its been a bit frustrating trying to isolate the problem as sometimes it does it and, occasionally it doesn't.

Here is an example of when it does. The red background is just to make it show up even more.

 

 

Looking at it closely I noticed that the strong lines don't cover the whole area and, were the clouds overlap it appears as though they are off set slightly on the one in front. As if projected at the flats of the model ?

I will go back and check the stamps for the decals.

regards

simon

 

Ps

May have found the problem.

It appears to be something to do with using a transparency map.

I will do a test to see if I can replicate it.

 

PS2

It does appear to be caused by the transparency map.

Will try a full render and post later.

 

Sequence render without transparency maps.

No decal animation in this version. About to work on that.

Why_09_clouds.mov