Christmas animation

[Gerry]

I've got an idea for the animation I'll be doing but right away I have a question. I want to have an extremely stylized Christmas tree shape (more of a triangular spiral) growing out of the ground. Here's a simple sketch. I don't want to just scale it, I want it to corkscrew out of the ground. What's the best way to "grow" a shape like this?

[NancyGormezano]

I don't want to just scale it, I want it to corkscrew out of the ground. What's the best way to "grow" a shape like this?

 

My first approach would be to model the finished shape: probably using a spiral path, a circular shape (for the cross section extrusion) and the plug-in sweeper, with minimal number of cross sections.

 

Then I would attach a bone for every resultant spline ring cross section, and use the original path and a path constraint and ease (for every bone), starting them all at 0%, and ending them at the appropriate % for the cross section (eg last one would be at 100%, one before that at 90%, next 80%, etc)

 

(EDIT: now that I think about it, you probably could get away with just modeling a straight tube with appropriate # of cross sections, and just constrain each cross section to spiral path)

[robcat2075]

Another way would be to model a long straight tube and use a n animated material to reveal it. The material is a gradient material that is opaque on one side and transparent on the other.

 

Then make a pose that bends the tube into the tree shape and have the pose already on before the material animates the tube into visibility.

[fae_alba]

If the desired effect is to make the spiral tree "grow" from the ground, why not model it as the corkscrew tree, add one bone vertically, then in the chor, start with the tree underground, rotate the bone to get the spiral effect, then raise the tree to match the spin. Let the viewer infer the rest.

[largento]

Does this mean that after doing so many of these, your first thought is "screw Christmas?" :-)

[Rodney]

Robert did a growing vine a few years ago that comes to mind.

A setup like that might work well to have with the tree growing up the (invisible) spline path of the spiral.

[robcat2075]

I had forgotten about it, but here's the one Rodney refers to...

 

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...457&hl=vine

 

 

However, I think Paul's suggestion may be the easiest if the motion of a screw boring through a surface is what is wanted.

[Gerry]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions! I maybe didn't describe it clearly, Paul, "corkscrewing" isn't really what I meant. It needs to start as a shoot, then grow into the spiral, with maybe some glittery particle effect, then ornaments popping out of it along the length of the spiral. I still think I'm not describing it adequately. Both Nancy's and Robert's suggestions are good approaches.

 

Mark, you're not far wrong I'm afraid! My mind is a blank and what I'm doing is the boss's suggestion. It's not bad and I'm happy to do it, but after eight years it gets harder and harder to come up with something.

 

I'll post some tests when I have something to show.

 

EDIT: Robert, that effect is just what I'm looking for!

[Gerry]

Here's a first test of the tree effect. I decided that I like it a little irregular and Dr. Seuss-y, so I'm not worrying about making it perfectly round and smooth. The one thing I'd like to fix is the way it "pulses" out of the ground, but I'm gonna keep moving forward because ultimately I don't think it will be a problem.

 

EDIT: I should say that uncompressed the movement is a little smoother. When I compressed it to post it got a little jumpier than it actually is.

TreeGrowTest02_h264.mov

[fae_alba]

that's pretty cool...but the jitter at the base (trunk) was distracting to me...

[Gerry]

thanks, Paul. I didn't like it much either so I've been playing around with the keyframes and it turns out smoothing out that jitter was easier than I thought. I'll post something more tomorrow.

[Gerry]

Well here's another quick test with some smoothing out and final bounce...

TreeGrowTest03_h264.mov

[robcat2075]

I like that! There may be ways to eliminate the jitter. Can you post a wireframe of that same animation?

[Gerry]

thanks Robert, I'll try to later today. I've had some luck by just retiming the starting keyframes of all the bones as they arise from the base and it's a pretty straightforward process. I'm tweaking today and should have more to show this afternoon.

 

EDIT: What I really like was being able to do the final bounce with an animated distortion box, the first time I've tried that!

[Gerry]

Here's a wireframe test with bones showing. The jitter is smoothed out to a pretty good extent but not perfect. I'm not sure yet but the lower part of the tree may not be onscreen for the whole growth process in this shot.

TreeGrowTest_wf_h264.mov

[NancyGormezano]

EDIT: What I really like was being able to do the final bounce with an animated distortion box, the first time I've tried that!

 

Yes I very much liked that too!

 

I've never been able to figure out how to use distortion box sucessfully (seems like sometimes it works, then it doesn't)

 

Can you share how you did it?

[robcat2075]

It might be fun to have that emitting sparkles or snow as it grows. Or maybe it's going to grow pine needles?

 

 

I think the slight undulation is because the bias magnitude onthe lengthwise splines is not idea; for teh curvature the splines are trying to make.

 

It's probably at default 100? You might try setting them a hair higher until the loops appear round from a top view.

[Gerry]

Thanks for comments, peeps. Nan, the distortion box does seem to have a little quirk to it, i.e., you apparently have to reselect the cp's FOR EACH KEYFRAME. In other words, select the cp's in muscle mode (I did this in an action, but will prolly work fine in a chor; and have the Animate button on), click the distortion box icon, and tweak the d-box to move cp's.

 

Then go to where you want the next keyframe, and even though the d-box is still visible, you have to leave distortion mode, select the cp's again, then click the distortion mode button, tweak cp's, and repeat.

 

What maybe confused you was that intermediate step, where the d-box is still visible but when you move the playhead for a new keyframe, the d-box doesn't effect the cp's.

 

Try it, see if that helps.

 

Robert, that's a possibility. I discovered that the "tree" is too complex right now for the end result I'm after, so I'm simplifying it down to have maybe only 4 or 5 rings, closer to the doodle at the top of this thread. But I think before I proceed to rebuild from scratch I'll play around with the biases on my current model just to test. Currently the spiral rings are too close together for the ornaments that will *pop* out of the spiral as it grows, and I also would have needed a truckload of ornaments to fill the tree properly which I just know would have complicated my task later in the process.

 

And yes, there will definitely be some glitzy texture, either flocking or sparkles or something like that!

[largento]

It's looking very good, Gerry.

 

My only comments would be what I'm expecting to see. I expect the "growth" to become more and more rapid as it goes, because the loops are getting smaller... to the point that it kind of rushes up the last few loops and that's what creates the momentum for the stretch.

 

I also found myself expecting kind of a hoola-hoop action where the speed of the growth almost bounces against the sides. Almost as if each loop were individual... a kind of loop-dee-loop-dee-loop-dee-loop-dee-loop-dee-loooooop-pah!

 

I have no idea if that makes any sense. :-)

[Gerry]

I also found myself expecting kind of a hoola-hoop action where the speed of the growth almost bounces against the sides. Almost as if each loop were individual... a kind of loop-dee-loop-dee-loop-dee-loop-dee-loop-dee-loooooop-pah!

Mark, I was thinking the same thing; it sort of wants to happen. Once I get the design more simplified I'll be able to do these little tweaks. Thanks for the comments!

[robcat2075]

I also would have needed a truckload of ornaments to fill the tree properly which I just know would have complicated my task later in the process.

 

If you did the ornaments as Hair it would be easy to fill the space out and adjust the amount.

[Gerry]

If you did the ornaments as Hair it would be easy to fill the space out and adjust the amount.

No, it's a little more involved than that. Each ornament will have a different inspiring word on it and the camera comes in and does a closeup flyaround, faster and faster, and ends in closeup of the star on top, with guess-who's logo.

 

And, scene.

 

I should probably do an animatic, I've got a piece of music already picked out. I can start timing some of these things out.

[Gerry]

Tricky question: can you reverse the direction of a path? I'm setting up this christmas tree with bones in the part that's growing, and a path constraint. I'm creating the constraints now, but it appears the guide path starts at 100% and goes to zero. So when I create the path constraints for the growing tubular parts, the bones and geometry flip 180 degrees when snapping to the path.

 

I don't know then if this means the geometry will flip inside out, normals and all? I don't mind calculating the ease from 100 to zero, but I can also imagine problems down the line because of this. Is there a way to invert the direction of the guide path?

 

EDIT: nevermind, I just recreated the path.

[robcat2075]

Tricky question: can you reverse the direction of a path? I'm setting up this christmas tree with bones in the part that's growing, and a path constraint. I'm creating the constraints now, but it appears the guide path starts at 100% and goes to zero. So when I create the path constraints for the growing tubular parts, the bones and geometry flip 180 degrees when snapping to the path.

 

I don't know then if this means the geometry will flip inside out, normals and all? I don't mind calculating the ease from 100 to zero, but I can also imagine problems down the line because of this. Is there a way to invert the direction of the guide path?

 

EDIT: nevermind, I just recreated the path.

 

I'm glad you solved it.

 

If that had not been an option (the path being a spline of a model, for example) one could use the Aim Roll Handle constraint to make the bones maintain their orientation even if they reversed direction on the spline.

[Gerry]

That's a good workaround, Robert. fortunately it was a simple enough shape to recreate. I'm rendering a new test now but it may not be til morning before I post it (it's not a long render but I'm skinning out of here at six!)

[Gerry]

New test of the growing tree. I've got quite a bit of bounce at each turn of the growth but it doesn't show as well as I thought it would. I think I need to really exaggerate it.

TreeGrowTest05_h264.mov

[Gerry]

Here's an animatic of my pencil sketches with music. Music is watermarked with a voice saying "preview" until I pay for it!

Animatic_v1_h264.mov

[largento]

I think the exaggerated bounce would be a good idea. It feels stiff compared to the bouncing at the end. Looks pretty darned good, though! Really like the animatic. The idea of having the company name as the star on the tree really works. Bravo, Gerry!

[robcat2075]

New test of the growing tree. I've got quite a bit of bounce at each turn of the growth but it doesn't show as well as I thought it would. I think I need to really exaggerate it.

 

Much smoother!

 

I don't see any bounce as it is turning.

 

The big bounce might be helped by a tiny squish (anticipation) downward before the big SPROING!

[Gerry]

What I mean by the "bounce" is that each ring expands at the leading edge of the growing part. I've exaggerated it a bit more, and added a secondary reverse bounce at each turn and it looks lots better, then I added some particles spraying from the tip and now you don't even notice any of that! The particles may not stay but they look cool!

TreeGrowwithSparkles_h264.mov

[Gerry]

The next hurdle I have to figure out is that there are bones along the spiral guide path (each attached to a cp) that the ornaments will attach to. But I find that when the guide path bounces, the bones don't travel with their cp's and instead stay in place. I would have thought the bones would travel with their cp's?

 

EDIT: Dang, figured it out actually. I did all the secondary stretching of the guide path in *muscle mode* when I should have been animating THE BONES. Back to the virtual drawing board. Argghhhh...

[Wildsided]

What's that?

 

What's what?

 

That thing in the sky.

 

Oh that's just Gerry KNOCKING IT OUTA THE PARK!!

[Gerry]

Wellll, not yet, but thanks for the vote of confidence!

[largento]

I'm sure the rigging masters can tell you the best way to do that, but count me as a vote "yes" for the particles, gives an extra level of excitement to the whole thing.

[Gerry]

Yep, the particles are glitzy for sure! I'll probably keep some version of them in there.

 

Meantime, I've gotten a handle on remaking the "wobble" in the rings by animating the bones, but I still have one problem to overcome, which is the big bounce at the end. If I do that with a d-box, the bones still won't travel with the cp's and I lose the whole effect at the end of all the ornaments bouncing with the tree. So I'm moving forward with it so far but I can see a big problem looming later on.

[Gerry]

Here's a test of the entire tree growth, though it won't be shot this way in the final; there will be closeups and other camera angles.

TreeGrowthFinal_h264.mov

[robcat2075]

Looks good.

 

Suggestion... if you animate the channel for the particle numbers to vary semi-randomly over time it can get you a more natural appearance to the spray.

[Gerry]

I'll try that, Robert!