new characters

[CRToonMike]

It's funny how inspiration can take you where you didn't think you were going. Case in point, John's thread on his Kapsule characters. I found them to be very cute and creatively stimulating. I have this pair of grape characters that I thought about redoing, so I did.

 

Only thing is that in the redoing, I created totally new characters and I'm kinda surprised at the results.

 

These characters are "bitties" (there was this elderly african-american woman who would stop by the pet store I used to manage every easter for her "bitties" -- baby chicks. The name stuck with me and I'm delighted to be able to use it) and they are kinda elfin, sorta fairy-like people.

 

I kinda have a story line that came to me while listening to Robyn Hitchcock's Catherdal Song.

 

Anyway, the first character is Kenth:

 

 

here's the wireframe:

 

 

 

 

Here's Tauri:

 

 

 

 

here's the wireframe:

 

 

 

and finally there's a flyaround as an attachement to this message.

 

Been working on these since Thurday and finished 'em up earlier today. Interesting in any and all comments.

 

thanks

wip_bitty_flyaround_a.mov

[heyvern]

These are great! I love the "back story" too!

 

I suppose tauri is wearing the silver bra outfit because it is so hard to find off-the-rack clothes that really fit her shape...

 

...and that's what happens when you trim your eyebrows too much... I always wondered....

 

You see what I am doing... I am letting my thoughts wander....ahh yes... can't tell you that one...too personal.

 

Look forward to more!

 

Vernon "I never shaved my eyebrows" Zehr

[JohnArtbox]

Cute characters, can't wait to see them come to life

[CRToonMike]

Thanks for the words, Vern and John! Actually, Vern, the top that Tauri's wearing was made from hubcaps from a time-traveling Cadilac (and that's a long story) and is a treasured heirloom handed down for a number of generations. Besides, Tauri's just not an 'off-the-rack' kinda gal.

 

Having quite a time boning the models. I'm kinda realizing that there's a distinct balance between low-splineange and high-resolution. Case in point, Tauri's shoulder. I realize that one could use fan-bones (and I almost got my mind around that concept of late) but I don't think that's the real issue here. I think I need another spline ring (or two or three) in her shoulder so the fanbones will have something to work with.

 

Here's a rendered pose, the arms are in the "Arms IK on" setting from the Poses window. I'm using the Hash 2001 skeleton that's on the CD with some alterations (removing the ring finger bones and sizing/positioning of bones)

 

 

and the wire frame:

 

 

pretty odd looking shoulder, eh? Should point out that the eyelids and lashes are boned to a bone that only rotates, can get a blink out of it via a relationship and such. The eyeballs have an 'aim at' constraint to individual left and right nulls who have a "translate to" constraint to a single null that can then be moved around.

 

In any case, I moved the arm and shoulder bones around a bit and came up with this:

 

rendered:

 

 

and wireframe:

 

 

A little bit better, but still the shoulder is kinda stretched in a not good way.

 

The whole upshot of this long and graphic post is that I think that Tauri needs more splineage in her shoulder and I just want to see if I'm thinking this through okay.

 

here's two screen caps of a shaded wireframe:

 

 

 

So in the detail picture, there's a 5-point pentagonal shaped patch on the back (left) side that I'm thinking would be a good place to intersect with a spline ring that would go around the shoulder. And then I could do something with the other 5-pt patch next to it (it's shaped like a square with a CP in the center of the top spline). After doing that it would be relatively easy to give more a shape to the shoulder itself and giving a bit more definition to the trapizeous (spelling) on the back.

 

Am I on the right track with this shoulder thing? I'm trying real hard to make every spline count and establishing a balance betwix too much and not enough is tough to do.

 

Thanks in advance for all advice, crits and comments!

[JohnArtbox]

fan bones or bone weights should smooth out her shoulder sufficently. I personally wouldn't add any more splines but your I'm scrooge where splines are concerned. When in doubt leave it out.

[KenH]

Yep you've got plenty of splines. I would move the three at the shoulder further apart. And also, the bend seems to be before those 3 splines...whereas it should be bang on the middle spline.

[CRToonMike]

Thanks for the feedback John and Ken, this afternoon I've worked on the model and adding more splines and still have a previous version (the one pictured here) and I think that I'll work on boning them both, as a learning curve exercise. I think that you're both right, but sometimes doing something the 'wrong' way can be a valuble learning experience. Besides, doing the work on adding splines taught me how to "move" 5 pt patches around.

 

Now I'm off to the ARM to check out those Fan bone tutes I recall seeing there...

 

Thanks again for the advice and crit y'all!

[CRToonMike]

After having a night to sleep on it, I decided to just take the advice and make do with the splinage I have in the model already. I went to the tute by Patason Brooks on rigging a shoulder w/o smartskin and weights (via the arm:constraints section). I printed out the tute and followed it as best as I could.

 

Really happy with the results:

 

 

(first experiment with multi-pass rendering)

 

and the wire frame:

 

 

Exact same pose as the previous example, but with the shoulder rigging in place. I can see where I would need to adjust it (where the shoulder 'ring' is close to the outer chest splines and the lower bicep splines), but that's in the realm of tweekage. Ken's suggestion about moving the splines further apart and observation of where the bend's occuring was a major help. And John's scrooge-approch to splines is just great sense. I am glad that I just decided to plow on with the existing model as they had suggested instead of making a more spline heavy version.There's still some adjustments to make, have to make the upper arm longer, make the elbow work better and add finger bones to the hand. Then it's off to work on the hips and legs

 

I added another spline ring in the lips, so they would be more rounded and make for a better "pouty" look. I was all set to go and assign the new CPs to the bones and was I ever surprised that the all the new CPs were assigned to the corrrect bones! The CPs in the upper lip was assigned to the head bones and the lower lips CPs were asssigned to the Jaw bone. What a great thing and it shows, to me, that Hash's programmers are on top of their game!

 

thanks one and all for all the stuff I've been given and I'm hoping that by the end of the day I'll have some more stills and maybe an animation.

 

Oh, and a special thanks to Patason for his shoulder rigging tute!

[KenH]

I was all set to go and assign the new CPs to the bones and was I ever surprised that the all the new CPs were assigned to the corrrect bones! The CPs in the upper lip was assigned to the head bones and the lower lips CPs were asssigned to the Jaw bone. What a great thing and it shows, to me, that Hash's programmers are on top of their game!

 

 

That's looking great...glad you got it sorted.

What do you mean here? Were you using the fall-off capsules for the bones? Or do you mean you had assigned the existing lip cps to the bone and when you added the new ring in between them, they were automatically assigned to the same bone...

[ZachBG]

Hi, Mike:

 

I can't quite tell, are the eyelids part of the face mesh, or separate?

 

Also, be sure to post tests if/when you do some mouth animation. Very interested to see how those lips deform. (Hmmm... that might be a line for Vern's top 11 list...)

[CRToonMike]

I had assigned the lip ring CPs to the bones (the upper lip CPs were assigned to the head bone and the lower lip CPs were assigned to the jaw) and then I added the new ring inbetween existing lip spine rings. When I went to the bones, the new CPs were automatically assigned (I guess) to the correct bones. I think it's because I added a new spline inbetween CPs that were assigned to the same bone that A:M automagically deduced that the new spline belonged to the bones that their 'neighbors' belonged to.

 

I haven't done anything to change the fall-off capsules (not quite sure what they are, as they aren't covered in the AOAM tute book and I haven't found it in the A:M tech reference ( a great book, btw, but the index is somewhat lacking) and after a disasterous experiment with weighting the CPs -- it mucked up everything and I had to reassign everything -- I'm a bit hesitant to venture forth and experiment with stuff I just can't find docs on. In this respect, I'm kind of like a "tweener" -- beyond a newbie but not close to being a "mentor." So far the only bone/constraint tute that I've been able to understand is from Pattason. Maybe one day I'll comprehend the RAF tute on rigging.

 

But I am having fun, though, and that's a good thing

[CRToonMike]

Zach:

 

The eyelids are separate meshes. I used 2 half-spheres for them (learned that trick from the program formerly known as RayDream studio, back in the days when I was slumming in the 3D world ) Then added bones where the center of the eyeball (not lid) is out to the edge of the lid. Wrapped up this by making a relationship, set to percentage, and pivoted the bone along the x-axis. Now I can make a blink or squinty eyes by a slider in the pose window.

 

Here's the latest animation. Worked some more on the shoulder fan bones and did that thing with the eyelids. It's a mere 2 seconds long. Quicktime, sorenson compression. This was done mostly to get a better feel of the hash 2001 rig with my additions. I'm a bit stumped on how to make the shoulder look better, but it's a good start, imho.

 

But don't be shy, let me know whatchu think.

 

Thanks.

tauri_shoulder_a.mov

[CRToonMike]

Been a bit busy today, went to get a re-fi on the lovely condo the spousal unit and I own and still had time to play with A:M.

 

First off, on another thread, a recipe was given on how to do that gradient edge fall-off thing. I tried it and it works really well.

 

Here's a pix w/o the gradientedge:

 

 

In this one, the gradient material is applied, but dopey me forgot to reset the amibient setting on the other materials. The concept of what ever doesn't get changed in previous materials will get changed if the last material in the "stacking order" has a change in that category is awesome and very powerful -- and something I was waiting for...anyway here's the same pose/figure with the gradient edge material working:

 

 

I really like the effect it gives. It softens up the outline a bit and gets rid of that darker shadow on the "light" side of the head. One thing that now gave me grief is how shiny the skin material is. I added a Cell Turb material, set the kind to webbing and on the two attributes made one a slightly darker shade of green for the color and a brighter yellow for the specular color. I also tweaked with the specular size and amount on each attribute. Added just a bit (2%/10%) for the two roughness settings on one of the attributes. I am really pleased with the outcome:

 

 

And here's a shot from the knees up:

 

 

All the lights are the defaults when you create a new chor. That's gonna be one thing I'll be working on this weekend.

 

Had an odd (for me, anyways) problem with the shoulder "skin bones." (See the sonofpat Shoulder skin bone tutorial on the ARM for this one). I got the right side working pretty well, and then did the left side. I noticed that while I was setting the orient-like constraints for the right side, the moment after I finished the constraint (set the enforcement value and which bone to orient like...) the bone would move and I had to move it back. I realized that I didn't use the compensate mode when I did the right side, so I used it on the left side bones. I exited the relationship and then in Bones mode on the model, moved the skin bones on the left side around. I spent close to 3 hours moving this, moving that, going into the chor, render a pix, etc...etc..and the freaking left side just wouldn't work!

 

Then after a little break, I realized that maybe I need to edit the relationship for these skin bones. In the User Properties, i have this relationship set to on or off. Edited the relationship and Noticed that the left and right side shoulder skin bones were not the same. The right side is correct, but the left is exactly like they were when I set the constraints.

 

Spent the next ten minutes aligning the bones and did a render. Problem solved. Kinda wish there was a "re-set to bones mode position" option in relationships.

 

Anyway flush with this success (I have never been able to work on A:M this long, or was able to do so much until the Mac OS X version Thanks Randy!), I tried to do a simple animation of Tauri raising her arm, as if indicating the height of something she's describing. Scrubbing though the timeline seemed to be okay, but for some reason Tauri moves like she's channelling some Disco Diva from the 80's... which is not what I had in mind.

 

I'm using the Hash 2001 rig that's been modified with the skin bones between the shoulder and bicep bones on the left and right side. I added eyelid bones and targets for the eyeball bones to track. What I've noticed is that the elbow bone is real touchy. It seems to drift all over the place and whenever I so much as touch the darn thing, the arm it belongs to goes all spastic on me. Same thing for the Hand target. I have arms IK turned on. Would it be better to turn it off and brute-force the movement? Or is there something about the arm IK setting I'm missing?

 

any help, comments, crit, winning lottery numbers happily accepted. Thanks in advance.

[CRToonMike]

Forgot that when you preview a post, any attatched files goes to the twilight zone. The latest animation of Tauri, featuring the special hand jerk motion is attatched. I had wanted her hand to smoothly arc down and come to a rest. But got this retro disco secret hand signal...

tauri_handjerk.mov

[CRToonMike]

Well, I've been working on this project a bit. Tweaked the mesh for Tauri a bit (mostly in the head, neck, shoulders and hips). Adjusted the gradient edge material and render settings.

 

Here's the latest render of Tauri in a scene.

 

The things in the scene with her are cacti-like plants. This may not surprise the old hands at A:M, but they are all the same model. I added some relationships, actions, muscle-mode poses to it and placed about 8 "instances" of the cacti in the scene. Then I gave each cacti a different setting to the Height, girth and twist poses. They are all percentages and 50% is the "orginal" pose/shape of the cacti. So I can make the cacti shorter or taller, wider or thinner and even twist it clockwise or counterclockwise.

 

I think I "get" relationships now. What I like best about what I've done, is that I can have the cacti look like the same species of plant, but give each one some individuality w/o having to remodel the wheel, so to speak.

 

This is now "offically" a project, I have a storyline figured out. Will storyboard it tomorrow (I'll be going to the N. California coast with the spousal unit, so I can be amonst the ocean and storyboard a desert scene. go figure). There's a song I want to use as a soundtrack. It's by Robyn Hitchock named "Catherdal" from his "I often Think of Trains" album.

 

I'll have to model some rocks, desert ground, bg mountains. Then there's the other characters, a hummingbird (based on the Violet Crowned Hummingbird) and a 6-legged newt/gecko-horse beast of burden. As far as props go, there's a blanket, an amulet, fire, saddle and some camping-type eating utensils. Then there's the Catherdal itself. I want it to be intricate and slightly Gothic/Victorian looking ( thinking of the Palm House at Kew Gardens and the Albert Memorial, both in England) and looking like it's made of Crystal/Prisims. There's going to be lights inside and will provide a distinct glow to the enviroment.

 

I'm hoping to have this in some kinda shape by the end of the year.

 

---

 

I'm still having massive problems with moving Tauri's arms around and having the frickkin' elbow mind itself. I'm missing something, I fear. Should I leave the Arm IK on or off? Does any one have a rig description that works for them? I may buy the Setup Machine when the refi comes through. Still feel that understanding how the 2001 rig works is important. I really wish there was a complete description of the Hash 2001 rigging that I could look at. The links in the ARM either is for a rig that has all different names for most of the bones (and different constraints, I think) or just not accesible ( 404 or downloads nothing but a directory structure and files my Mac can not read). The biggest help with the video tuts from the Art of Animation Master. But then, it was a more of a move this here, do this, do that without any detailed explaination of why is it done that way. And the elbow bone is a complete mystery to me. It moves all over the place, and when the roll handle is turned just by a degree or two, the forarm and bicep area of the arm just goes spastic on me. I can get the arm to look good in keyframe "a" and then I move forward to keyFrame "b" move the elbow so the arm looks good, repeat for keyframe "c" and "d" and then I go back to keyframe "a" -- and it's all frelled up!

 

I would like to start working on giving Tauri some expressions (I have a eyeblink pose made, but that's just rotating the bone that controls her eyelids), I think I should use poses and muscle but I look at her mesh and just brain-fart, I don't know where to begin.

 

Any help with using the 2001 rig and where to start with making facial poses would be greatly appreciated! I'm hoping that once I get tauri working well, I can then move her skeleton/rig to Kenth and hopefully have a bit easier time of things. Darn this learning curve

 

thanks for reading this far, and thanks very much in advance for any and all suggestions, criticisms and /or help!