The Art of Animation:Master

lhvio89 · January 2, 2005

Thanks Rodney! I will check out AVI2GIF.

Logan

Rodney · January 2, 2005

Logan,

Add and Add lock are now practically the same for all intents and purposes.

Where the exercises refer to Add Lock assume it just means add.

There is a write up on the change but the Tech Ref still has the old ways.

(Found it!)

USERS OF PREVIOUS VERSIONS TAKE NOTE:

The Add accelerator key (normally ) is now defaults to AddLock (since AddLock will do almost everything Add will, and more). now defaults to a traditional Add.

To encourage new users to model with AddLock, the original Add, Insert, and Group (because its not needed often) buttons have been removed from the default Modeling toolbar. (The functions still exist on the accelerator keys, and you can add them back to the toolbar if you want to.)

I think it was a great move on Hash Inc's part.

lhvio89 · January 2, 2005

Ah...ok, thanks!

Logan

lhvio89 · January 3, 2005

Ugh, another problem with the plane. After I draw the wing, and make the 4 point spline for the end of the wing, I run into a problem. After I extend the middle splines on the wing, and try to connect them to the 4 point spline for the end of the wing, the end of the wing develops a huge kink in it, which I can't get out. Am I doing something wrong?

Logan

Rodney · January 3, 2005

Am I doing something wrong?

I'll guess "Yes".

I can't see your screen but two things immediately come to mind.

1) Is the spline terminating in a hook? (i.e with no CP?)

2) Is your screen resolution set to low?

Press the Page Up and Page Down keys to see what I mean. You may be more pleased with the smoother look.

-Rodney

lhvio89 · January 3, 2005

Here are some screens of what I mean.

Before:

After:

I know in the after pic that I have not connected all the points to the wing, but it doesn't change much.

Logan

Oh, and I thought that there was an "Unlimited Undo" function in A:M....I can't undo all the way back until I have not even extended the splines from the wing yet

lhvio89 · January 3, 2005

Aha! I figured it out I had the end of the wing on the ground instead of level with the wing up in the "air."

One other thing though....when I scale the wings from the front view to match the rotoscope, they have to be a different length than from the top view. So if I scale from the top view, the wings are off on the front view, and vice versa. (Yes, I have the rotoscopes scaled correctly.)

Do you know what the cause of this is?

Thanks,

Logan.

Rodney · January 3, 2005

Oh, and I thought that there was an "Unlimited Undo" function in A:M....I can't undo all the way back until I have not even extended the splines from the wing yet

I'm still looking at your pictures trying to 'look through your eyes'.

The unlimited undo you may need to specify in TOOLS/OPTIONS.

I have mine set to 20. I figure if I have to undo more than that I might as well start from scratch.

Rodney · January 3, 2005

One other thing though....when I scale the wings from the front view to match the rotoscope, they have to be a different length than from the top view. So if I scale from the top view, the wings are off on the front view, and vice versa. (Yes, I have the rotoscopes scaled correctly.)

I'm not sure BOTH of your statements can be true.

Consider this:

While the images sizes might be correctly scaled perhaps the images themselmes are not... or vice versa.

lhvio89 · January 3, 2005

Ack....you're right The top view is 2 feet longer than it should be...oh well, I think I will just make sure I compensate...

I know i said "one other thing" above, but, alas, I have another...When I try to make the rudder for the tail, it (TAOA:M) says:

"To make the rudder, click on the part of the last spline ring. It will change color to show it is selected, then pick [Edit][Complement Spline]."

Well, I try clicking on the whole last ring, every point (individually), and I can't seem to fine Complement Spline in the Edit menue.

Logan

Rodney · January 3, 2005

"To make the rudder, click on the part of the last spline ring. It will change color to show it is selected, then pick [Edit][Complement Spline]."

Ah yes... another change in the interface.

We discussed it a couple hundred posts back... You haven't memorized them all yet?

Compliment Spline is now Select Spline.

The comma key ( , ) is the shortcut on your keyboard.

lhvio89 · January 3, 2005

Ah, thanks....do I just click on any part of the last ring then?

Logan

Rodney · January 3, 2005

Not sure... you try it.

alejandro · January 3, 2005

are the anzovin tutorials good?

what plug in's are available for AM that are worth getting for beginers?

thanks

alex

hypnomike · January 3, 2005

are the anzovin tutorials good?

The Anzovin tutorials are excellent.

I got a few for Christmas and am working on them now. Video tutorials such as these are easy to work with as you can bounce from the video to A:M quickly and as often as you like.

I find that it's worth going over stuff you may already know through different tutorials as I often pick info up that I may not have noticed from an earlier lesson.

There's a discussion on the Anzovin tutorials on http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8869 most comments are positive and I've found their service to be exeptional.

Hope this helps and happy learning!

Mike

Morphy · January 3, 2005

are the anzovin tutorials good?

I used A:M for a while last year, and now that I've come back to it (and totally forgotten the little I knew) I'm finding the Anzovin stuff a Godsend.

The 2 quickstart Cds start from absolute basics - and the really nice thing is that you can play the movies on your PC, pausing them to duplicate the exercises yourself.

I haven't much experience with plug-ins yet, so I can't answer that part of your question, but I DO recommend the David Rogers 2002 Complete Guide book.

Also, Anzovin are a very decent bunch of guys. I purchased the first version of the Quickstart CD shortly before the updated double CD was released, and they granted me a free upgrade.

lhvio89 · January 3, 2005

What about the Siggraph Training Videos offered on the Hash site? Are they worth it?

Thanks,

Logan

P.S.---Would it be a goon investment to get the SkyCast plugin?

lhvio89 · January 3, 2005

In the airplane modeling exercise, when it says to adjust the canopy, it says "Set its Diffuse Color to blue, its Transparency to 45% and its Specular INtensity to 100%" WEll, in the picture it shows up changing these settings, the Specular Size is changed to 8%. Should I make this change as well, or just do what the text says?

Thanks,

Logan

Rodney · January 3, 2005

I'd suggest experimenting with both and even more settings to get a good feel for how things work.

Don't worry you won't break it.

My guess is that the text is correct and the video may have not shown everything.

I haven't had a chance to compare exhaustively.

Anything you discover will be of great use to others as they work their way through though.

Experimenting is a good way to get more out of the exercises than just what appears on the surface of things.

lhvio89 · January 3, 2005

It didn't seem to change much, so I just put it on 8% like in the picture. Anyway, I have been running into a problem where maybe every 10-20th time I try to Shift-Click on a selected spline (so that the lathe tool will be able to be clicked on), A:M just closes....no "Program not responding," not anything. Has anyone had this problem ever? (I think it also happened one time when I was extruding a spline....has happened three times.)

Thanks,

Logan

Oh, below is my plane...I have finished it pretty much:

Here (it is a BMP so it might take a few seconds to load.)

Rodney · January 3, 2005

I think you may have found a bug.

I don't recall ever SHIFT CLICKing on anything before.

I always have selected the spline I wanted to lathe and hit the comma key.

Hmmm....

This might be a good time to learn how to submit bug reports through A:M Reports.

SHIFT Clicking in Model Window Closes A:M

Steps to reproduce

Open New Model

Draw a spline

Off click somewhere in the modeling window

Hold the SHIFT key down and select a spline

*A:M Closes every time*

Care to submit it?

Edited January 3, 2005 by Rodney

lhvio89 · January 3, 2005

Well, see, I don't know if it is really a re-producable thing...it has happened twice, (three times including the other time), but I don't know if the set of circumstances that I provided was really the cause....could be something different entirely....

If it happens again under the same set of circumstances, I will submit it.

Logan

Rodney · January 4, 2005

I reported it for you.

Issue Number: 0000455

If you look at the steps above I believe it is quite reproducable. Don't do it unless you've saved your model first.

Usually, fixes are released pretty quick.

Since the Hash Inc team is focused on getting v12 out the fix will no doubt be in that.

lhvio89 · January 4, 2005

Ok, so it happened for you then?

Glad to hear it is not just me

Thanks for reporting it...

Oh, and how does my plane look?

Thanks.

Logan

lhvio89 · January 4, 2005

OH, wow, just tried it out again...it does happen every time

Logan

Rodney · January 4, 2005

Oh, and how does my plane look?

Looks great!

If you ever find some free time I don't recall ever seeing anyone animate that plane. Maybe attach it (and maybe other copies of it) to paths in the choreography and have them do a dog fight. There are planes on the A:M CD too.

Keep this tutorial by William Sutton in mind for when you want to dig deeper into the realm of decaling in A:M. I don't mean to distract you from the exercises but the Decal Editor is going to be something you'll want to learn.

Decal Editor Tutorial by William Sutton

So are you still tweaking or are you on to the next?

lhvio89 · January 4, 2005

Well, I think I am going to move on to the next one (and come back and make this, and all the earlier ones better). I am however, going to attempt animating the plane though, because my brother has been nagging, and nagging, and nagging, etc. me to do it, and I think it would be pretty cool...

Logan

Rodney · January 4, 2005

am however, going to attempt animating the plane though, because my brother has been nagging, and nagging, and nagging, etc. me to do it, and I think it would be pretty cool...

That's what brothers are for... nagging... no... I mean inspiration!

Please let us know how it turns out.

PF_Mark · January 4, 2005

I like this so much Rodney that even after completing AOAM I am still posting my stuff here When I feel worthy maybe I will progress over to the WIP or showcase forums But I feel I need more work before I do that.

http://home.cogeco.ca/%7Erobinallan/Movies/shaggylamp.mov

After this I think I might try creating my owm character. I have a sketched scanned in which I made a friend made for me. I have a tutorial book marked for this so maybe you might see my progression in the WIP forum.

I have another project planned but I am waiting for some friends of mine to create some wave files for me before I can beginn that one. Then I will look into other things like the, 10 sec club, Apprentice or mentor program or the contest. Can someone tell me were they post the contest info I have been looking but have not seen it. Any info on the others would be helpfull as well.

PF_Mark · January 4, 2005

Sorry I had one question if you look closely at the bigginning the lamps moves around a little. I went into time line and set the curves to zero slop for the lamp short cut up until shaggy picks the lamp up this reduced the movement alot but there is still a slight movemeny. I notice in the tutorial that the instructor also had a smaller movement than I have but there is still a movement for him as well. You can see the Z axis moving in the properties filed when he is showing the final work. He says to play around to see what works best but can anyone send me in the right direction to fixing this. I will try to post project file here.

misctom4.prj

Rodney · January 4, 2005

Mark,

You are always welcome to hang out here... ESPECIALLY when you post related projects like you just did.

Those are just the type of extensions to TAOA:M that we are looking for.

Thanks!

I'll look at your project and see what I can see...

Rodney · January 4, 2005

I was able to get it to stay put but I kept playing with it and will have to go back in and do it again if I want to look further. I make the mistake of trying to swap Shaggys too so we wouldn't have to look at that twisted thumb.

The fixed hand clench shaggy is on the Free Models page if you want it.

If I'm ambitious I'll go back in and see if I can post something worth looking at but basically what you can do is go into the channels of the Aladdin model and look for the translate keyframes in the X, Y and Z axis. If you right click on the keyframes you can check the CP setting and change the interpolation. In my case I both Peaked and changed "Default" to "Hold". "Zero Slope" should do it too but I was seeing movement. It might have been on a different channel though.

I wanted to fix the lamp going into the table on my end and that is where I got distracted by Shaggy's hand. :blink:

Rodney · January 4, 2005

Found the problem. (Or at least one way to fix it)

If you delete the keyframes on the channels on frame 0 the lamp will stay put.

I noticed while scrolling backward through the action that the lamp moved BEFORE the constraint was applied and seemed to increase as it went toward the first frame... deleting the first keyframe tells it to maintain the second which is the one that stays put.

You will still have to deal with the ugly thumb and the hand going through the table though.

You can see a drifting of the translate offset in the attached as well as the lamp tries to get away from Shaggy! A zero slope or adjustment to the translate offsets should put that right.

As far as this exercise is concerned keeping the lamp close to the edge of the table is what they used to keep the penetration of the table from happening.

The attached is pretty ugly but the thing to notice (especially if you are just looking in) is that the lamp doesn't move until the hand comes in contact with it. Which is what we are after.

PF_Mark · January 4, 2005

I will look closer put I downloaded the fixed ver. of shaggy? I did not notice the thumb on my end but I will look closer after work. Thanks I will follow your advice and fix it up.

PF_Mark · January 5, 2005

Ok I am having problems posting here after a hit add reply the sever times out this has got to be the most unrealable forum I have ever used :unsure:

3rd attempt

shaggy thumb looks fine from my end

I fixed up the animation with your suggestions and they work thanks. I added a head movement in the middle I though I would have shaggy look at the camera but the timing is way off I might just remove that motion.

http://home.cogeco.ca/%7Erobinallan/Movies/shaggylamp2.mov

I fixed lamp drifting and shaggy's hand going through table and lamp going through both tables.

Rodney · January 5, 2005

You nailed it Mark!

Looks great. Now have him pick the lamp up with only two fingers by the handle...

There are times where the forum slows down for posting.

I'm guessing there are multiple things going on behind the scenes that contribute.

Usually slow posting stays in the realm of the main forum (Animation Master) and the other forums post quicker.

Maybe you caught it at a bad moment.

*BTW - Nice HUGE graphic!!! Size that baby down! :lol:

lhvio89 · January 5, 2005

Very nice work Mark!

Logan

alejandro · January 5, 2005

hello rodney

i'm attempting exercise 9, i am making the stem and when i made the bulb (after having used the lathe tool) the lines under the bulb colapsed.

like so...

stem_pic.pdf

Rodney · January 8, 2005

Alejandro,

Sorry for the delay in response... family back from Japan... fevers.... etc...

You can get results like that when lathing something with a built in bias.

There are a couple ways to get it fixed:

- Re-lathe (with points peaked or magnitude adjusted)

- Peak the points along the long axis of the stems after the lathe.

- Other bias related adjustments (i.e. magnitude)

Some people don't like to peak their splines before lathing but that is the easy solution.

See attached graphic for illustration.

alejandro · January 11, 2005

when creating a model the patches have little yellow arrows, what are they called and how do i get rid of them?

thanks

alex

Rodney · January 11, 2005

Those arrows are called normals.

They can be turned off via the shortcut key or via the TOOLS/OPTIONS menu.

Shortcut Keys

Here's a write up on Flipping Normals from the Tech Ref (just for info):

The direction a surface is facing is of paramount importance to weathering, fur, and real-time export. To see surfaces, put the window in "Shaded/Wireframe" (also turn off decals while flipping normals so that you do not have to wait for rebuilding of maps). Click the Group Patch button on the Modeling toolbar (or simultaneously press the

keys on the keyboard), put the cursor over the patch you want to flip (it may not be visible because the normal is pointing away from you), and click the mouse button. Repeat to add more patches to the group, then right-click (Control-click on the Mac) and pick "Flip Normals". The model should immediately redraw showing the change.

PF_Mark · January 11, 2005

Mark,
You are always welcome to hang out here... ESPECIALLY when you post related projects like you just did.

Those are just the type of extensions to TAOA:M that we are looking for.

Thanks!

I'll look at your project and see what I can see...

I posted in WIP thought I would give you a link to my next tut.

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11042

Trying to create my first character from a sketch a friend made for me.

player character · January 29, 2005

Your_the_director0.tga

Rodney · January 29, 2005

Player,

Your image converted (and cropped) from TGA to JPG via the freeware program Irfanview. (www.irfanview.com)

You are on your way.

themike38 · February 5, 2005

how do you find the dopesheet in exercise7 of AM V11.1. they say to right click in the actions and then pick new and .............................alas no dopesheet.

hypnomike · February 12, 2005

how do you find the dopesheet in exercise7 of AM V11.1. they say to right click in the actions and then pick new and .............................alas no dopesheet.

Make sure that you have opened an action window then right click in the window.

I've attached a picture of what you should see, if you don't you'll maybe get a better response posting your own topic either in new users or animation master.

Hope this helps

Cheers

Mike