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Walking Troll


KenH

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Yes I'm going to use him in a 30 second animation. He's got bump mapping on him to give wrinkle effect.

I don't know how to set it up to loop, but if you save it to your desktop, quicktime has that facility in Movie>Loop. :)

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That`s VERY impressive. It`s a great model and the skin texture looks superb. I can see what you mean about the arms. They are maybe just a bit mechanical looking . Perhaps there needs to be a bit of follow through and drag on the hands and a little less swing?

 

The film`s going to be great :D

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He has plenty of forward/back sway, which suggests a heavy beast throwing his weight around. So I'd suggest complementing it with some more side-to-side sway. What may be bothering you about the arms is an insufficient tilting of the shoulders--they mostly shift back and forth, but not up and down...

 

As mentioned above, the sway of his arms is too linear, almost like they're hitting a wall and bouncing off. Changing the ease to make them more pendulum-like will work wonders.

 

Love the head movement, by the way...

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  • Hash Fellow

Great looking creature!

 

possible theories on the walk cycle:

 

- as I frame through it, there is almost no change between frame 25 (end of loop) to frame 1, just the foot and a finger move a little. At the same part of the opposite side of the walk cycle (12-13-14) the whole body is in motion at least a little bit. The apparent freeze from 25-1 is awkward. I tried clipping out frame 25 and the result was detectably smoother.

 

- the right hand (claw?) doesn't seem to be easing into and out of it's extremes. The left side has a more natural motion to it(although I can only see one extreme in this view).

 

-the shoulders seem to be synched with the arms rather than leading them.

 

- a slower gate overall with less arm swing might help the impression of weight, but I don't know how big he is. He may very well be a Happy Troll!

 

Again, a very impressive character.

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Thanks for the constructive comments! I've uploaded an improved version based on them. The loop point isn't as smooth as I like, but it's good enough.

 

Edit: It seems quicktime is putting an extra frame at the end and that's what's causing the slight pause at the end. It looks fine in AM.

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Nice job, Ken.

 

The walk cycle comes off well with the secondary hand and head motions. I also like the solid feel of the footsteps and how they bend naturally throughout the cycle.

 

I like the lighting, too.

 

Something about the torso movement catches my eye. Does your troll's spine rotate around the vertical axis some? His chest and upper stomach could use some rotation with the shoulders. also, I keep wanting to see the hips rotate opposite of the shoulders. It's possible that you did this, but because of the massive upper body volume it's hidden a bit.

 

Did you use any dynamics for the rig on this character (like the head bob)?

 

Did you use TSM2 to rig this guy? If so, how did that go for you with the updated version of TSM2?

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Thanks! :)

 

His shoulders do rotate back to front, it's hard to see from this angle. Also, his vertical axis is almost horizontal because of where his head it.

 

Hip rotation is at a minimum as there's so much bulk there and it would all be intersecting if I put it too far. His legs go all "popy" if I put it too far too.

 

The only dynamics is in the loin cloth.

 

TSM2 is great! There is sometimes some poping in the shin area and I think that's a known problem. But then again, it might just be the shape of this character that's causing it.

 

PS I've since added some breathing into it and footstep sounds. I'll upload it soon.

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Ken,

That's great! I love it. How big is he in height? I saw your other posts about modeling him. Does he have a lot of displacement or are you just using bump maps? He's well textured, I might add!

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Ken,

He/it looks like he's walking in mud, you know, his feet have extra weight on them, but due to his strength it's still easy.

 

It would be cool to see him splocking along in some marsh, or some good old Georgia clay.

 

Oooooo he'd make a great football player.

 

Great work!!!!

 

David

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He's about 8 foot in height. He's moving fast cos he's running and his run is a speeded up walk. :D I can always slow him down by reducing the walk cycle length.

Yes it's just bump maps.

 

Marsh sounds complicated! :) I'm going to put him in an underground lab first and then maybe graduate to that. :D

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I missed your posts before (I was on a system that didn't like movie files).

 

I really like his walk! No crits from me... he looks great!

 

I like the marsh idea if for no other reason than I think he'd look neat in that setting. Gave me some great images and ideas too. May have to experiment some day...

 

You guys are inspirational! :)

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:)

 

I've uploaded a revision with sound. It's home made, so it's quite basic.

It's amazing...you just put the sound in the action and it will appear in all the cycles in the chor!

 

I'm working on giving him breathing effects(John are you there?) in a pose. My plan is to use volumetric lighting to create that "breath in the cold" look. I'll have to get experimenting. :)

 

PS You might notice a mark appearing in his neck. There's a hook there. But when I render it in the window to check it, it doesn't appear....

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VERY NICE KEN! I love the sounds, I wouldnt want to be running away from him! About the white backround.. try this out, set the grounds properties to Flat shaded and Front Projection ON and then turn on Z-Buffered shadows on the light that you wan tot make the shadow! I've found it the easiest and best way to get that white backround althoguht you probably dont need it since your looks great! Keep it up!

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try this out, set the grounds properties to Flat shaded and Front Projection ON and then turn on Z-Buffered shadows on the light that you wan tot make the shadow!

I like IT! The shadows are better and the kleig lighting seems to have cleared up the neck problem I was having too. :)

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Thanks Matrickz for your message.

----------------------------------------

Hey Ken,

I like your footstep sound. I wanted to let you know that I'm a sound designer for ReelFx here in Dallas Tx. We just finished a slew of GI JOE animated features for Paramount Pictures and are currently working on Action Man for the UK.

 

If you need some sfx for you troll guy, just let me know and I'll be more than happy to create some for you and shoot your way without charge. You guys here on this forum have been a tremendous help, helping me learn this animation stuff, so it's the least I can do B)

 

oli

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I wanted to let you know that I'm a sound designer for ReelFx here in Dallas Tx. We just finished a slew of GI JOE animated features for Paramount Pictures and are currently working on Action Man for the UK.

 

If you need some sfx for you troll guy, just let me know and I'll be more than happy to create some for you and shoot your way without charge. You guys here on this forum have been a tremendous help, helping me learn this animation stuff, so it's the least I can do

 

Wow! Cool job! :) Thanks for the generous offer! But I wouldn't want to put you to the trouble. I'm not even sure of the sounds I'll be needing for the short. :D

Something you could do though....let us know when the stuff you're working is online. I'd love to see/hear it.

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Speaking of sounds.....

 

When do you guys (and ladies) put sound in your vids?

 

If you add them in AM you can't use a render farm (as far as I know) which means you need to render all on one machine (groan).

 

I've been adding them after, when I import all the frames into my editor and rendering the file from there.

 

 

d

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Ken,

 

Wow, this is super!

I'm mesmerized by this guy.

He definitely is walking with purpose.

 

I think he's headed over to talk to the dude

that's been messing with his girl.

 

How about a little snap under

as he pushes off on his right foot.

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I think he's headed over to talk to the dude

that's been messing with his girl.

 

How about a little snap under

as he pushes off on his right foot.

 

 

LOL He does doesn't he! :) I'm not sure what you mean by snap, but if you mean his toes, they do it slowly because he's got long nails and they would intesect the ground if it was too fast.

 

On the sound issue....I wrote this before, but it didn't seem to post.......you should put sounds into a project to get the timing of the action right.

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