Here is the model sheet for Fatty Scarecrow.

Thanks for the modeling sheet, Yves. I should be able to start in the next few days. I'm having some glitchy problems with my pc that I should have taken care of by then.

Here's what I got so far. What should I do for the inside of the mouth? He's at 800 patches right now.

Looks like a great start to me, Jeff!

Wow! A lot of resemblance already. Damn good start.

About the inside of the mouth: He needs an inside and a thongue. All three scarecrows will need that since they will sing. For the theeths, a no need to have individual thooth. just a visible strip of white will do. I would say that for the color of the thongue and inside the mouth, the pumpkin inside flesh, which is pale orange sort of.

Nice start! I wonder if the patch count could be reduced by using decals for the grooves in the stem.

Thanks guys. I know decals could probably be used, but I have know idea how I would do it. And since the patch count was only 800 on what I have so far, I'm not to upset. I mean, with another "regular" looking character he would be well past 1000 by now, so I got to be happy with that .

Thanks again.

800 patches so far doesn't seem to be an issue for me. That does not seem unusual at all.

Here's the base body so far. Yves, what color were you thinking of for the shirt?

Generally pale colors to contrast with Skinny scarecrow dark colors. I was thinking something along this line (the scarecrow in the photo), that is checked shirt but paler blue. the overalls would be pale blue too and the shirt would be even paler than the overalls.

Got it. I'll change the colors in the next update.

Here is the update .

Quick update before I go to bed. Changed colors and added the boots.

Looks great. You are nailing the "stuffed" look pretty well.

I'm finished with modeling the fat scarecrow. Added a collar and some buttons since you wanted a checkered shirt.

Yves, did you want me to start on the texturing for fatty right away, or did you want me to model the female?

Wow! That was quick!
He looks terrific, Zaryin.

Very tasty Jeff. Has his head got a thickness?

Thanks guys!



Yes, what you are probably seeing is his teeth. The inside of the mouth is black for now. His eye holes are also capped with black, so you can't actually see the inside of the pumpkin head.

That was quick! And very good looking model too.

It would be nice to have the models first. But if you are eager to texture this one, go for it.

Just my two cents...if you texture the model before rigging, you may leave the rigger with a problem that will either make you re-texture or give the rigger few options if they run into a problem with the geometry. Unless you are positive that there won't be any changes necessary...I have had to change something on every model I have ever rigged.

OK, I'll get it all set up for SVN and put it up there. Let me know when all the rigging is done . I should have it up sometime tomorrow. I will post when it's up on SVN.

EDIT: Added "Fatty_Scarecrow.mdl" to SVN for rigging. I haven't done any texturing except for the basic colors. Have fun rigging him, haha.

Hi, has anyone taken this scarecrow for rigging yet? if not I can do it. I can finish installing SQUETCH and FACE in 2 weeks. David Simmons don't hide, I may bug you later Good work on the model Zaryin!

I don't think anyone has claimed him yet, Andy. I'm as close as an e-mail, PM or post, feel free to contact me if you need anything. I'll get back to you as fast as I can.

Thanks David! Ok, I'll take this one for rigging then.

Thanks Jeff. Great work.

Awesome work Jeff!

Thanks everyone!

Good luck with the rigging, Andy. I don't think I made it easy for you, haha.

Hi everyone, I just wanted to update you that the Fatty Scarecrow has been installed with SQUETCH. FACE will be installed next week. Jeff, the only thing that confused me a bit was his body has "ridges", kind of got me confused looking for the right spline. Well, after some cursing at the monitor, it's all good It's uploaded on svn if anyone wants to play with him.

Andy

Great job on that rigging! I did notice that a cp on the outside of the leg near the knee seems to be connected to another bone though. You may want to check that out.

Oh ok, I'll check on that. Thanks!

Hi everyone, the Fatty Scarecrow is now rigged with FACE and SQUETCH. I added a custom vines control, I hope it'll work. Jeff, I fixed the cps on the knees. Thanks for catching that. I hope everything works fine

Andy

THanks Andy. I'll go and check that.

I took the liberty of throwing together a quick walk cycle so that you can check out the model in motion:

Click to view attachment

Obviously this isn't a finished walk cycle. The body needs more balancing, the vine would need more time spent on getting it to flow with the body motion, and I haven't touches the head, but it seems to move alright. I'm not sure how much action this guy gets in the dance anyway. The knuckles look a bit sharp to me though.

Nice work, Andy!

I can probably use this walk cycle. Some observations: You mentioned the body balance, I agree, it need some adjusting. He seems generally too off balance and too early. Normally, a fat person will shift his weight right as the foot is put on the ground. Not before. Also, the hands would look better if they were in a relaxed pose rather than fully clenched. That would help with the knuckles looking sharp too.

The walk cycle looks fun. I wonder if it's better to rig the vines with Dynamic Constraints so it will be less to animate? Maybe for the stomach bounce also?

I just checked Fatty's rigging. Here are a couple observations:

• When mouth if fully opened, the "jowels" so to speak should be either weighted, or smartskinned or have fan bones added to them.
• The mouth corners when they are pulled fully down should be pushed toward the inside of the head so as to follow the face curvature.
• FACE "Lips" control doesn't look right if I compare what it is doing with other characters. The lips does not position to match the phonemes that the control is indicating.
• "Preston Phoneme set" are not implemented.

I also took a look. The bone placement looks pretty good, but there are alot weighting issues. If you want me to adjust the weighting, just let me know.

Thanks guys for taking the time to check it out.



I thought the jaw will be hidden enough under his shirt, but I can smooth that out.



That's right, I will fix that.



This, I don't get Yves, I followed the FACE vid tuts. I will look at the other characters then for comparison.



The FACE tuts didn't cover that so I wasn't sure about that one. So Preston needs to be set too?



Sure Mark, if you have the chance. I'd like to see how to see how it's done.

I'll start adjusting now. Don't do any of the face pose updates til I'm finished. I'l have it updated in an hour or so. I'll let you know when I upload it to svn.

The preston controls are easy. Just use your existing face poses to make the the mouth shapes when you edit preston pose.

Okay. I'll put the action and choreography in a new folder in FatScarecrow's folder on the SVN. (Done.)

I tweaked a few things but the upper torso movement doesn't appear to have taken. Maybe it's just lost in this 360 degree turn. The shoulders need some attention anyway :

Click to view attachment


There seems to be a problem with key frames not showing on the timeline from the hand pose-sliders. The hands are interpolating between two poses but there are only keys set on frame 0. There were keys on frame 24 but I deleted them, yet the action is still visible on the hands. The knuckles still look a bit sharp to me.

The hands have some weighting issues that will be fixed.

Ok, uploaded the fatty scarecrow with the updated weighting. Still needs some tweaking, but I'll wait to see how the animating goes.

Hi guys, I'm sorry I didn't reply back soon. Mark, thanks alot for your help! I must switch to 2_03_051 (1) task right now because the deadline is this Saturday. I will get back to this when that one is finished, but if anyone wants to tweak around, please go ahead. Paul, I like the new walk cycle, I feel more weight on that one.

Thanks!
I did a little more tweaking on the walk cycle action since that movie. It has been updated on the SVN.

I was thinking that the rigging for the pumpkin stem might be better with a chain of two or three bones with a lag value set on them. Just a thought.

Lag...hm...that sounds good. I used different orient like values. I'd give lag a shot after I'm done with my recent task.