Very first-getting-my-feet-wet take.

I didn't block...I...forgot how So, I went ahead with the way I usually do it.

Somebody put a link to a blocking turtorial using A:M now I can't find it. Would that someone please post the link.

Thanks.

nice start Dhar !!!!!
maybe if you work more with shoulders.. they seems statics ..

Ho-o-o-o-o-o-o-ld on there, You're making it too hard. Just block first.

http://www.hash.com/two/RCHolmen/PoseToPoseH.mov

Do it like in the tut. Just the poses, held by paired keys. We don't care (too much) what the transitions looks like yet, but we care very much about seeing those poses so we can compare them to each other.

Watch the pitch video starting at 1:52 and check out the four poses I identify.

start
anticipation
**
Leash held up
Looking to sky

Now here's some thing to always watch in video reference: what are the hips doing? It's pretty rare for the body to do anything and not move the hips. Tinman's hips are moving a bit but not much.

Where do they move from the "start" to the "anticipation"? Was it the same direction as the hand?
Where do they move from the "anticipation" to "Leash held up"
Where do they move from "Leash held up" to "looking at the Sky"?

I clipped out just the poses here, you can scrub thru it to compare one pose to another.
Click to view attachment

**there's really another important pose here, the arm swung to screen right on "lawn" but I didn't redline it, it comes later, when we do break downs.

One other bit... you definitely want to do his left arm in FK, maybe even both arms. Even though we're just making poses now, the raw transitions will be closer to the right motion if they are moving in FK. Swinging arms are almost always better in FK.

Thanks Dhar!

Gracias, Marcos. And thank you Robert for the tute. I've never seen that one before. I tweaked the key poses and changed arm to IK but left the transitions alone since now I can see how easy they are to move, tweak or delete. It took me longer than normal but I'm sure I'll get quicker with time.

It's at the top of our "We're Off, We're Gone" thread.

I should have left it on the copy machine. Then everyone would have looked at it. (Old office workplace joke)




Hey Dhar, could you check to see if your PRJ and CHOR are committed. I'm still getting just the bare layout I put up.

thanks!

Committed!

This one's a little bit long... it comes in two episodes.


2_01_56_take1commentsEpisode1MP4.mov

2_01_56_take1commentsEpisode2MP4.mov

Be sure to update your SVN, I've committed a revised Chor.

Sorry this took so long, Dhar.

thanks!

Change never comes easy, but the resolve is there to learn this methodology.

I decided to start over. There were far too many keyframes to work with it. I also had to catch myself adding follow throughs and minor anticipations. I need to take a deep breath and slow down to allow this way of animating time to sink in.

Thanks for your tutorials Robert. They're tremendously helpful.

I know exactly what you mean Dhar. This is a somewhat new experience for me too but man I'm really finally learning pose to pose the way it's really done and so far I'm really liking it. Robert's video that shows the inbetweens is so inspiring to me.

I too have to fight of the urge to add the inbetweens. I had to add a couple to my shot I just committed because it didn't flow clear enough I thought to see the transition from the 2 poses. Other than that though, I'm staying as close to Robert's vision as I can.

George

"Slow and steady, steady and slow, that's the way I always go" Goofy.

Here's my next attempt.

Added some transitions and exaggerations.

Here you go Dhar! Sorry This took so long.

This crit is brought to you by the word "simplify" Simplifying the motion, simplifying the poses.

The challenge is that many times the simple-looking pose is not the one the rig presents to us as the easiest to get to. Those "simple" C curves sometimes require fine tuning more bones. The audience doesn't know how many bones we had to move to get a shape, but they do see the end result. So we have to get that end result in our minds eye and work towards that.

2_01_56_take4commentsMP4.mov

thnaksThanks, Dhar!

Hi Dhar,

Here's the vid about the tinservant pose I promised. This is something I do a lot when i'm trying to find a pose or when I want to test an idea out. Once I've seen the shape in the mirror it's a lot easier to pose the character than if I'm only imagining what it might be. And I'll go back and check over and over. Was my elbow in or out? was my leg bent or straight? which way was my foot pointing? I don't have a photographic memory so I just keep gong back to the mirror and getting another look.

Neither you nor I have the exact proportions of the TinServant, so there's a limit to what this can get us, but except for the most mis-shapen beast this will get us a lot of good, pretty close answers quickly.

errata: At one point I say I "look at the Tinservant" but I really meant Tin Woodsman.

IMAG0015_TinServantPosing.ASF

Robert, which way do you want Tinservant bent to look at the swan? In your original comments, Tinservant's arc is parallel to TW's. In this latest video they're opposite.

Is it ) ) or ) (

)(

well, here's the story board drawing



and a frame from the pitch video

Click to view attachment

Did I do something later that made it seem different?

My mistake, I thought they had parallel arcs.

Here's the corrections. Tinservant's last anticipation to the final pose is a bit too exaggerated, but I'll leave it for now to see what your response will be.

Ok, I didn't quite make the friday deadline... but here it is none-the-less

2_01_56_take03commentsMP4.mov


thanks, Dhar!

That much attention to detail can only come from many years of experience! Thank you, Robert, for your thorough explanation. This is what I've done so far, and I'm trying to apply the same priciples to Tinservant.

Pluggin' away at it.

Something is bothering with Tinservant's act, I can't put my finger on it.

Two things I notice immediately...

-The arc on Tinwoodsman's arm for "mow the lawn" has become rather triangular. It may be dipping too much.

-TinServant seems to be holding his tablet out too far.
-How about a "checkmark" motion rather than just a stab down?
-It may be necessary to point his right foot more right at the outset, to enable the last pose he goes to.
-the wide camera angle makes it seem like he's leaning too forward at about the midpoint. It may be necessary to un-lean him.


oops, that was more than two

Thanks Robert. How does this look ?

If I can comment on this I'd say that TW's movement in to "feed the giant swan" doesn't look right. As he starts his turn his head cocked way to the side and as he looks up he leads the motion with his chest his head should look up first then the chest should follow.......just my observations

Thank you for the critique, Steve. Everyone's welcomed to comment.

Tweaked TW to lead with the head for the swan, and Tinservant checks off the list instead of simply putiing a line thru it.

Quick Edit: Updated .mov since I replaced TW proxy with the final.

Hi Dhar, did you ever try "scooping" into the second pose like I mentioned?

We're Done! (With this shot) Dhar is the first to finish a shot for WOWG!

comments..

2_01_56_Take8CommentsMP4.mov

I couldnt' stop myself, I had one more idea...

2_01_56_Take8CommentsBMP4.mov

and the shot...

2_01_56-take.mov


Thanks for your patience Dhar, good work!

Whoohoo!

Way to go Dhar!

Hey Dhar, here some housekeeping for you... the dog leash!

replace the leash in your chor with DogCollar_proxy2.mdl from the same prop folder and see if you can get it to behave well.

here's a test movie showing it working in a test.

Click to view attachment

i found I have to hide the "Handle" group before doing any simulating or the leash will behave very weirdly. I've also found I have to turn "Dynamic Options" OFF or it won't simulate at all. That's in V13. I'm told it's fixed in V14 so you'll find out which way that goes now.

thanks!

I looked at this model, Robert. How is it supposed to work?

Update your file, I had to save it as in v14.

Hmmm, I was hoping you knew.

Here's my theory... somehow you use the preroll time from 00:00 to 04:04 to get the leash into the resting position we want it to be in at the start of the shot, sort of like in this storyboard drawing:

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=27249&view=findpost&p=226555 ://http://www.hash.com/forums/index.ph...t&p=226555

maybe have the TWM's arm (holding the leash) raised way up at 00:00 so ithe collar isn't touching the ground, then lower it into position and leave enough time for the leash to come to rest.

That's my theory.

Sorry Robert. I'm not very good at guessing what a rig is supposed to do. Maybe whoever built this model can clue me in as to how it's supposed to work? I don't even know how you did it in your test.

In the meantime, I added some facial animation to Tinservant.

2_01_56_take

I built it. The leash has a dynamic constraint on a chain of bones to make it floppy.

note this stuff again



put the leash in the chor. animate it moving around to test it. find the settings that make it correctly floppy.

here's the test prj

Click to view attachment

It's pretty much trial and error in every new chor until you get it to work. You may be able to scout up some input from someone onthe forum who is more knowledgable about dynamic chains also.

I'm still experimenting with this. here's dynamic constraints with stiffness set at 20%

2_01_56_take

Well, now we know that 20% isn't it. Only 99 more to go!

the collar seems to be moving on it's own. It really should just hang from the leash in a casual fashion.


a thought: Make sure that none of the keyframes from the previous leash rig are still there.

I did this by hand.

Sorry Robert, I'm just not a programmer. I don't think I'm cut to experiment with dynamic cnstraints. They're too unpredictable for me.

Check the link in my last post and see if it works for you.

The great thing about the drawing board is you can always go back to it.

Just think of the pride you'll feel when you finally nail this!

Back to the drawing board

Hey, Dhar... I haven't rustled up a new shot for you yet, but we still need to get the dogleash working on this shot, so lets finish this one up.

If you haven't figured the dynamic constraint out yet, the next step would be to find some one on the forum who can fill in the gaps and tell you what you are missing.

thanks!

Well, I took a stab at getting the dynamics to work, not sure if this is what you're looking for. The stiffness could be upped a little. Also the collision is working. Here's the results.

That looks great to me, but Robert's the one with the final call on this. Thanks for taking a stab at it, Mark - I'm all thumbs when it comes to technical aspects of the program.

That's an improvement. is there a way to get the collar to not get yanked so high in the air? If this thing could just hang limply from Tinmans' hand that would be about all we need.

One thing i found in testing the leash long ago was that i'd get a much calmer simulation if i hid the part of the leash in the TMs hand. the 90° bend where he holds it seemed to cause alot of unneeded collision activity.

Is this better?

that's even closer. What is causing that weird pop in the leash starting around the 30th frame, where the middle gets pulled into a sharp angle?

Is there a way to make the collar heavier? it moves a bit like a balloon on the end of a string would.

Well, I tried to add more mass to it, but now collision no longer works. So I tried redoing the whole setup from scratch with my original setting and collision detection still does not work. So I don't know what to do at this point.

Doe this mean anything, where the settings are the opposite of what they should be...

http://www.hash.com/reports/view.php?id=4472

No. Martin straighten me out, I need to simulate from a front view. Yesterday I simulated from the camera view, which worked, but that has issues.

Well, I don't think this is much better and I don't know what else I can do.

I'll try to take a look at it. Could you commit the last version?