I finally got this keyframed. Animating Scarecrow on the rope bridge was really hard for some reason, and I had some technical issues, so I just went ahead and animated everything on him but the facial stuff instead of dumping him (and his issues) on some unsuspecting animator.
http://project.hash.com/movie/so/active/mo...02/2_04_02b.mov

Also are some renders of a couple of frames. It seems maybe a little dark ...

Great work with those ropes. I am really curious of how you achieved that, dynamic constraints?
Impressive scene!

Michel

Nice work! I especially like the end...and the splash! I'm working on the shot before it and am dreading the ropes. Any tips? Did you use a surface constraint to keep him on the rope?

Edit: Oh I just noticed the wind in the trees. Very nice effect. Also, I can't seem to get the feet nulls to surface constrain to a spline on the rope. Anyone know if it can be done? (I'm holding down the control key when trying to select the spline).

The ropes are both controlled by a single bone called "rope controller" and the CPs are weighted between the rope controller and another stationary bone. The CP weighting makes the ropes look stretchy when you drag the bone around. I didn't use dynamic constraints at all. I hand animated the rope bit using the single "rope controller" bone.

Ken,
I first tried using path constraints on the hands and feet, but I eventually ditched that.
The part where his is pulling himself along the ropes is an external action - where I hand-moved the Model bone in the Chor along the ropes at appropriate times. I'm not sure I would do it that way again, because I had some difficult blending issues. But a couple of judicious camera cuts hid the really ugly parts.
Then, when SC is faltering on the ropes, I constrained SC's model bone to the Rope Controller bone and manually adjusted the IK arms and feet so they would stay on the rope. It was little tedious, but it was simple and straightforward, which by that point was a welcome relief.

The wind in the trees was pure luck. The hair material on the willow tree by SC had a preroll of "100", which was maddening when I was trying to work in the chor. So I turned all material preroll settings down to 10 or lower just so I could get some work done. (I figured someone could increase the preroll in the chor in shots where it is really needed). Then I rendered a test, forgetting to reset the prerolls on the hair material, and it look kinda good, so I just kept everything like it was.

A couple of comments.

1. Around 344 on we see Scarecrow lean back but no effect of the rope. One would have expected the rope to move/twist with his movement as it does later.

2. Flip and twist at the end should accelerate. At the moment it seems like it all happens at a constant speed.

Cheers

David

If you make the apex of his "flip" center screen. pause for a frame or so. It would make a good place for an extreme expression.....

There's a lot to see in this little scene - very impressive - very convincing sliding along the ropes, fun rope trick, great splash - I think Steve's suggestion for a pause for a look at an extreme expression on SC is a good idea - would be just a touch more fun icing.

The wind in the willows looks good too - too bad that wasn't originally set up with the smartbone trick controlling the leaves to either being moved manually, or automatically using the sin expression - might have saved you some hassle or maybe it would have added to the hassle? As it is now - the movement has just the right randomness to it to suggest a gentle breeze.

I just noticed that SC's waist rope belt also is moving, that looks good too.

The set is really nice as well - interesting camera angles

And yes - looks too dark.

The beginning of the scene, Trot is encouraging Scarecrow,
Click to view attachment

Corrected the frame amount,
Click to view attachment

Good work. It's definitely done for a first pass. You could polish it abit more if you wanted by:

Making the hand movements happen over a smaller number of frames. They tend to be happen quickly.
Lag/offset the hand/fingers as the arm raises.
I like most of the lipsync, but maybe some of it could be abit more defined?
Her whole body stops moving about 10 frames from the end (apart from blinks).
Maybe some more extreme brow movement. She's trying to encourage SC. Perhaps a smile too?

That was some cool animation there man!

Progress so far, maybe some more time were Scarcrow discovers how deep the canyon is....? Still a lot of things to fix.
Click to view attachment

That's looking great Ulrika.

Looking good. Trots smile of encouragement seems fake to me. Maybe she's doing it too big or too long or maybe it needs some brow/eye movement too. Not sure.