Hi all. Simple WIP on the dialogue.

I'm trying to gauge the mood in this sequence. The dialogue makes Trot sound - happy. Is she happy to see Tinman and Scarecrow go or is she somewhat sad but upbeat and resigned to see them go?

As for Tinman and scarecrow walking off, whats their mood? Its all upbeat - but this is a farewell. I was thinking of having them look at each other then Scarecrow turn and wave to Trot and the others.

Also, SC's "I will" sounds like he is in a tunnel rather than off at a distance (did someone record this in a room and just stand back from the mic?) It would have been better to record it normally, pitch shift it and give it some "Air" then adjust the level to suit.

Cheers

The O shape in ScarecrOw is a little late.

I think she's being upbeat. She might have a *subtly* sad face but smile toward the end.
Your plan sound fine for Tin and SC.

Yeah, the "I will" sounds a little strange yet charming too. I don't consider it a critical problem.

I agree with Ken.


Yes, our audio engineer must have been sleeping during that take One day we may actually *have* an audio engineer to record and process the dialog. Wouldn't that be nice

Next portion - the head turn and wave. Thought, critiques, comments......

Head Turns and Wave goodbye

Note - for some reason the guards weapons are not where they are supposed to be. I can't see why they are not attached to the guards - the action that attaches them looks just fine!

Cheers

I think in the action originally, the weapons weren't beside the guards. I moved them. I assume deleting the weapon keyframes in the chor should fix it.

SC's hands need a little work, but otherwise looks good.

Edit: You might move Trot's feet finish position out of the default pose. And the end camera position is a little too "head on" for my liking.

When you say SC's hands need a bit of work - what do you mean? The wave, the walking?

not sure ... seems to look ok to me ...
It is difficult to blend that kind of action on top of a walk cycle, but you did a pretty good job. Rendering it might be a challenge. Those types of blends occasionally cause bizarre behavior when using netrender. I won't know know for sure until I render the full frames.

Just before the wave, his right (waving) hand is bent in toward his body. Looks kind of odd. And as he raises his right hand to wave, his left hand intersects his leg.

That is going to cause problems Ken. There shouldn't be any keys set on any of the Guard's bones or nulls. The only keys should be the axe constrained to the hand (with offsets). This action is used in several scenes. Can you copy this action for the scene you are using it in, then revert it back to it's original version?

Edit: disregard this. See later posts.

EDIT: oops, I just took a look at the original. The right hand null should be in the middle of the guard's body. The axe should not have any keyframes on it. It is important to only have constraint keys in this action (no translate or rotate keys - except for the fingers and thumb) so you can add the translations and rotations in the chor without having to fight the action.

This action is just a convenience action so you don't have to position and constrain the axe every time.

OK, I just opened every scene with a guard in it and luckily in most of them I manually added the constraints in the chor. The only two scenes that got borked are 2_09_03a and 3_03_02. So it's OK Ken. You don't have to revert the action. I'll fix 2_09_03a. It will be an easy fix.

I'd almost forgotten how bad AM can be when it doesn't want to play ball....... Takes 3 minutes to load 3_03_02 (on my 3ghz Core 2 Duo with 8gb RAM, OSX 10.6.3) and when AM randomly crashes on render it can be a very long and tedious process of trying to get through any animation on a Mac..... Still trying to complete the first pass!

BUT while waiting for my umpteenth load and render attempt, what should I do with Capt Bill? Sitting on Trots hat as he is, too much action will take attention away from Trot. Anyone have any suggestions? I was thinking a quick wave but then what?

First Pass

Still need to do something with Pon, Bill and Whatshername...

Cheers

*fake Italian accent* Everybody should be a waving! You in the scene? You wave. What about you? You wave! E-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y wave. And smile. This is a the end.

Aheeem! That's looking good. The only thing that stands out now (apart from the soldiers) is Trots last head turn at the end could use some chest action.

That does look good, David!
Perhaps you could give the guards poses that don't match quite so much.

Really nice so far David!

First off, have you tried changing the Quicktime codec to "Animation" before doing a shaded render? If that doesn't work, what makes you think I will have any better luck with it? It is far better for you to track down the issue and fix it than for me to take things out until I can get it to render. Or in a worse case scenario, I would have to re-do it completely. Both of these options involve removing part or all of the hard work you have put into this. I see that as a no-win situation. It is much better for you to fix it before you pass it off. You may have to recreate the chor from scratch. Luckily, you can drag a character from one chor to another and it will transfer all actions and animation with it. Perhaps you can do that for one character at a time to isolate the character or element that is giving A:M trouble. Be sure to save a copy of your original Chor first! When you drag a model shortcut from one chor to another, it is *Moved*, it is Not *Copied*.

If you want, you can just have Grasshopper hover in the air back by Pon and Gloria. His importance in the movie has passed (his last important scene was the one right before this one). He is included in this scene just for continuity.

Pon and Gloria should be swaying ever so slightly or something. It would be nice to have them waving, but even if they are just standing there, be sure to rotate their hips/torso a little every second so they look like they are not frozen in place. The occasional head tilt helps too.

The pattern with the guards in the movie (though I don't think it will be all that apparent in the finished piece) is that they are asleep or very relaxed until they see someone approaching, then they stand at attention. If you would rather not make the transition from relaxed to attention, please have them just stand at attention. And make sure they also move ever so slightly so they don't look frozen.

Trot's last head rotation definitely needs some torso action.

OK, completed PASS 1. No facial work done except for Trots dialogue and I haven't touched the Guards (how do I fix them?)

Thoughts and comments welcome.

PASS 1 Complete

I do not have a hope in hell of tracking down a problem with Random crashes. One attempt open and renders and another attempt (no change) fails. Today, for example, it has only crashed once. Yesterday it was 11 times in the same period of time (Albeit much less productive time)

Cheers

OK, completed PASS 2. This time I moved to my Windows machine for more rendering stability. I think it's doen unless anyone can see something that I have overlooked/got wrong.

All thoughts and comments welcome.

PASS 2

Files committed on SVN

Cheers

Well....a little hip/chest movement in Gloria and Pon would be nice. They may need to be constrained. Scarecrow's walk cycle has a little glitch at the end. Would be nice to fix. Finally, Tinmans face seems a little dead.

Overall though, good job.

I like it! I like how Trot raises up when she waves goodbye, as well as how you've captured her - very cute.

My eyes are drawn to Grasshopper Bill - And even tho grasshopper's are known to have very sticky feet, I think genetic mutant grasshoppers might have to do some center of gravity shifting to compensate for centrifugal force and loosing balance when Trot turns her head towards Pon and Gloria. Or perhaps lagging grasshopper's head as she turns would loosen him up some, and be responsive to Trot's head turning.

Oh another point....when Trot turns to Ponia, her chest is still at first. But when it does turn, it turns on a dime. I got visions of "The Exorcist"! And what about the guards?

Can you tell me what settings you used to render this? It's good quality but not too big in file size. Resolution/final render/etc? Thanks.

Edit: It's OK. I'll have a look at your chor for the settings. I also fixed the guards weapons so let me know if you want me to upload it.

The file size is an export from QT Pro after the fact. Its the same settings recommended by the 11secondclub (they have a whole page on their site dedicated to these settings)

I took out some intermediate keyframes in Trots turn as it made the turn a little jerky - maybe I'm now at the other extreme...

I'll take another look at Bill. I didn't want to give the other characters too much movement as I didn't want to distract from the centre of interest.

What type of little glitch does SC's walk cycle have (I didn't see any - but then I many be too close to the animation to see it). I didn't know what to do to fix the guards - thanks for that - please upload as soon as possible.

Cheers

OK. Committed. I'm not sure about SC's walk, but it looks like the end keyframes don't match the start.

I liked it. I think it would be great if Pon and Gloria can be shifted a bit to the side cause they're too close to Trot perspective wise.

David, are you still working on this? Or are you done?

i looked at it and couldn't see the SC issues so i guess i am!

(sent through my new iPad)

cheets

Heh.

typo..... 'cheers'

Cheers