Doc Ock Robotic Tentacles? - Ian

[Hunkadoodledoo]

Well, what do you have so far? Have you sketched your design? Are you going off of production stills? I would imaging that the arms are just the same "link" (like a chain) many times over until the pinchers at the end. Do you have experience with armatures in Blender? Animation? Have you thought of shaders? Just some questions.

I am rather new myself, so anything you learn from this discussion will benefit me as well. I am excited to see what you can do! Good providence!

[coolwizj]

Well, what do you have so far?

Well, I did a few picture tests.....

pictures:

http://www.freewebs.com/ianvfx/Doc%20Oc_draft01.jpg
http://www.freewebs.com/ianvfx/Doc%20Oc_draft01_2.jpg

Have you sketched your design? Are you going off of production stills?

I use production stills.

I would imaging that the arms are just the same "link" (like a chain) many times over until the pinchers at the end.

Yes. That's exactly how it is.

Do you have experience with armatures in Blender? Animation? Have you thought of shaders?

I know a good amount about armatures. And I'm pretty good with animation.

I hope anyone can help. :bounce:

- Ian Swanson - VFX Artist

[Hunkadoodledoo]

Ian,

If you are going for an exact replica of Doc Ock's arms, you need to break them down into smaller parts. Going from the picture I found on the Sony Pictures webpage, here (http://spiderman.sonypictures.com/media/wallpaper.php?filename=downloads%2Fwallpapers%2Ffiles%2Fdoc2_1024.jpg&x=1024&y=768&title=Wallpaper) I see that each "vertebrae" fits into the previous one with a defined separation between the shiny, wide end and the dark, smaller end. I counted at least thirty-eight per arm, so you are going to have to up your count. You can see that the circular design on one of the sides alternates every other "vertebrae". That is something that could be done in texturing. One side has a tab in the middle that extends further up than the rest of sides. Also that side is has a notch to the right of the tab. I started one if you would like to look at it. You can even use it if you want! Now, when it comes to the pinchers, you can see that each "finger" has three segments and three joints (including the one that joins it to the arm). You have a ways to go before we get there, though. Let me know what you think.

http://www.valdosta.edu/%7Ejcfaulkn/images/spine.jpg

.blend:
vertebrae.blend (http://www.valdosta.edu/%7Ejcfaulkn/dls/vertebrae.blend)

[coolwizj]

oh thanks. :thumbsup: Well, about the rigging part of it.... It needs to be rigged so that it has great flexiblity and control. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

- Ian

[kattkieru]

Tentacles are the one thing I haven't yet figured out how to rig. I asked a few questions on them back in the day but nobody came up with satisfactory answers.

One of the tricks I was trying had the IK chain of the bones split into two chains. Kind of like your arm, only your two arm bones are then broken up into many smaller bones. Sometimes this worked. You'd make two chains, one for each half of the tentacle, and then set one to follow the other using constraints.

Unfortunately this method gave me all kinds of grief. If you come up with anything I'd be delighted to hear it.

Alternatively, you could just put a bone in for each segment on the tentacles and then have certain bones have a rotation constraint on them, so that they rotate a percentage of some other bones. It would do well enough in some scenes, but I don't know how much control you need.

[Apollux]

I've been rigging in Blender for quite some time know, so I'll dare giving you an advice:

Before you even put the first armature into the tentacle, sketch out the movements you'll need to perform, down to the very little detail.

If you do it, don't be surprised if you discover that you need more than 1 setup. I know that for the movie they faced the same problem and they actually made various versions of the tentacles.


As for the animation? some time you'll need straight IK solving, some times you'll need slow-parenting, and some times you'll need a hell of action-constraints to get it to move with some sensibility (like the tons of controls in the control-box of the animatronic version).

[coolwizj]

Well, I study videos of Doc Ock. And I try to sketch the movements that it can do. Can anyone help me figure out a rig that is just right for it?

- Ian

[Talion]

you might try curve deformation. parent a rig to a curve and use the curve to deform the tentacle. gets smoother curves with less weight-fiddling than direct rigging.

[coolwizj]

hmm... haven't tried that... Could you make a sample blend file? Then I can understand better what you are talking about. :D

- Ian

[coolwizj]

Wow! Thanks, Talion! Curves work perfectly. I'll post a video soon. ;) Thanks again!

- Ian

[Hunkadoodledoo]

Ian,

What's going on with your project? We haven't heard from you in a while...

[Joat]

This topic is really something.. The guy asks advice, gets the job done for him and vanishes. One way of doing things, I suppose. I hope he doesn't get promoted because of a job well done (by others). Seen my share of those.

Edit: If that is not the case, forget everything I wrote above. I nearly censored myself already. =)

[coolwizj]

oh sorry... I forgot to post here for a long while. Well, anyways, does anyone have any place to host the video tests I make?

- Ian

[chimpoid]

I noticed people using this place for video hosting. Seems like it might be worth a look.
Looks very similar to imageshack.

http://www.putfile.com/

Hope that helps
Chimpoid

[coolwizj]

oh thanks! :D I'll post a video as soon as possible. ;) :cool:

- Ian

[coolwizj]

Here is an extremely quick test.... just for you to see until I put out my final test.... ;) Don't worry... I didn't forget about all of you... By the way, I'm planning to make a Spiderman 2 fanfilm. :D :bounce: So, in about a year or 2 I'll have the fanfilm finished. ;) But so far I'm just planning. I just hope it gets past pre-production. hehe. Well, anyways, keep a look out for my final test for doc ock tentacles...

edit:

Here is the test:

http://www.putfile.com/media.php?n=Doc_ock_test_01

- Ian

[mofo101]

thats lookin pretty good, my only problem with it is(and I know that it was just a quick test :thumbsup:) but the middle bend looked odd, it kinda feels like a kink in a hose, do you know what I mean? that might just be the texture though. all in all I like it. good luck with the fan film!

[chimpoid]

Yeah, I agree. I think that there is a limit to how far you can bend the tentacle before it clanks a little. Other than that it's starting to look like it might work out quite well.

Keep us posted and good luck with the other 3 :)

Chimpoid

[coolwizj]

thats lookin pretty good, my only problem with it is(and I know that it was just a quick test :thumbsup:) but the middle bend looked odd, it kinda feels like a kink in a hose, do you know what I mean? that might just be the texture though. all in all I like it. good luck with the fan film!

Well, it looks like that because there is a pretty bad glitch whiich I can not solve so far....

Also, do anyone know how to make curves' keyframes to become more smooth?

- Ian

[kattkieru]

I've noticed that the keyframes with curves come out randomly, sometimes smooth, sometimes linear.

Go into the IPO curve editor, select all, and play with hitting tab and then selecting all control points and hitting the H key. It'll swap through different handle types and you can play with them there; sometimes a single point will get a strange lack of handles and then you have to manually fix it. (I had that problem a lot of times in my last animation.) Alternatively, select all control points in the IPO curve and change their interpolation modes from linear to curved. (curve menu)

... and now that I'm playing in Blender and not just talking from memory, I can't seem to find the IPO curves for curve control point animation...?

[coolwizj]

I mean the keyframes I make with bezeir curves.... in the ipo window, there is no curves.... it looks just like it does when you do mesh keyframes...

- Ian

[Hunkadoodledoo]

Ian,

Any new work on this one? Just wondering.

[coolwizj]

nothing exactly new... I've learned that bezier curves would not work too good for what I'm trying to achieve... I've decided to just stick with bones instead... I just might make a test video... if I'm brave enough.. :)

- Ian

[TimeTraveler]

hey guys
My friend and I are planning on making a small movie somthing to get our hands dirty and wanted to make a robot like the one I posted in the picture in this post
the problem is the spine and the neck thear much like your robot arms and I dont know if its gona be functional or even worth our time
if you can think of some ideas for us please post them
PS I got one other thing I'm trying to work out. if you look at the joints around the hips and the upper arms we were wanting to have a ball hinge sorta thing and we are not entirly certian on how to do that either.
any idea would be appreciated

[Trident_2K5]

This message was misposted and should be deleted, but I have not founf "delete" button. Sorry for bandwidth waste. :banghead:

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.