Magazine Tutorial Topic?

[My Fault]

I knew someone would drive up with that brewskie filled camaro :p

I like your modeling idea. If not that, then something showing other strengths of AM, such as relationships. They are amazingly simple to set up as compared to similar concepts in other apps.

I look forward to seeing the article (what mag?) whatever you end up doing.

[Wegg]

The last time I was asked to write something Martin went out of his way to put a stop to it. I'll just keep the details to myself till its published this time. . .

[My Fault]

Martin called and said he'd let you do the article as long as you don't use the words "animation", "master", "splines", "boobies", "crashtastic" and the letter "e"

:p

[Obnomauk]

modeling is just so dull... :)

how about doing some soft body dynamics via a distort and the new dynamic constraint on a bone.

easy to set up easy to demonstrate (esp in such a small space) shows off the ease of use and power of A:M.

If you need an editor or an A:M refresher course let me know Wegg.

-David

[Wegg]

Hmm. . .

Do you have any examples?

The only thing I have ever seen done with hash "Dynamics" was the coat on Raf's dog. It looked like it was made out of tissue paper flappin on a galeforce wind :-/

We have played with springs and weights on bones before but I suppose this is all new/different now. . .

Can I use Masterbeta? Or Crashimation Master?;)

[Obnomauk]

Originally posted by Wegg
Can I use Masterbeta? Or Crashimation Master?;)

obviously not as they both contain the verboten word 'master'


Yeah this is all new stuff. no springs no weights just a simple constraint on a single bone.

you take a soft body area like say a belly, and you put a bone that controls the soft bits then you create an action. in that action you create a distort that targets the soft bits bone. open the distort object and add a bone to it, right in the middle of the distort and assign the middle cps to it. back in the action select the distort and then the bone in the distort and right click, choose New Constraint -> Dynamic Constraint

voila you are done. give the constraint a few frames to settle then just animate the model like normal and the bone in the distort will add secondary motion. adjusting the stiffness property of the constraint to about 70% generally gives good results.

this is also good for dangly bits like chain or rope as you can put this constraint on a series of bones in a chain and they take on dynamic properties and yet maintain the IK chain behavior. or you could use the one bone and a serries of orient like constirants to transfer the motion....

For cloth... there are other solutions that work better :)

but you could do a wrecking ball with a ridgid body on the end of a chain of dynamic bones which would be pretty neat.

for such a simple thing it really is powerful and liberating.

-David

[Obnomauk]

oh almost forgot...

the distort isn't exacly 'required' but I find it does a better job than a single bone unless you use cp weighting but that would require a 3rd party weighting app as the in-program weighting option is not the greatest thing since sliced bread.

-David

[Wegg]

A nice modeling tute is sounding pretty good right now.

/me rubs his little nogin.

[My Fault]

Haha, if you can figure out the daunting mistress that is Messiah, this should be a walk in the park. Ok, it's Central Park at about 1am, but still a park :p

BTW, great info there David!

[3DArtZ]

I don't think that would really showcase A:M's strenghts anymore. I mean, we're still building models one point at a time. Kind of slow.
Why not the tools that make it so easy to animate with. Like the paths, constraint systems, pose sliders and super fast renderer.
Oh wait, leave that last one off!!!!
I would say, make walk cycle, put to path, walk to object and pick up, using all the tools that make A:M a powerfull little character app.
Mike Fitz

[Wegg]

He said they were a little overloaded with animation tutorials at the moment. So that pretty much leaves me with rigging, texturing, rendering techniques or modeling.

I'm not so sure AM's modeling tools are that limiting. I'd kill for a Deformer Box in LW. . .

[Wycoff3d]

I think rigging would be great!

As for dynamics I dont think LW is that much better than AM at all. I think C4D has leaped frog LW in many ways. I think LW has missed a few beats and I am more interested with C4D and AM.

I think Hash has done such a killer job moving from 9 to 10.5 9 was so crappy but 10.5 is kicking ass. Its so stable and it looks like Martin is listneing. Look at the amazing work from Joe W!! Best I have ever seen come out of AM. This guy is so good it hurts!! I think the combo of AM and C4D is killer! I think PJC - Patrick Clarke?? uses both?

Maybe a tute covering AM with another 3d app via composting with After Effects?

That would be cool!

[amsmf]

Originally posted by Obnomauk
obviously not as they both contain the verboten word 'master'


Yeah this is all new stuff. no springs no weights just a simple constraint on a single bone.

you take a soft body area like say a belly, and you put a bone that controls the soft bits then you create an action. in that action you create a distort that targets the soft bits bone. open the distort object and add a bone to it, right in the middle of the distort and assign the middle cps to it. back in the action select the distort and then the bone in the distort and right click, choose New Constraint -> Dynamic Constraint

voila you are done. give the constraint a few frames to settle then just animate the model like normal and the bone in the distort will add secondary motion. adjusting the stiffness property of the constraint to about 70% generally gives good results.


-David

Wow did I have a hard time following this!! It's too hot outside, would you happen to have a tutorial up on this? I'm having trouble with the beginning part... and the middle... and... you know, the end part. :eek:

[Obnomauk]

Well I haven't the time for a full write up right now but I posed a sample project to the freebies section of am-guide.com

http://www.am-guide.com/freebies/index.html

if you take a peek you should be able to decipher what I'm talking about.

-David Rogers

[Wegg]

Clicked on the link for that .zip file and it didn't work. :-/

[Obnomauk]

Hrm weird, Dreamweaver said it was uploading it and then it wasn't on the server. Oh well fixed now, sorry about that.

-David

[amsmf]

Excellent!! Thanks!!

[John Keates]

Hey Wegg, why don't you show how you can make poses then control them with relationships. Something like this...

Make a face

Make some poses for simple movements that can be built up to make other shapes

Put a bone in the model that will act as a handle (set to rotate only)

Make a smartskin for the bone that controlls the poses so that you can make different shapes by animating the handle bone.

Make another pose to turn bone visability on/off

There are different ways to do this kind of thing also. I think that it would show how easy this kind of thing can be to set up.

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