Secret Agent Tutorial thingy

#1

So, I took a look at the Secret Agent Animation that was posted on the Front Page here on CG talk… And you know what… Call me crazy, but that sort of character animation is actually well within the current ability of EIAS.
After finally sitting down and working out my IK rig, and messing with the preferences for what I want EIAS to display while working I certianly feel confident that one could produce that sort of CA animation.

Im just soft of speaking out loud here as I have spearheaded the complaints on CA in the past.
But that’s not to say I dont think there is room for improvemnt in the software concerning CA.
One of the issues I see is that I dont see anyway to set up an IK/FK switch at the moment. I suppos one could use expressionist to turn certain constraints on or off? but I cant say for sure if one could.

Again… Im just thinking out loud here.

Mike Fitz

#2

Hey Mike,

Its not that CA is out of the reach of EIAS (it can be done), its more of a matter of if it can be done efficiently. The big CA charge for EI was/is to supplement its toolset to make CA more accessible and competitive.

After working in CA for many years doing previs, I can tell you I would never want to approach CA in EI within a production setting. However, using EI to construct a CA centric short for personal use is certainly possible.

#3

I am far within my right to say " I told you so" Crazy Mike :slight_smile:

It’s just that you can do it better If EI was more CA Production Savvy.

#4

So what is meant by production savvy?

With EI it is capable of making an IK spine but from scratch (15 mins if you know how)

In other apps IK spine is a feature that only needs two clicks (15 secs).

#5

Don’t mean to damper anyones hopes here… BUT … If you tried doing this animation in EIAS, you would be entering tear city!!! :banghead: The meshes would NOT hold up and would twist and rip open. The skins would not be as nice as in the movie you mentioned. I have done many CA’s in EI, some with dynamic moves similar (though not as good) to that of Secret Agent. For years I had to hide areas of horrible deforms, fighting weight maps and tearing meshes with lighting and textures. The rig itself…might be possible with XP but would take a long time and would not be easy for anyone other than a coder…maybe Cj :bowdown: . Like AVT said, in other apps, rigs like this can be very intuitive to make and have much more of an efficient workflow.

Just my opinion! :argh:

#6

Hey Guys, c’mon Im well aware of the short comings with EIAS right now. possibly forever.

I think I just surprised myself when I sat down a really ran things through with some of the CA tools.

#7

Sorry Mike. lol. Again, no one is saying that you couldn’t make progress doing this in EIAS. I’m just trained to look at a sequence from a business and supervisor point of view. I do it every day in order to break down the production requirements of a potential animation system and determine the time it would take to produce a sequence like this for a client. The primary difference is, the sequences I work on are 10 to 20 times the length of this.

The new modifications to the existing weight mapping tools the Igors introduced in v8 may help eliminate the ripping and tearing that Richard talked about. So I would tend to agree with you. You could create this animation within EI albeit with a lot of caveats.

#8

I happen to see tremendous potential in EIAS, I have always loved this application and hope that the new developments will lead to enhanced features in the area of hair and cloth simulation. I actually submitted a post earlier, asking if anyone knew if Xpressionist is stable in V8 because I’m still in V7 and don’t want to upgrade if it will deprive me of the XP plugin.

I am actually in the middle of a cute project for children with pretty intense animation all done in EIAS and have decided to post a link to a trailer-like video with small clips from the project. comments welcome.

Shaya

http://www.shayadesign.com/kctrailer

#9

Hey Morley, Good to see you still around. One of the best EI CA I know.

So I know, you know what you are talking about, but those Weight Map/Skinning problems were fixed in v.8. Maybe you don’t have the final upgrade but I tested myself. I didn’t do a lot of CA in EIASv8, but the two projects I worked on (Cat and Dog) where fine. There were some issues but it was really modeling and rigging issues that were existing to the file.

EIAS skinning is still immature in that mesh components like vertex (and a bunch of other stuff) can’t be addressed, but the new soften weights stuff worked fine.

Brian, I find myself agree with you way too often :slight_smile: but, working with a production log of shots as you mentioned consistent of character tools that go far beyond skinning, Nonlinear clip editing, mixing, blending, animation transfer. I can only imagine since I haven’t done that much work yet. I did register at your website for prev and hope to spend more time learning the process there.

Shay, I am always very curious to learn the state of Ramjac products with EI. I hope Tomas bought them “in”. So they can finally get the access to EI API. I would love to see more intergration of rodeo and XP, like callout to windows, and custom attributes, and GUI assemblages.

#10

Just hammering you Mike. :slight_smile: I remember when I was defending EIAS’s CA tool to you. :beer: Good to see the tables are turning. Looking forward to seeing your sample that cause this twist :slight_smile: :arteest: :wavey: :bounce: :applause:

#11

Wanted to chime in quickly… while it seems this should be all “doable” in EI… there are a lot of tools I consider necessary to pull off these animations that do not exist or do not function to the level necessary.

  1. Constraints… there is no practical way to attach & release constraints on bone chains. This is necessary for character interaction

  2. IK solutions… the IK solver is problematic with 180deg moves.

  3. Skinning… In all practical terms… I find it nearly un-plausible someone could meet a deadline and deliver quality with the current skinning and tools.

  4. Rigs… The tools EI has are rudimentary for rigging and set significant limitations on the complexity of the rig.

Those being said, you can work around each of them, but when combined, they create a mountain of obstacles.

Cj

#12

That pretty much sums it up nicely.

#13

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