Well, I’ve just given porcelain a go in the latest beta and by jove it works!!!
The only problem is that I seem to get lots of black patches. If I look at their normals they are facing the wrong way. If I flip them They render correctly but with sharp edges. (To get them right I have to remake them)
My question to ‘them what knows’ is; are there any modeling strategies I can adopt that will keep my normals as they should be. I’m a bit fogged as to how I manage to have them flipped in the first place.
Works in Progress
Squeakypics
#101
John_Keates
#102
If you right-click in the moddeling space then you get an option “refind normals” then those sharp edges go without you having to re-make things. However, as I mention above, it is possible to confuse the poor program with gratuitous use of hooks and 5p patches. Hopefully they are working on this still.
Squeakypics
#104
John:
Thanks. That is a bit of a time saver and no mistake!
I’m off to give it a go now
antonyw
#105
Hi, Joew
Really good pictures, all of it are very professional, I love those render so much(Jeff Bunker are always wont disapointed us 
I have some questions hope u let us know how to do in AM.
-
The Bisley_Hunter, are u used Specularity Map for the skin?
(I feel really hard to get such spec. effect on skin) -
How do u map Bisley_Hunter’s skin? I cant find out any map edge problem, that is really good mapping.
-
could u post little skin map out there? color, bump, spec…etc.
-
How long u made the Bisley_Hunter(day, week, month)? just want to know professional artis working time
Many thanks for your help in advanced.
Regrads
Antonyw
p.s software is not a big problem, professional artis is the main concern.
rcory
#106
Here are a couple more animations-
http://home.alltel.net/rccollins/podanim.avi
Just something for a short that never came to fruition. I like the eye movements. Thought I’d share.
http://http://home.alltel.net/rccollins/blockwallfall6.avi
Here I need some help. This guy is supposed to be 14 ft tall, massive- yet agile and fast. Any ideas on how I could convey both of these ideas in actions, poses, etc, are welcome. If this should come under a different thread, I’ll be glad to move it. But it is a wip.
Cory
hoochoochoochoo
#108
Cory, tried both your links. Maybe my firewall stops “alltel” but I’m not sure.
Joew - would love to see your work but the Hash FTP is so slow each time I try. Maybe you should put a download or visitor counter to see how much your work is viewed?
rcory
#109
I just tried them both…both seem fine here…also checked with wsftp, both are up on the server…
Cory
antonyw
#110
Hi, Rcory
I downloaded the blockwallfall6.avi, it’s good animation.
Could u let me know the wall is Keyframed by Hand or using Dynamics?
If Dynamics, can u write some simple tutorial or step by step to create it?
Thanks
Antonyw
Originally posted by rcory
[B]That should behttp://home.alltel.net/rccollins/blockwallfall6.avi
Cory [/B]
hoochoochoochoo
#111
OK some points
- I’d like to see a LOT more reaction when the guy lands and a lot more build up to the jump. He’s very stiff legged at present.
- His right leg penetrates one of the boxes but you prolly got that spotted already.
Great animation of the boxes though. Very well done. Maybe one or two need to fly straighter or upwards before falling down to earth - I mean he’s a big nasty looking guy (or gal)
rcory
#112
Originally posted by hoochoochoochoo
[B]OK some points
- I’d like to see a LOT more reaction when the guy lands and a lot more build up to the jump. He’s very stiff legged at present.
- His right leg penetrates one of the boxes but you prolly got that spotted already.
Great animation of the boxes though. Very well done. Maybe one or two need to fly straighter or upwards before falling down to earth - I mean he’s a big nasty looking guy (or gal) [/B]
Yeah,
The penetration, and the boxes are distracting. THis particular scene is just cobbled together. I really shoyuld have left those out for now. I’m lookin more for like the the first point. Overall ideas for big yet fast creatures.
The boxes are rigid body dynamicized. (if that’s a word) Very simple construction there as well. I’ll throw together a mini-tute, but I gotta go to work now…
Cory
JoeW
#113
Hey All - sorry about slacking - we’re working on cinematics for the game and it’s eating up a ton of my time…
John Keates wrote:
If you right-click in the moddeling space then you get an option “refind normals” then those sharp edges go without you having to re-make things. However, as I mention above, it is possible to confuse the poor program with gratuitous use of hooks and 5p patches. Hopefully they are working on this still.
I agree with zandoria - excellent tip, John - thanks
In regards to 5-pointers and hooks, I use 5-pointers when there’s no better solution, and I use hooks ONLY in places that are relatively flat and are not likely to be deformed much during animation…
antonyw wrote:
Hi, Joew
Really good pictures, all of it are very professional, I love those render so much(Jeff Bunker are always wont disapointed us
I have some questions hope u let us know how to do in AM.
-
The Bisley_Hunter, are u used Specularity Map for the skin?
(I feel really hard to get such spec. effect on skin) -
How do u map Bisley_Hunter’s skin? I cant find out any map edge problem, that is really good mapping.
-
could u post little skin map out there? color, bump, spec…etc.
-
How long u made the Bisley_Hunter(day, week, month)? just want to know professional artis working time
Many thanks for your help in advanced.
Regrads
Antonyw
p.s software is not a big problem, professional artis is the main concern.
Hi Antony,
To answer your questions:
-
Yes, there is a specularity map on Hunter’s skin - and a diffuse map as well (it’s at about 15%). The maps are all based on the same color map - just converted to greyscale with a little blur - and different amounts of contrast and brightness. The map was pretty easy to make - one of the guys here at work has a girlfriend who had about the skin tone I was looking for. One day she was in the office and I asked if I could take a picture of her back (she was wearing a shirt that exposed her back). I took that image, made sure that I cloned out any distinct coloration or markings, then made the map tileable in Photoshop. The other maps (spec, diff, etc) were based on this map. What I do is use this as an underlay when I paint maps - i.e. use it as a background, then paint your details on top of it. If you stay away from painting over the edges of your decaled area, you should have about the same value of skin color - and you can avoid seams (of course, it’s not perfect, but nobody is going to see it unless you do some really hi-res renders).
-
I break the model into sections (inner and outer arm, front and back of legs, breasts, etc. I try to break the maps at natural divisions in the body - where shapes come together - this helps hide any “seams” that may show a bit. I make groups that are for selection of the individual areas only, then actions of each of the groups flattened out. I open the flattening action, take a screen shot of it, take it into Photoshop and paint over it. One other trick is that I map the whole character (roughly) with a checkerboard pattern so that when I begin to stretch points around for flattening, I can tell how much I’ve distorted the patches. this also helps me keep the skin map at the same scale across patches.
Hunter does have some seams, but 2 minutes with a smudge tool took care of all that in Photoshop. I, obviously, wouldn’t do that for an animation, but a still tends to get lots of attention…
-
I’ll see what I can do about the maps… but it’s pretty easy to make your own - nothing magical or difficult about it…
-
I made Hunter in about a day… LOL! Just kidding. I’ve been messing with that model for a long time - about a year on and off. I originally had her all built in V8.5 - then V10 messed everything up, so I had to rebuild a good portion of her. If I had to estimate how long it would take me to rebuild her, I’d say a couple of weeks of full days to build, map, and rig her. I work with guys who could do this in half that time - I’m just slow
The key to any big project for me is to not look at the whole project at once - if you want to build a great character, work on it every day - but just a little at a time. One of my friends has the “5-minute” rule when he works on his drawings - he says that every day, no matter what, he’s going to draw for at least 5 minutes. If he feels like quitting after the 5 minutes is up, he does - but he usually goes longer.
I worked on Hunter in my free time - some times, I’d just do something like rig a finger - but I tried to at least touch it every day… It usually ends up “done” before you realize it…
Hi Cory,
I looked at your animations - I like the pod animations - the first part is darn near spot-on - the only thing that struck me is that for as “flexi” as he looked, when he’s dropping the outside foot, his body needs to drop lower and then recover after the foot contacts the ground - right now the rotation (fall) is stopped a bit abruptly - i.e. you need a touch more secondary motion.
In the pod walking sequence, when he lifts his foot to step forward there is a bit of a “pop” - but having said that, it also adds a little personality to the walk, so, that’s a tough call… hmmmm - I could see either side of that.
The first thing that pops out at me on the berserker anim is that it looks like your character is on a cable - like he’s being pulled up into the air by a cable between his shoulderblades. I think that you need more “windup” before the jump. If he’s huge, he’s going to need to crouch quite a bit before he jumps - and it would help if he swung his arms back a bit. When he launches, he needs to lead with his head - I see that you added some secondary motion there (the head drops down on launch), but it’s more appropriate to have that at the LANDING than the takeoff. If you have a video camera, it would help you to video yourself jumping like you want him to. Also, in the initial part of the shot, I’d put him in a "comic book"pose - like his fist smashed forward into the wall - and hold it until the wall is out of the way. Right now, it’s hard to tell if HE broke through the wall because of his pose when you can finally see him - remember, DRAMA is often just as critical as believeable movement - and with a character like this, you need to exaggerate his movements. The last thing I’ll comment on is the body posture and path taken during his jump. At the beginning of the jump, he needs to lead with his head and possibly arms, but on the descent, he needs to lead with his feet. Right now, he’s very vertical, and it makes him look sticky and weightless. Stretch him out at the beginning, and wad him up at the end. His “flight path” needs to be a parabola - right now he moves forward then kind of drops out of the sky.
It’s a good idea to push your poses farther than you think they should go - then back off from there - you may find that the “extremes” you put into your animation add more “life” and don’t look as “wrong” as you might have thought.
Remember that big and fast don’t usually go together without a LOT of exaggeration in the movement. Take a video of you getting up from a crouch as fast as you can - then strap or hold onto some weight and do the same. If you CAN achieve the same speed, you’re going to have a lot of overshoot (inertia) do deal with. WEIGHT is critical to believability - when you look at an animation of a supposedly huge creature that you’ve done, think to yourself - would I want him stepping on my toe? Does he look like he weighs as much as I think he should - or, does he look like a ballerina on the moon?
Don’t misunderstand - these are just MY perceptions. You will either find something - or you won’t - in them. It’s a good animation, and it needs just a few tweaks to make it a GREAT animation…
hoochoochoochoo wrote:
Joew - would love to see your work but the Hash FTP is so slow each time I try. Maybe you should put a download or visitor counter to see how much your work is viewed?
Hmm - that’s strange. I don’t have a page up - I just use the FTP as a place to put stuff up - are you looking at a webpage? I usually get a pretty good rate off of their FTP site (usually about 20-30 kb/S). What are you trying to view? Are you messing around in my stuff? LOL!
JoeW
Damn, am I a page hog, or what?
antonyw
#114
Hi, JoeW and other hasher.
Thank you for your details repiled :bounce: Now I know how to do such great character using A:M. btw, do you(JoeW) have any scenes used A:M? if yes, could u post some out there? we also want to see how’s good the scenes(background, building…etc) can be done using A:M, it is another hard things.
I’m too lazy(and not enough time) to make such great details character 
we always has 1 - 1.5 months to do all the animation…(we using A:M + 3dMax for all the animation, of course Illusion for all effects).
The following link is what we were using A:M done before. I will post latest game render out soon.
http://www.antonyw.com/identity/identity-monsters.html
Thanks again!
Regrads
Antonyw
rcory
#115
Originally posted by JoeW
[B]Hey All - sorry about slacking - we’re working on cinematics for the game and it’s eating up a ton of my time…
Hi Cory,
I looked at your animations - I like the pod animations - the first part is darn near spot-on - the only thing that struck me is that for as “flexi” as he looked, when he’s dropping the outside foot, his body needs to drop lower and then recover after the foot contacts the ground - right now the rotation (fall) is stopped a bit abruptly - i.e. you need a touch more secondary motion.
The first thing that pops out at me on the berserker anim is that it looks like your character is on a cable - like he’s being pulled up into the air by a cable between his shoulderblades. I think that you need more “windup” before the jump. Don’t misunderstand - these are just MY perceptions. You will either find something - or you won’t - in them. It’s a good animation, and it needs just a few tweaks to make it a GREAT animation…
JoeW
Damn, am I a page hog, or what? [/B]
Joe,
I liked the pod meself. I don’t know if the “pop” in the walk was intentional or not. It may have been I didn’t account for the duplicate frame in the cycle. I don’t know. It kinda reminds me of a toddler…
Don’t worry about hurting my feelings. I wouldn’t post and ask for feedback if I wore my feelings on my sleeves. After all, I’m still learning. I thought exactly the same thing…It reminds of a jumping rig, or when they did those test on extracting soldiers with a low, slow flying airplane. I kept adjusting the hieght and timing but to no avail. I’ll try some more extreme posing and see how it looks. Thanks.
Hi, Rcory
I downloaded the blockwallfall6.avi, it’s good animation.
Could u let me know the wall is Keyframed by Hand or using Dynamics?
If Dynamics, can u write some simple tutorial or step by step to create it?
Thanks
Antonyw
The boxes were animated using rigid body dynamics. I was trying out A:m’s to see what it would look like. TO make things manageable, I started with very primitive cubes. Just the eight points and six faces. I did not know how fast it would calculate, and didn’t want to get bogged down. Realize thought that the simulation doesn’t calculate between points. (or at least I don’t think it does) So if I used more points on the blocks, theoretically, there would be less pass through.
I made a plane, with about 10 divisions x and z so the blocks would not literally fall through the floor. I made one cube, as described above, and a ball, with about 32 patches I think. Remember to check the normals to make sure they are all facing out, and facing up on the floor.
On to the choreography, I added the floor and then 22 blocks by dragging and dropping 22 times. I then added the rigid body constraint to each block. I didn’t see a way to copy a block with the constraints on. (I’m new at this, remember?) I then added the ball, added rigid body constaint,and keyframed some motion for about the first ten frames to get the trajectory of the ball headed to the wall. A little tip: Just like in life you have to throw the ball up a little. A straight trajectory towards the wall kept dropping the ball too soon. ( the floor ended right behind the wall) Then run the “simulate rigid bodies” command for the choreography. (Right mouse click on the choreo name) At first the blocks kinda shook and vibrated a tad bit. But then I turned off the rigid body constraint on the first ten frames, or until right before the ball hit. This solved that problem. DO this with the percentage amount on the rigid body constraint, zero percent on frames 0 to 9, 100 percent frames 10 to end of animation. BTW, i used default values for the constraints and the simulation.
When I got ready to add the character, I deleted the ball, so it wouldn’t render. So you see, the ball actually knocks the blocks over in the simulation, but the blocks have their own keyframes for position and rotation after you simulate, so you don’t need the ball any more.
Sorry If I didn’t explain it well. I could post a project file if asnyone is interested.
Cory
Now who’s the page hog?
hoochoochoochoo
#116
Hmm - that’s strange. I don’t have a page up - I just use the FTP as a place to put stuff up - are you looking at a webpage? I usually get a pretty good rate off of their FTP site (usually about 20-30 kb/S). What are you trying to view? Are you messing around in my stuff? LOL!
I nearly took the bait Joe! No, not messing in your stuff - I presume you have a password protected hash page anyway? I have tried your links to your work and I am finding really slow download times.
Not a critiscism of you in any way - just wishing I could see your images!
alfiebabes
#117
http://members.lycos.co.uk/aphil/tempstuff/squirrel.jpg
In progress, started yesterday morning and there’s still tweaking to do - surfaces to remake. 1200 patches so far and I’m onto nostrils & teeth when I get home tonight.
Mainly looking to see that it’s not similar to “Scrat” from Ice-Age. I’m going to get this model out of my system then do an overweight unathletic version. The fat squirrel will then feature in my “beef” wip.
Any feedback appreciated - Alf
JTalbotski
#118
Here’s a WIP of Mighty Mouse that I also posted on the main WIP page. Any helpful crits to make it better or links to better image references would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Jim
