Shirow Project Book#3 Side-Mission

[softdistortion]

Sllink-The latest Fuchi FBX is in your FTP. Give it a run through and leave some feedback in the team forum when you get a chance.

[softdistortion]

TEAM- we got frontpaged on CGFOCUS and someone finally used our copbots pic…Oh happy day…weeeee… :bounce:

[colkai]

Coolness!

[sllink]

xtrm3d- snap, you did not just use the “P” word!..ok guys grab him and lets take him outside.
The character is an older model, and our team mate Sllink did alot of hard work trying to do characters for our project, however, we don’t really have a highly skilled character modeller. You don’t happen to know one do you?..hint hint.
…and, um…the “take him outside” thing was a joke btw.

Colkai- you’re so diplomatic…I was gonna say what you did…honest.

Today, 07:59 AM #15 colkai

Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: NW UK
Posts: 5

Re: Shirowproject
Hehe, well, I’m working on the hands as we ‘speak’ - I have got a bit of work to do as they are different structure / layout and I need to see about weight mapping.
This means TeaBiscuit will need re-exporting to FBX - but no big thing there.

There are no texture on that character in that render.:shrug: I just redid the hands right?:shrug: I offered to redo the model??:hmm: Im not really reading to much into it in any case congrats.

[softdistortion]

Sllink- in that CGF quote you missed part of what is happening, but no worries, you’re covered with the model. We’re keeping all of the body/head meshes you made and adding the hands you just remade. Colkai was talking about his doing the hand integration for you…so we can keep you free to work on the Fuchikoma animations.

[colkai]

There are no texture on that character in that render.:shrug: I just redid the hands right?:shrug: I offered to redo the model??:hmm: Im not really reading to much into it in any case congrats.

No, poor wording on my part Sllink, sorry dude. I meant I was swapping your new hands over to replace the old hands on the model, ya know, re-editing the skeleton, weight mapping and such. I also meant the model in the render didn’t have the latest textures etc…

No bad reflection on you or your work meant at all man, sorry if you felt that way.

[donShole]

Those WIPS rock as always, I like the look!

Not to answer for Don, but yes you can, in fact you can make even simpler my taking the tunnel abse geometry and the do so ‘cutting’ to create points where you want the path to go. Then play connect the dots with those points to make a new curve, (do an extra rail extrude with a single point poly) with you need the path toi have more points and or be smoother) you can then use that new curve as a motion path for the fuchi to travel just like we did with the monorails way back when.

Paths aren’t available in MB 5.5, so that won’t work. I’ve been thinking about this since we first started talking about tunnels. Frankly the only solution I have involves building a “tunnel rig” ontop of the current fuchi_rig. It seems a little over the top, but may (or not) make animating the tunnel shots easier. Setting limits using constraints is more elegant, but I don’t have enough calculus in my brain for that.

[colkai]

Paths aren’t available in MB 5.5, so that won’t work.

Ok, this is off the top of my head, so feel free to laugh at my ramblings

Could we not export a motion path from LW to MB as a baked motion to MB. Then create a motion clip from this which we could utilise? If i get chance this weekend (hey, I can hope), I may try this on a simple cube.
Then all you need do is assign a parent constraint to the null driven by the path so the object follows it - you could then even bake that as a clip within MB. (He says…optimistically)

[donShole]

Ok, this is off the top of my head, so feel free to laugh at my ramblings

Could we not export a motion path from LW to MB as a baked motion to MB. Then create a motion clip from this which we could utilise? If i get chance this weekend (hey, I can hope), I may try this on a simple cube.
Then all you need do is assign a parent constraint to the null driven by the path so the object follows it - you could then even bake that as a clip within MB. (He says…optimistically)

Yeah, you could do that. I’m not sure what benefit there would be over manual keyframing in MB. I think that switching back and forth between MB an LW would be overly cumbersome at least for me ( I don’t have LW :shrug: )

[sllink]

Yeah, you could do that. I’m not sure what benefit there would be over manual keyframing in MB. I think that switching back and forth between MB an LW would be overly cumbersome at least for me ( I don’t have LW :shrug: )

Hi Don,
I think what Colkai is talking about doesnt change the workflow in MB other than providing the path sync between LW and MB once the anim is completed in MB. Which means you do not need LW for the MB workflow. Once the final MB anim is complete it gets merged back to LW path and all. Another approach would be to export a low poly version of the tunnel just to make sure its in sync with the tunnel in LW.

[softdistortion]

Thanks all of you for input on this.
Donshole and I also discussed the issues a bit so between us there are already some good potential solutions presented for path linking. We’ll have to do a few tests to decide on the most efficient methods, but I know we will make it work one way or another. :wip:

Also should mention, as Sllink suggested I have been working on an MB tunnel set export which will likley be in sections. So we will have a set to animate the Fuchis into.

[colkai]

I didn’t get chance to try this today as I’d forgotten all abotu some work I needed to get done for the Centre. But what I’m thinking is taking auroras idea of using points off the tunnel to create an initial path which can then be tweaked as desired in MB. Naturally, the resulting motions will drop back into LW once plotted so no worries there.

Of course, I could be over-simplifying this process, in which case, apologies.

[softdistortion]

Thanks Colkai. If you or Sllink get to it, let me know how it works out. I’m gonna to keep on the tunnel texturing and setup.

[donShole]

Hi SD,
I’ve upped the latest fuchi_w with animation on it:). Please check to see if the animation transfers back to LW. You may have to select the skeleton hierarchy and plot to that.

[softdistortion]

thnx Donshole.

[colkai]

Thanks Colkai. If you or Sllink get to it, let me know how it works out. I’m gonna to keep on the tunnel texturing and setup.

It’s on my “To Do” list today, but you know how my time is.
I’ve got to think it’s doable though

[softdistortion]

you can do it! :wip:

[colkai]

you can do it! :wip:

Well, I got everything into MB fine, what I can’t seem to do is turn the imported motion of the Null into a separate motion clip which can be applied to anything. I am not even sure if you can do this or if it (MB) expects the corrct item to exist in the scene from the start.
Anyhow, the FBX files & LWS/LWO files are in a RAR in the root of my FTP area for people to look at if you want, called TunnelMotTest.Rar

[softdistortion]

Thanks Colkai.
I was thinking about the last part of what you said…“I am not even sure if you can do this or if it (MB) expects the corrct item to exist in the scene from the start”
based on that I managed to create a path in Modeller and export “path to motion” <The path would be the points we take from the tunnel (as Aurora suggested) that are going to tie the fuchi’s feet to the surface.
I first loaded a cube into Layout, Then I loaded the motion file into Layout via (all files)“File-Load_Load Motion File”.

The Cube is tied to the motion in Lw automatically. Export that as an FBX and load in MB.
I added a subtrack set to additive just to be safe and not erase the main animation path.
Then I added some rotation keys to the cube so it spun as it moved along it’s path. Then Plotted and exported the finished motions as a FBX.
I could then drop this FBX clip on the cube in story mode and scale etc as desired. This all merges back to LW 100%.

I realize a Single cube is rudimentray compared to 4 fuchi feet, but if this works, I am pretty sure we will get the 4 feet locked to a path and working too… The whole thing should work even if we need it to go back and forth between LW and MB multiple times for any layers.

I am going back to the texturing for now, so if you get time, take it another step. Or else we will have to do a crunch when I have the sets finished and exported for animation.

Jaques-you got the models you wanted for texturing…what’s happened so far. Please update or WIP. Thnx

[softdistortion]

Forgot I promised to test a LW merge of the newest, new Fuchi rig. Nice job Donshole, it works 100% (the one leg flip is in the FBX too).

ok, now back to the texturing. :wip: