July - Normal - Colto
 

Hey guys! Wow, an animation challenge huh? Guess I'll give it a try. I've only done animation once but since I am out of school and have nothing to do all month then I think that I will enter myself as normal for now. I'm gonna do the monster crazy one. My idea is to have a guy and girl sitting down at a kitchen table in a half-destroyed kitchen. The girl will have her back to most of the kitchen and throughout the scene random monsters will walk in and out of frame (oblivious to the woman who suspects that there are monsters in her kitchen). Then as the guy is saying that he doesn't think she is crazy then it will show a shot parallel to the table so that you can see the guys hand(which is under the table) turn into a tentacle or sumthing freaky and snake itself under the table and up behind the woman(as if to grab her). I think that I will try and then have the tentacle possibly grab the woman at the very end. Any ideas? This project may seem kinda ambitious but I like to set my goals high.

I like it, very imaginative.

monster
 

first monster to be used will be a werewolf. Just textured him and added fur. Any ideas on how to make him look better? His fur seems a little oof to me but I'm not sure how to fix it. Ideas?

Rigging this guy is gonna be a nightmare!

Cool idea... Good Luck.

Colto - with regards to the fur, you might want to link the density and length parameters of sasquatch to weight maps. They are extremely easy to create in modeller and I got some fairly decent results on the last challenge with my faun. Also, if you haven't done so already, download the sasquatch demo files from Worley's site - that will give you more of an idea how to muck around with the settings. The otter one is pretty cool.

I wouldn't worry about it, as it won't have anything to do with how your entry is judged. animation is the focus.

Second creature
 

Hey guys! I just finished texturing and rigging my second monster that will be running around in the kitchen. I plan to have this guy pop out of an open window and pull the wolfman through it with him. Any ideas for other monsters. I was thinking that while the woman says her second line she will turn around and all the monsters that were previously there will escape quickly without her seeing them(leaving only a ruined kitched). While she is turned around I was thinking of having an eyeball pop out of her cup of coffee. Kinda like a submarine parascope comes out of the water and looks around. Any other ideas guys?

creature grabbing
 

quick pose of the creeper character as if he would be grabbing the wolfman.

creeper grabbing wolfman
 

I decided to try it out with the wolf in his arms to make sure that he would fit. I tried giving the wolfman a surprised/scared expression.

facial animation test
 

Here is my facial animation test. I exported some poser figures and created endomorphs for the facial animation. Now that I have the facial animation done then I can start to edit the body animation.Then once the main characters are done then I will add the kitchen scene and monsters. Then animate the monsters and render. I used 2 different hair styles for the woman. Which one do u guys like better??? Movie is in Windows Media Video format. Post if u need it in a different format.

umm that last image dont look right :rolleyes:

well, the wolfman IS surprised. ;)

lol! I know, I just realized that. But I think it will look better when it is put into animation. lol

Any thoughts on the animation though?

Colto - animation looks good so far. The lip sync is pretty much there and I like the head movement and the eyebrow movement. I can't really suggest anything though as I haven't a clue about all of this stuff! Presumably in the final you won't have her changing hairstyles between lines ;)

The last line animates pretty swell and the synch in all 3 is good, perhaps the upper lip is a little too inactive with words like "monster" where when screamed at little children the lips actually meet and help form the word.

There's no animation of the eyes in any of them- the lids are always the same distance apart between the top and bottom like they're just reading a script they have no interest in. There's no nuance of 'character' in the eyes- shy people tend to make statements but not look someone directly in the eye unless they're ticked off which shows throughout the face. When someone lies or exagerates they tend to look/glance to the left (glancing left now) when they lie. Etc.

The eyebrows in the first 2 people seem a bit bouncy (the guy appears a real horny-toad- Kinda fits the clip in an odd way though) but the 3rd chick has nice movement of the brows that shows sarcasm. I've never been unfortunate enough to talk to anyone whose eyebrows bounce so quickly which is probably just as well since I'd want to rip their head off and kick it down the street screaming "Stop doing that!"

This is all just my opinion though. Nice start so far.

wow. Thanks for the detailed crit. I see that I do have some work left to do!!

yeah, colt, that last picture scared me ;) good work so far man, ive never seen you do animation except for that car one. i cant wait

wow looking good, but instead of having him nod when he says "i dont think your crazy" i'd have him shake his head slightly whilst having a long blink.

im just glad your in normal rather than newb lol

Keep in mind that there will be a wall in-between the creeper character and the wolfman when he grabs him! lol

new animation here
 

Hey guys! I have changed my idea for this movie. Do to the bones misbehaving then I am gonna have to make the two people stand while talking. I still plan to have the guy do the freaky tentacle thing.I got a new full body animation for the female here. I haven't done the body animation for the male yet. tell me what ya think I like the way it looks and think I may use it as my final full body animation for the female for this particular line. The file is in DivX this time. Post if ya need a different format!

Hey Colto, models look good but the floating in zero-g of the arms doesn't really fit the line. It all depends on how you interpet the line on what to do with the body, arms and face. Try acting it out in a mirror for ideas and feel free to punch anyone in the face that walks in while doing it and makes sarcastic comments.

Her nod at "monster" btw is excellent timing.

edit: Not sure what problem you're having with the bones, but if it's anything like I was having with the deformation not following the bones or affecting parts of the model they shouldn't have affected, weight maps solved the 2nd problem and in Bone Properties checking 'use weight map only' and ramping up the weight map influcence from the default 100% to 5000% solved the first problem, at least in testing.

It wasn't what the bone was affecting but rather the clothing and body parts "passing through each other and stuff. There was no actual physical collision detection kinda thing. I think that the scene may work better with them standing anyway. I am thinking I may have the guy's fingers turn into snakes, shoot to the ground, and wrap around her legs and body. (without touching her so as to keep her from noticing) I might then have him grab her at the end. Maybe a quick 1/2 second shot of his face turning into a monster!!! Yeah, that would be kool!

I am having some of the same collision problems with the girl's arm. I will probably leave them as they are and add a slight hip or leg movement so as to keep her motions natural looking. I don't think I'll have the same problems with the dude.

updated animation
 

Here is a quick update, I have animated both people for the first line. I realize that the guy's skin can be seen through his shirt on his left arm for part of the animation but it shouldn't affect how my animation is judged because it is only visible b/c of the textures applied. Please post ur Comments and Crits!!!

Looks like a good start on the mouth movement. They are both very stiff, though when it comes to body movement and eye movement. Animating the eyes is probably just as important as the body, with the mouth, literally, third in order of importance.

Really over-emphasize stuff key words like "monster" "kitchen" and "crazy."

Also, as this is an animation challenge, rigging quality is included in that, so you'll probably want to clean up the weighting around the joints and stuff.

Keep it up!

O.K. Mike thanks for the quick reply. I'll try fixing the rigging weight map problem. I'll work on the overall movement as well. BTW Mike, I noticed that u have the warthog texas link on your signature. R u from Texas?

Not originally, but I moved here to start work at WarthogTX. Originally from Mississippi.

Man, I am having major trouble with the tentacles! Anyone have any good Ideas on how to make a tentacle grow out of a man's arm and the snake around a figure. I am looking to create the exact same effect as the morphing vine found on the http://www.md-arts.com/ page. But I have to be able to do it with 6.5 b/c I don't have 7.5 and use of the SplineControl plugin. I need help!

For the skin through the clothes, amputation! Chop off most of the hidden arms and legs and animate the clothes (sure there's a way to do this with opacity and surfaces instead), then keyframe any of the remaining limbs to avoid penetration after the clothes are keyframed, provided the offending limb stubs are on a seperate layer.

As for the tenticles, probably a morph would work along with rail extrude. Say it's one tenticle when totally snaked out equals 1500 points, so you'd create a wrist consisting of 1500 points. Then you'd rail-extrude that wrist object using a background curve of the total path that 'tenticle' would take to form the snaking tenticle right before it grabs her (it has to grab her Colto). Then you'd save that as a morph and activate the morph to happen over a certian number of frames. It's a starting point to look into, I've never really tried it but read some stuff before about sorta morphing like this. It won't really give you the snakey flickering of deforming along a path and keyframing..oh that might work also. Might want to post this question in the animation forum..Anyways, so ideas to start with..

Ah! Yes I fixed the clothes problem without having to amputate. It just needed some rigging and weight mapping adjustments. Seems perfect now! I still want to have the people stand though. I had the idea of having the guy/monster throw her into a wall or table or window or something like that! ;)

And on the tentacle, I tried the setup u were talking about but it wont work b/c instead of the tentacle extending while following the path right it goes directly to the spot it would end at, there is no snaking motion. Instead it just looks like the entire tentacle gets larger. I'll try posting an example of the problem later!

I am thinking of trying it this way. Have the wrist object made of like 1500 points or so and the making the morph just a perfectly straight tentacle going down so that when morph it appears that the wrist extends downward into a tentacle. I would then make a chain of about 175 bones in the shape of the spline that I would have used to rail-extrude the thing. Maybe then I could set the tentacle to deform to the bones so that it would follow the correct path. Just like in the slug tutorial on the MD Arts page oly with a morphing object rather than a static one. Hope it works!

First hair is better. About facial animation I can only say it is far over my skills. I still struggle with learning morphs, thou I think I got hold on it last night.

Yea, you've got a tricky situation going. I know you'll figure it out though.

GRRR! It isn't working! This is so frustrating!

OK guys. I have done much research and it seems that I cannot create working tentacles with the tools that I have. I would have to either upgrade to 7.5b or spend countless hours keyframing every bone (IK won't work right when using a morph!:( ). So I now know that I can not create this particular effect but rather improvise (as all great animators have to do sometimes ;) ). So instead I plan on having the tentacle snake down to the woman's feet and then create a loop or mold around the woman's feet (without actually touching her so as to keep her oblivious ;) ) I can then have the guy/monster character morph into his true monster self and yank the woman with his tentacles( by her feet which is secured by the tentacles) and slam her into a wall or window or the like. Post your opinions on the idea!

Yes, actually, you can. http://www.flay.com/text/clipmorphing.htm - as for a 'blunt' tenticle on the slowly revealed end, add for example a 'tip' that follows the morph path for add a 'tip' to the clip map. The next technique follows the theory paragraph (I'm wordy)..

Theory: With proper camera angles and cuts you can show a tenticle wrapping around a person without actually doing it. Take this for example: You want the tenticle to start expanding so cut to a close up of the wrist and run the effect to her ankles on one side. Cut back to the speakers for a few seconds or more, cut to the chicks waist with a tenticle peice wrapping around there, cut back to the speakers shot, run a tenticle through the shot around her back and so on. In the end, you'll have not shown the entire wrapping effect but just enough that people know what's going on. A little more creepy also. How to do it?

Morph targets as you noticed go straight from 1 target to the next varied only on time (keyframes)- they also only really act on points, that I've seen. So why not make multiple morph targets starting where the previous morph target left off? Tried the idea and surprisingly it worked and should work in Morph Gizmo or whatever ships with 6.5. Make a disk running up Y with 4 segments on the X axis. For all points in the bottom-most segment, highlite them and make a selection set or part and name them all like extrude_1 then deselect them and select all points on the next X segment up the Y path and name them like extrude_2 and work from the bottom to the top until all 4 segments have a name and are a point selection or part. Now totally flatten it all on the Y so all points are in the same Y space (set value on Y works nice for this).

Now to make it all work. Segment 1 is the base, it stays put. Create a new Morph named say Grow.1 and pick points using 'w', choose all your selection sets or parts from segments 2-4. Move it where you want and write the X,Y and Z positions down (and rotations if using them). Starting from the base create another morph Grow.2, pick sets 2-4, move them to the exact position you wrote down and deselect set 2 then move 3-4 up or somewhere and write the XYZ down again. From the base create another morph, Grow.3, pick sets 2-4, position set 2 at the same place as before, set 3 as the same place just previously written down and move set 4. When all morphs are applied in sequence, growth along a set path. Snakey squiggles and junk can be applied via more morphs or keyframing the created morphs (probably faster just keyframing- or I guess you can just offset say segment 2 a little while morphing segment 3..

The advantage of using the theory with the above is you only need to make morphs for the snaking shots and can use a one-peice object that kinda resembles the morphs for the last 'gonna squish you' shot. Or I guess you could run the whole tenicle out with the morphs with point sections in between each morph point..

You can make it all work Colto, looking forward to your idea. :)

Argh, misread your post about the tenticle going right to the target. What are you using to control the morph? There should be a slider or something of some sort and you might need to keyframe the slider..

Good to hear no amputation was necessary. :)

IT WORKS!!! I'll post an animation in a sec. I can't beleive I never thought of clipmapping. I lokked at a tutorial on it on the MD Arts page while I was trying to figure out how to do the morphing vines thing. MeanPi2, YOU ARE A LIFESAVER! Or at least an animation saver! ;) Thanks a ton!