[colto]

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!

[colto]

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!

[colto]

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!

[Noratio]

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.

[MeanPi2]

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

[colto]

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

[colto]

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!

[MeanPi2]

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.

[MeanPi2]

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.

[colto]

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!

[colto]

I'll render an animation overnight.

[colto]

did a quick render with no AA instead, check it out. Now I am gonna add an animated bump map that creates little ripple type movements that travel up the tentacle in the direction it is growing. It should look awesome. BTW Jakedudesk84life I can't wait for your LAN party tomorrow!

[colto]

Forgot to post the video... It is in Divx

[MeanPi2]

Heh, knew you could do it Colto. Looks great for a rough. Make the image of the end of the tenticle into your clip map and it's really look sharp.

[colto]

WoW! I was just informed by my parents that we are going on vacation this saturday and will be gone for a week! I thought I was only half way through this challenge but I really only have 5 days left. It's time to kick it into high gear and get this thing done!