11 Second Club: Last linear and drifts!

Last linear playblast. Gave it to my classmates for feedback and they said it was still drifting a bit. This drifting thing is driving me nuts but I'm glad they're telling me about it, even if they're telling me multiple times! I think I know what the problem is; I'm putting what I believe to be holding poses on things that are unnecessary. I need to look into holding poses much more because what I actually seem to be doing is putting in drifts! What an idiot I am!

Massive thanks to my class for all the feedback :)

Anyway I asked them to tell me where the drifting was happening because I've started to hit the blindness and can't see the woods for the trees. They also suggested to put the animation into auto tangent (better than splines apparently! No overshoots!) so that I can see it clearer. I took the advice and yep, plain as day now. So I'm fixing all that now.

Maya hides things from me.

It's true.

Rachel R has just told me that you can create an editable motion trail in maya. This is awesome because if you're not sure if something is moving in an arch or something's not quite right, you can bring this up and edit it using said trail.

Why has no one told me about this before???

Anyway, here is how:
#Click on object, nurb, control, whatever you want to see the motion trail of
#On top menu - Animate > Create Editable Motion Trial. Easy.

If Animate is not on top menu; click on scroll box in top left corner and pick Animation. Animate should appear on top menu then.
It should create one for you like this:

#Click and delete to get rid.
This will be incredibly useful and I wish I'd known about it sooner. But isn't that just life? Ha.

11 Second Club: Work In Progress

Spent most of the day setting up my scene and fiddling with rigs and stuff.

Imported the belt and fitted it to Grandma:

She's well chuffed!
I also modelled another belt with the intention of posing her holding it up in triumph and making a poster out of that to have on the back wall in the scene. Would have to hide it (strategically place it) from the first shot for revealing later at the punchline.
After messing around with the second rig (see previous post!), I imported it, fixed all the things I needed to and posed both rigs ready to start blocking.

I need the shot to be tighter. The characters are too far away and I need the wrestling belt out of shot for the first part. Also need some of the wall hidden so that I can have this poster I intend to put at the back.

If I can sort that out, then I just need to sort out my reference footage and import the sound clip and I *should* be good to go!

**Edit** Also need to sort out lighting and cameras...

Note to Self about Norman Rigs

If any of the controls are not visible (e.g. facial controls), select VIZ Ctrl at the rig's feet and check down the channel box on the right side. If any are '0' (meaning off in Maya), switch to '1' (on). Controls should appear where appropriate. (Source of info: 11 Second Club Forum)

Also, to switch between FK and IK. Same sort of thing, select the EX controls near feet or hands (kinda like control vectors in Softimage) and use '0' or '1' to switch. '0' for FK and '1' for IK. (Source of Info: 11 Second Club Forum)

The romain database website mentions that there is a common problem with the Norman rigs and that is sometimes parts of the geometry don't render. This is apparently because the visibility of those parts have been turned off. To turn them back on, select the geometry that isn't rendering (it appears fine in the viewports), hold down SPACE BAR > Window > Rendering Editors > Rendering Flags. All the objects in the scene appear in the window, scroll down to find the ones you have selected (will appear highlighted so long as you don't deselect the geometry) and make sure Visibility and Primary Visibility are 'on'.

In hindsight, this may have answered the same problem I had with the Morpheus rig when the skin was not showing up in the render view. The more you know...

Can't believe it's taken me about an hour to figure this out!! Gaah!

Playblasting

Playblasting sounds like a simple thing but for some reason I keep getting it wrong. I get error messages when I try and play the video I just playblasted and I have no idea why.

I believe it's because I forget how to set it up correctly. I used this video the other day to make sure I was doing it correctly. I find myself needing it again today so I'll post it on my blog so I know where it is!!

Modelling Berets

I don't want to learn to model in Maya just yet as learning to animate is going to be a challenge enough. But I wanted a beret for my mime character so I returned to Softimage to model one.

I also used this opportunity to make an obj. file and make sure Maya can import it. Which it can. So I can plop this hat on Malcolm's head when I return to him.
Update on the chrome looking texture on Malcolm's shirt; we have no idea why it's doing that! But I'm going to have a look at it and try a few things suggested. Otherwise, I might have to rename Malcolm to Chrono the Mime-o. Or just re-do the whole scene and see if that works... Thumbs up.

Messing with the Maya

Been messing around with rigs in Maya.

Firstly I tried out the Morpheus rig which was fun to play around with but for some reason the skin wouldn't render... Two of my classmates (who are more experienced with Maya) tried to fix the problem but couldn't figure out what it was.

So I decided to stick to a rig I know and downloaded the Malcolm rig for Maya. With the help of this video I managed to install it correctly and everything seems to be working so far.



So far so good.
Now I just need to see if I can re colour him to be more mime-y.
And then learn to animate in Maya.
No, not difficult at all...

Maya Quick Links

Just using this space to put up lots of Maya links for in the future, so I don't have to trawl the internet looking for them again!

Focal Press: How To Cheat In Maya

Scott's Cheat Sheet for Maya ~ (Need to be logged in Facebook to see!)

Digital Tutors Free Maya Tutorials ~ (15 Videos)

Useful Things From Autodesk

Video On Using Morpheus Rig:

Morpheus Rig 101 - "The Rig As Is" from Josh Burton on Vimeo.

Maya

For our next module, Acting For Animation, we have another presentation and two animations to do. My presentation is going to be on psychological gestures which, when our tutor gave us the gist of what that is, sounds like something I really need actually! Watch this space for research on that!

One of the animations we are going to do is the March 11 Second Club competition which should be fun. No idea what the clip is going to be but we'll see in March! I think it's going to be a dialogue, or at least our tutor seems confident it's going to be.

The other animation is going to be a team effort about mime auditions. In groups of 3 we have to decide on a location, the stage, lighting, layout etc and animate a character each who is auditioning for a mime position of some description (could be a talent contest, screening for a kids party etc).
For the team animation, I am going to learn Maya because it's a program I've been meaning to learn (because a lot of job advertisments seem to want you to be able to use it) and my team mates (Rachel and Raf) also use Maya. So that's going to be fun...

I haven't decided whether to stick with SoftImage or use Maya for the 11 second club animation. It depends on what the clip is and if I'm allowed to use Malcolm. As far as I'm aware, there are certain rigs you are not allowed to use (if you are entering into the competition anyway, which I might because why not? haha. No seriously, it'll be interesting to see what feedback I get from the community there and if it helps me improve my animating skills then it'll be worth it!) and Malcolm belongs to AnimSchool, who have certain rules about using him, so I'm not sure if he's allowed. It's hard to find decent, WORKING rigs for SoftImage. It also depends how I'm getting on with Maya. I'll be playing around with Maya this weekend.