Testing Character Animator

Goblin character animator test from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.

 Featuring the goblin from the Magic Word book!
Trying out adobe character animator.....
thoughts:-
Really hard trying to do separate passes and get it right- it needs some sort of onion skinning or something so you can anticipate the motion coming up that you are trying to coordinate with.......
Spent a day pulling my hair out yesterday- all the tut videos were of preview 4 version but my version- only updated a month ago looked nothing like it,
and nothing worked-ie  staple tool type stuff
Then I updated- lo and behold  its version 4 and works (well better.....)
 Face stuff and things like dangle are sort of cool- but not sure if its lip synch or voice analysis is so good. My visemes were a bit quick and need work but I have a feeling its chosen wrong shapes in some bits-
maybe it's tuned for an american accent?
The eyebrows and hands had different frames/key driven states on the goblin- just didn't record it- theres probably a bit you could do with their cycles- but then maybe you are better in AE itself with time remapped comps etc.....and use Character Animator as a 'reference sketch' for the animation?

Why doesn't it export as a layered comp to After effects?
Why is the character animator file 0kb and a whole crapload of bits in files in folders...
why can't you load and save like other programmes?
Anyway.....

Dodgy bit of sleight of hand walking- very very hard to have the hand coordination and the ability to concentrate  and keep up/not waver off....when trying to do it in passes as they suggest.
I guess that's why adobe examples are of  wibbly wobbly people doing nothing specific.
Probably trying this in a side on or three quarter view would be easier to do the legs-front on was hard...
[I watched their workaround for doing walk cycles-(their answer - do it somewhere else and use that as a cycle     :/   )   ]
As you can see I almost get it working and then it falls to bits...maybe if you practised....
but then if it takes that much performance practice you are better of just animating it and getting it right.
[tried doing 2 at once on the cintiq touchscreen but the feet kept freaking out..........]



Goblin character animator test2 from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.

Everything old is new again

Blisk Walk -draft Art render_-more from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.

(Hope that includes me )

What have I been doing-
trying a pass on words/story for The Magic Word book
- Its been a bit slow and difficult yesterday and Monday- so I resorted to just writing down alternative sections in the hope of distilling it into the  children's book haiku in another pass.

Looking at Adobe Muse and thinking about new websites.
I was looking at it and thinking just a basic one would be easy enough-and I desperately need to update/something to work on all devices,
simple is good because its all about the images and videos really...unless the animations are my own I'm not that interested in tacked on store bought 'widget animations'  to decorate.
(- the hard bit is listening to Adobe evangelists in their tutorials- why does the word 'widget' make my skin crawl? 'Widget' sounds like something badly made to me......anyway.)

Looking at Storyboard Pro some more....
Mucking around with the animation of layers in simple tests and distributing motion across frames.
Thinking about the equivalent in After effect and photoshop combo- and the relative advantages.....I guess if you were a traditional artist starting there's a whole lot less in Storyboard to learn.
Only thing I haven't been able to try much is the whole script side/importing and distributing it across panels - which is half the deal and why you'd use Storyboard pro for storyboarding instead of photoshop/AE........apart from that I felt fairly comfortable in what I knew.

Quietly looking about at old anims and looking to rerender......
Above is a boss Blisk that would have been in Destroy All Humans 2,
design by me , model and texture by Milenko, animation by me.
Still need to look at rendering type stuff more and Autodesks cloud rendering- because I want to try out motion blur and depth of field etc but the frame time  blows out...

Here are some design drawings of olde of the blisk- (has it really been 14 years?)

Another codebreakers character

A bit simple,  but it all worked fine in the game at a small size.
Codebreakers_Janitor_run_walk from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.
A bit mechanical on the walk with some foot sliding due to the animation sampling for the game- the run is a bit more fluid.

This weeks Qld Sculptors life drawing

Chantelle is the model.
I think this is the third time I've drawn her...
.face is getting better/more accurate here,
face placement still not quite there
blame it on the wine and cheese

 This last one of the night not so accurate.....
but then if I were to ignore accuracy
and go all Brett Whitely- which I'm thinking of doing,
then a model like Chantelle is probably a good subject.

{back on the old side of the model plinth with the shadows and light reflection...
and eyes that need glasses.....}

have a feeling though next week will be an upswing(2 steps forward) after the last weeks  of 1 step back.

Free Range Animation

A scratchy thumbnail animatic of a story- well half.
Really scratchy- but even still the feel of the story comes through
who'd have thunk?

Its about creativity/ideas setting you free but its also about me thinking of focusing on animation and calling my business Free Range Animation  -
partly because I'm out here in the country
but also to distinguish my stuff from the woeful corporate/establishment type stuff
- the ideas are free range not battery ones.
Free range animation. from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.

Evil Dez

Character Evil dez walk and run from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.

Anim by me- model and texture by Milenko
A bit lighter lightwise...
(a bit of wobbling due to low anim sampling for export )
also the leg coat intersection you didn't see ingame because of the top down view and the size of the character onscreen

Magic word doodling

A few sketches toward the magic word book- some are getting there- others I think I need to look at the roughs again to regain the proper thread/character.....

anyway...... for those of you in the void who like such preliminary work

Socks at Sculptors

A bit cold in the shed at QLD sculptors....
I only just made it in time...so wasn't properly focussed....


This time I sat on the other side- so didn't have the shadows but did have the lead-reflecting-on-the-page  issue.
More importantly I  wonder if I need glasses- well I probably do....

still its like going to the gym- you get points for turning up I think.



Model had stripey socks...and tattoos (which I left out).

 Little extra sketchbook doodling......(not done at life drawing)

More animation...

Codebreakers_female_walk_run_idle from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.

A render of the female character......rendered frame  seemed bright enough in the max render window- seems a bit dark......have to fiddle with light before I go and render the rest of the backlog.

anyway again model texture and design by Milenko and animation by me.
I love how sculptural his low poly models are.

Looking back to go forwards

Codebreakers_male_run_walk_idle from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.

I have bunch of work thats largely unseen- well on my site and here.
Heres a test render- only just looking at max materials and lights and rendering again.....
funny when doing stuff for games I never bothered with the renderer stuff really because the rendered object was in the game engine not Max.
Anyway
the lovely sculptural models and textures are by Milenko and the anim by me.

Takeoff!

Takeoff from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.

Another silly cycle- this time made a bit more elaborate than the previous test exercises.

Rough runs

rough run cycles from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.

Mr floppy

flop on trucking from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.

 Body issues....underpant issues.....

Dear void,
Well apparently I am scheduled to go to surgery sometime and potentially lose an ear (in their efforts to remove a basal cell carcinoma).
Missed out a few days (and life drawing etc) in the process of finding it out.
 
Isn't life fun.

On the positive it puts me in company with Van Gough-
on the negative I'd have to be dead and famous to complete the picture.

(Had noticed my blog had been getting more hits of late- but I think its due to it being visited by bots  instead of  people...
.. thoughts anyone??
*sound of bots and spiders cheeping*)

Finally started looking at 3ds max again...
...finally looking at CAT tools.
Seems neat with the character rig creation stuff..
..but then I played with their horse and the neck/head seemed odd-
I realise what the head/automated spine curve is doing but then if you want to rotate the head or have less curve in the neck when the head is extended' to eat grass'  its painful/wrong.
Also with 4 leg animals like horses the front legs the most of the weight
(ie they lock straight for support and back legs are bent for propulsion)
- wonder if it isn't better to have chest the top of hierarchy instead of pelvis
but I guess for the sake of a unified system they have to be consistent.
I guess then the immediate thing to try is to see how CAT rigs bake or export to Unity say.
(and me look at Unity again while I'm at it.)

.can't help wondering whether i should be looking at C4D instead or something more modern....
On the positive they fixed IK in the latest max update I downloaded-
it wasn't me it WAS them -they confessed the fix in the release notes
always reassuring to be proven right/competent /not mad.

Also did a bit more on the Magic Word book- trying to decide which rough I should use for which page....half the time picking one but thinking "I still need to incorporate this from that one and this from this other one into it.....)

**added a friend to make it a bit more 'edgy'- a bit sexier- you know***

flop with a friend from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.

Wonky Life drawing patch

A collection from previous weeks of life drawing-
bit of a form slump- not sure why

well actually I have an idea- I wasn't looking properly and checking as I go-
had the wrong rhythm too

although at QLD sculptors I've figured out that my change of position to get a better light on the model combined with the crap glossy paper I was using meant I couldn't actually see what I was doing/where my line was going as I drew.

So I'll change both of those and reap the reward.

Also try to turn up focussed and actually look and look hard will help.

Dinosaur Rocks mk2

goldie_segment test2 from Lachlan Creagh on Vimeo.

Taking the rough segmented dinosaur and trying DUIK on it (the way I did with the wombat)