Noisycricket

Whats the beginning pay rate btw?

Done and done. Edit: edited

Good call, i fixed that as well as some other things. Edit: Oops, should have just included this in the previous post.

Not sure about the playback problem Squill, Im using the playblast function at .4 scale with otherwise default settings. I set the sneezing animation to 24fps and scaled it down. Yikes, quite a difference, especially in the fast movements. Will it have the same effect with the game rendering at 30+ fps? I had tentatively planned to release high quality animation pack somewhere down the road as part of a "virtual reality" package. Will I be able to do that with 30fps animations? Are the fingers individually manipulatable other than the channel box settings?

Unperfect, "satisfactory" guard sneezing. http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?tzznoh2m1ed Hows that then?

No problem here Domarius, just eager to get working. I've got a generic "sneeze" animation almost done, just need to get the arms a weighty feeling at the end. @ animators: I noticed selecting a curve in the curve editor that was "synchronized Euler" and changing its rotation interpretation to Quaternion doesn't work. You just have to delete/most/some of the keys for that manipulator and start over, is that your experience? Is it ok to use Quaternion?

Got it, thanks Squill.

Will someone else send the proguard.mb file, this is day 4 of waiting for the model.

No one has sent me the files yet. Got em.

Thanks Domarius, my email address is: tory40@comcast.net

*Jeapordy theme song* When O when will that model arrive.... No, im kidding, it doesn't matter really, im still trying to hash out the details of a good stretching animation.

I just recently found out that under accessibility options, you can enable a high-contrast setting which turns all the backgrounds black, very helpful to me so far, seemingly at least. Its togglable via hot key atl-shift-print screen, but you must check mark it on first.

Ok, i'll start a thread here i guess. Just waiting for the latest guard model file. Also in case nobody saw my other post, i'd like the standing-idle animation as well, reason being is that the model sways left to right and the engine doesn't seem to wait till the idle animations are finished to go to the next one so there is a noticable jump when switching from standing-idle to standing-idle-streching for example, if that makes sense. So i'd like to start my idle animations in the middle of the sway to avoid large jumps and i'll need the idle animation to do that. My email: tory40 comcast net @Domarius, Squill and Springheel: what idle animations have you finalized so i don't re-invent a wheel? @Board guru: The board currently doesn't remember me for longer than what seems like 10 minutes, even if im using the board. I have to log back in. Is that normal? Anyone have trouble getting tired at night due to computer use?

Theres only a couple of things i think i'll need, because i don't think the code currently waits until the standing-idle cycle is finished before it transitions to another standing-idle-emote animation (ie. stretching). Although the engine blends, transitions would be less noticible if i were to use the middle position of the standing-idle animation. So, i would need the current standing-idle animation unless the current standing-idle animation starts the character sway movement in the middle. My email is: tory40 comcast net

Hey, i learned something there! The drawing is really good, i think. Just the hand looks a little reptilian, but thats it.

Sweet Hope im of help bringing the feeling of the Thief series to TDM. Is there any animation that is greatly needed/desired by anyone? Want me to email Sparhawk?

Does that mean i can start working with the guard model? Heres what i had so far, just a rough up. Hadn't touched the curves yet and still needed to add a return-to-relaxed segment. I was fighting the arm movements the whole time, for some reason they wanted to go off in a different direction when the arms were swinging. Only through adding tons of keys was I able to steer it properly. Its hard to see, but if you slow it down, arms are all over the place. Ugh. Probably would have been totally done by now. Less than 1mb this time. http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?zwttgmzjr4n

Wow guys, i have been through war with Maya in the last few days. Blood, sweat and tears i tell ye! I could'nt get the Moom model to work with the jump animation i wanted to do. Moving the whole model slowed the framerate down to about 1 fps (literally) which made it impossible to view the jump motion over and over. However, using the Moom model led me to read up on ik/fk switching, which gave me an idea to fix the Full Body IK model i was using previously. It worked, but it turned out to be a bandaid, if anything, for whatever was going on. I was able to refine the jump animation almost to completion, but spent more time fixing weird behavior than animating. Eventually after saving it one day, the animation just went crazy and somehow the last 4 file saves were corrupted as well. Thats where the blood i mentioned came in, something about trying to throw my monitor out the window but the window being stronger than i thought ...and quite springy... i blacked out after that.... But anyway, I found another model to use and i've already got a rough out. Only took about 4 hours to do after all that experience doing stuff over and over... Turns out it not a very complex model and so i won't be able to rotate all the joints i'd like to, but you should get an idea of what i consider "satisfactory". Im aiming some some where between satisfactory and "perfect", as you guys said thats what you really need at the moment. Should be done in the next day or two, hopefully. Want to see some pretty fast animation? http://www.vimeo.com/1224900 Seeing this video in the beginning is partly the reason i tried using Maya's FBIK for so long. I remember using 3ds's Biped rig what seems like a decade ago and just assumed Maya's version would be just as usable.

Sorry for the delay, i've am being kept very busy with work at the moment. Its coming along but i want to learn as i go, so i've been reading up on all kinds of topics as i climb this learning curve.

Ah, ok thanks Domarius.

Heres an older version of what I had for what its worth. I had tweaked the legs and body during the entire jumping process and also the made the arms continue swinging properly until he landed. I also tweaked a few other things before Maya started its LCD binge. http://www.mediafire.com/?nhnjyt25xti (click "click here to start download") Moom, here I come...

I actually didn't read all the directions, I was just having the guy jump up on the small box, regain his balance, then turn 90 degrees to the left with his whole body involved in trying to maintain balance while turning. I made a bunch of video of myself from the side and front jumping onto my tool box and used Windows movie maker to cut and edit segments, very useful program by the way (although I assume theres a better open source program). I've got one more thing to try to fix the problem, but I'll try using the Moom model if that doesn't work. Thanks for taking the time to look guys!

Im having technical issues. Is it normal in a FBIK setup for the mesh to come off of the joints for some reason? Right now they are doing that somewhat, but are following at least close to the IK handles I used to manipulate the skeleton with, but far away enough to screw up what i had going. I started over from scratch out of frustration (I've been trying to solve the problem all day) and it still does it, so Im clueless now. The model im using is for job applicants of a company to make a short demo of. Its downloadable here if anyone wants to give it a look. http://www.bizarrecreations.com/jobs/character_animator.php I cant fathom a reason why it would do what its doing on purpose, I'm wondering if its a "feature" of the trial code so people don't just hack the activation code and steal it.

Nevermind, im ok now. Finally doing some animating. Ugh, I didn't know about the dope sheet...

Ok, i am currently headed in the direction of using the odd looking human character to animate him climbing boxes. Is anyone know of a way to "mirror" animation from one side of the body to the other? Nevermind, got it. To set a beginning pose that I can go back to in case i mess it up, would that be "set nuetral pose", "set preferred angle" or something else?