Hey T1ck - Just watched your walk cycle - it's looking very good. you are really picking this up quick. Well done mate.

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arran3D

arran3D blog

Thanks Arran, I was hoping you'd take your vaccum guy and join in the challenge

I think a few more cycles are needed and then it will be onto refining the best

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Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
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very smooth, just one thing, he looks to light on his feet if you know what I mean.

Dae

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"I THINK, THEREFORE I AM"
René Descartes

www.mvorster.co.uk

The walkcycle looks quite good, but could your bot actually walk like this? His legs roll as if he had feet. I think if your bot had to walk for real he would fall over. Probably you should give it a go have him stamping a bit more. And also what dae said, he loks to light.

You got it spot on farbtopf, I have been contemplating adding a foot to the bottom/stuck out of the front of the leg all the way along. I've based it on a general walk cycle so you are exactly right with it not being able to walk that way. A wierd stomp style will be next up.

dae - definately, I was concentrating so much on just getting a decent walk cycle that I totally forgot about external influencing factors such as weight. I'll add that into the 'stomp'

Some good good stuff to work on guys, thanks for the pointers

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Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

Hey Tick! You're 'bot's comin' along well! I agree about the weight - it needs a bit of a pause after each foot hits the ground, as he shifts his huge weight forward. Keep up the good work!

Cheers! priimate.

hey priimate hows it going? Thanks for the tips with the animation, I'm in need of them at the minute

I've had a quick try at adding some weight to the walk and have modified the footsteps so they roll on the small area that contacts the ground. It results in the model needing to raise a lot higher during the cycle which seems a bit strange to me at the moment. Also ignore the hand to the right of the movie as I haven't got around to rotating it yet.

test movie

Think I might drop to noobie and just keep trying to refine this walk

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Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

Hey t1ck - It's definitely a move in the right direction - if maybe a little clunky at the moment - the knee seems to kind of snap back - though that kind of suits your character. It looks like you still have a bit of deformation going on in the lower chest area, though I am sure you are aware of all of this.

Yeah, I was seriously tempted to enter my vacuum guy into the contest, but at the end of the day, I just knew that I wouldn't be able to devote enough time to the project due to work and other commitments. Just watching yours and everyone elses progress is a big motivation. How many in a row is it for you now?

Don't worry, I plan to stop making excuses and get myself in on the next challenge though.

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arran3D

arran3D blog

hey arran, yeah it is a bit clunky, I think my rig is literally straining at the bones (or just inexperience on my part)
I'm thinking that the deformation may be because the rig is constrained to single joints and therefore it doesnt smooth out when more than one is bending. Something to definately look at.

Your vacuum will be cool to animate, all clunky and maybe with some particle effects as he sucks stuff in?

This challenge will take me a full circle back to July last year. It definately doesnt seem a year since then - I'd hope my modelling has improved some (all those hours on the train must have helped).

Si

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Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

Nice progress on your walk cycle t1ck135
I found an interesting little tutorial for a walk cycle on the web.
Tutorial: Anatomy of a Walk
I don't know if that can go for your robot. But it helps me.
Hope this will help you too.
Keep going

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<< A French guy who have some problem in english but who have to live with >>
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Thanks kiveun, that is one of the two tutorials I have been working from and keep referring to
If I can find the other (on my laptop) then I'll post it up for people.

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Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

Thanks Kiveun -

Hey t1ck - I was wondering - I don't know anything about rigging, but to prevent those deformations, would it be possible to just parent the chest and pelvis to the appropriate joints? I kind of figured that for a robot, you would parent the parts to the joints rather than paint weights... Just a thought and probably way off.

Wow - a year of simply maya challenges - well done mate! I bet you have improved a ton!

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arran3D

arran3D blog

that would probably be the way to go arran
I ended up doing single joint influence and then went into painting weights which simply consisted of flood filling the whole area from the joint down as being influenced. It seems to have worked apart from the chest area. I think I know what needs doing though (he hopes!)

hehe, yeah a year of learning a wide variety of skills - modelling, texturing, anatomy, edgeloops, low poly, rendering, fur (well, shave and a haircut) and now animation. Oh and probably the most important - observation. If you'd have asked me about most of those a year ago and I'd have looked at you blank

To model in more detail I think zbrush is just itching to be bought and if I needed fur/hair then shave and a haircut would definately be on the list.
The next major hurdles are shading networks and MEL though the latter should be straightforward as I can already program in a few object orientated c style languages.

Here's a slightly refined update on the previous animation. Hopefully the knees and arms shouldnt snap as much

test walk

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Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

ah, its good to look back at things after a nights sleep - the knee is dragging and isn't smooth on the forward stroke, will sort that tomorrow. Also I think it misses a frame out hence the big drop at the end

I tried starting a punch animation yesterday but the hand is deforming in some wierd ways - again inexperience on my part. While playing with the rig I'll try parenting parts to joints as you suggested arran.

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Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

Its been awhile since I said anything on these post, or for that matter submitted/competed. But thought that I would jump here with my 2 cents for 2 secs.

There is 2 things you can do with this "mech guy".

1. You can give him a very humanistic visual sense.

or

2. Give him a more mechanical look.

Where you are now and where it looks like your heading is down the path of #1. However I think that it would be much more interesting to approach the latter of the two.

With humanistic animation, Im going to get some crit for this, it can be (somewhat) forgiving.

The mechanical approach can be much tougher (when doing mechs) bc it is hard to achieve a TRUE look of weight. Ah there is the key, how to show true weight without it looking clunky.

If you could pull that out the hat I would say you would have a good shot at the title on this one.

Keep up the good work