Its looking a lot better in the movement now mat
Thats a nice and handy little controller switch you've made there too.
Million dollar question - howd you do that then?

Si

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bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
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Cheers Si,

it's not as difficult or hi-tech as you might think. The switch is made with 2 models rigged differently and controlled by the same controller, I use SDK to toggle the visibility between the two.

Now about the million dollars... could you send it via paypal?

Take it easy,

Mat.

lol, its on its way but I think the cheque may well bounce

I thought you might have one crazy rig allowing you to do all that instead of two. Nice to know that the simpler options can work so effectively

Si

---

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

Yeah,

it can be easy to forget that it is possible to keep it simple when you're using an application like Maya.

Later,

Mat.

I've been having a bit of a play around with what I'd like the main character to look like.

I apologise for the quality of the drawing, I'm no 2d artist!! Hopefully you will get the idea though.

cheers,

Mat.

Attached Thumbnails

mat,

since you redid your whole system ..i assume you went ahead and used ghost ...it is a program by symantec ..it will copy your system to a dvd ....that way if it goes out again you can just use a special boot floppy and will reload yoru system with all your settingsa nd programs back in ten mins ..I assume you have done this ...i talked to you before about doing that a year ago lol ..has it been that long ...well let me know shoot me an email . i have done a special boot floppy that read its and reinstalls and you do nothing but put the disc in

the best thing to use is the floppy disc ..

also good luck on your animation

check your mail mat ..

Hey Mat

You character looks promising, kind of reminds me of a tim burton esque illustration!

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"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

yeah - i like your drawing. as gster said, very tim burton. this looks like it's going to be an interesting project.

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arran3D

arran3D blog

Cheers fellas,

I as going for that sort of Tim Burton feel, hopefully I'll be able to get it right (with my own twist of course!).

I've spent a couple of days modelling the main character, the little girl whose balloon I have already made. I've still got a bunch of work to do with her but I feel as though she's progressing nicely.

Let me know what you rekon.

Cheers,

Mat.

Attached Thumbnails

Hey Mat, looking good.


I like the wire frame renserthat youve done, care to share?

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"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

Cheers Steve,

it's not a wire frame render really....... I rendered a clay then took a screengrab of the render area. In Photoshop I put the screengrab over the render and set the layer style to darken. I then made an alpha channel from a black to white gradient, turned it into a selection and deleted the selection fom the screengrab layer to make the wire fade (most visible on the hand).

It sounds long winded but it only took about the same amount of time as it takes to read this.

Take it easy,

Mat.

nice work mat - i just feel that she's looking a little 'generic sci fi alien' at the moment, if you know what I mean - perhaps with her hair and other stuff, she will soften up a bit. sure you have a ton more to do so please don't take my badly worded crit too seriously.

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arran3D

arran3D blog

I know exactly what you mean arran,

with the default shader attached the alien likeness is even more uncanny!

I'm pretty certain that once I get her hair sorted out, some proper eyes and some colour in her cheeks she'll look fine.

Cheers,

Mat.

Hello again,

here's a bit of an update on my girl character. I've spent quite a while tweaking the mesh, fairly tedious but very engrossing, and have also modelled her hair. Don't panic about her crazy sticky out plaits, once she's rigged they'll have the same dynamic joint chain as the balloon string in them so they'll be fine!

The current colours are just for me to distinguish various parts and will change once I have her mapped and textured.

Cheers for your thoughts,

Mat.

Attached Thumbnails

hehe, looks a bit like Christina Ricci in Addams Family.