New commercial, first draft

[SpaceBoy64]

I'm working on a commercial for a local appliance and mattress store. Here's my animation. I used a stock character I purchased on Content Paradise. She was TV news reporter character, but I modified her slightly. I got rid of the microphone, and I modeled her hand to hold a frying pan. I also purchased the "Painter" character which is done in a similar style. I modified him to be an appliance delivery man. I made the delivery truck a couple of years ago for another commercial.
The background I made in Lightwave 3D.

Check out the animated explosion that I copied after an episode of "Go, Go, Gophers". It needs tweaking, but I think it works pretty well.



Animated gif of original:


"On The Scene" , my female character, is one of the best characters I found on Content Paradise, but I've always wondered why no one seems to take advantage of the "Interpolate sub-layers" in any of the switch layers. I know it's a bit more difficult to set up, but I think it looks nicer. I also wish there were more characters in the same style. I also purchased the News room scene, which has characters at a desk, and the Painter, but I'd like to see more. Some of the other vendors characters, which look nice at first glance, were obviously drawn in Adobe Illustrator. They are so complex that they can't be easily modified. I think when I get this explosion perfected I will sell it on Content Paradise, along with my delivery truck. Are there other sites out there who sell Anime Studio characters?

[SpaceBoy64]

I'm looking for some feedback on this.

My client says he thinks the woman looks too rich to be one of their customers. Any suggestions on making her look more poor?
I thought the fact that she has appliances from the 1950s would help, but I guess not.

Thanks.

[funksmaname]

hmmm, maybe take the earring off, make the shoes more slipper like, and maybe make her dress a more drab colour, darker red or something? I think perhaps they see her wardrobe is all 'matchy-matchy' and make assumptions about her wealth

google '50s housewife' - I guess maybe wearing an apron of some kind might make her seem more like a homemaker than a business woman?

[SpaceBoy64]

Thanks,

That's exactly what I did.

[SpaceBoy64]

Now I have to tweak everything so that it works right. The apron works pretty well, except that her left shoulder covers it up when she moves her arm up. It doesn't look right. Also the pockets on the apron aren't being affected by the bones right. The apron, which I created from scratch, works with the bones without any extra work, but the pockets don't, at least not all the points.

[funksmaname]

correcting the shoulder should be a piece of cake with a smart bone...
She's looking less glamorous now, good job.

[SpaceBoy64]

Thanks!

I will have look up a tutorial on smart bones. Is that in AS9? Could you explain how you would fix it?

Is there a way to know how the bone binding was done originally? Why do some of my new points work with the bones, yet some do not? It's been awhile since I used AS last, I've forgotten some things. I noticed some points on her shoe aren't working right.

Thanks,
-Don

[SpaceBoy64]

I fixed the shoulder with a smart bone, and managed to figure out how the binding was set up on the skirt, so I could get the apron working right.
When she leans back though, the character's hips don't look right, and the edge of her skirt doesn't move the way it should.
Any idea how to fix this?

[Little Yamori]

It's not that long of a sequence, so if you have to, you can manually fix the skirt literally point by point, frame by frame. As you make the adjustments you should see that you probably don't have to do it for every frame. Just a simple way of approaching it.

LY

[funksmaname]

you could try adding a couple of extra bones from the hip to the top of the skirt on each side, and could try giving it some dynamic movement, might save you some time.

[SpaceBoy64]

Thanks.

Her hip doesn't seem to be in the right place when she leans back. It's offset from where her leg should connect with her pelvis. Do I need to re-do the bones?

[jahnocli]

Her hips are too close together, and her waist is not over the centre of gravity -- if she has her weight supported on her left leg, her body should be further over to her left.

[neeters_guy]

Do I need to re-do the bones?

I think so. I’ve found that CP rigs are fairly basic and you’ll need to adjust the rig to optimize it for the specific action you want to convey. Or do as Little Yamori says and make ad hoc point motions to fix the problem. It's messy, but since you're not interested in reusability at this point, it probably the faster way to go.

[willf]

w/r/t the apron, you could try giving it a bone of its own and point-binding all the points in the apron and pockets to it.

[3deeguy]

SpaceBoy64, It looks like it'll be a successful video! The thing I noticed in the first four seconds was that the left arm and the right leg are floating. Please let us know how it turns out!