I'm working on a little simple thing, simple because I'm using stick characters. I have a building (on it's own layer) on fire. A woman stick figure is in the window waving her arms for help. Her body is a single shape on a single layer (see, simple...)
Along comes another stick figure, flying in and hovering besides the building. The womans is to leap into his arms and fly off.
So far, up to the jump, everything looks ok, although there's lots of tweaking and drawing to do on the background. But getting the flying character to re-position with the other character in his arms is daunting me, as well as them flying off with the appearance that hje's carrying her, as opposed to her floating along.
There was another post here about a character carrying a fully boned character (a teddy bear), and the advise was to basically re-arrange all the layers in order to accomplish this one thing. But my question is, doesn't that just screw everything else up? If I'm working, and things are on the layers they're one, then suddenly something I want to do cannot be done because of the way things are layered, isn't that just plain frustrating?
Anyways, anybody has some advice on how to accomplish what I'm looking for, or will I merely have to be content with the floating look of the carried character?
Thanx!!
one character carrying another
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
Well... actually...
Doing something "specific" to achieve an effect is common. Sometimes you need to create a completely unique instance of characters to achieve your goal.
You could "cheat" and have a camera cut when she jumps into his arms. Then switch to a different layered project.
This is how it's done... many times you will need to "rearange" layers.. you can have multiple duplicate layers and turn them on and off... or... whatever... maybe a completely seperate project with totally different rigging so the character being carried is part of the same bone system or layer that the carrying character is in. Like... using bones and translate constraints so the hands stick to the character or visa versa.
There is no perfect easy solution or trick. Any how to's on this type of thing involve some kind of kluge. Unless you specifically set it up that way in the beginning... you get to a point and have to do some rejiggering.
One thing to remember... no one will know it isn't "seamless"... it is the end result that counts.
-vern
Doing something "specific" to achieve an effect is common. Sometimes you need to create a completely unique instance of characters to achieve your goal.
You could "cheat" and have a camera cut when she jumps into his arms. Then switch to a different layered project.
This is how it's done... many times you will need to "rearange" layers.. you can have multiple duplicate layers and turn them on and off... or... whatever... maybe a completely seperate project with totally different rigging so the character being carried is part of the same bone system or layer that the carrying character is in. Like... using bones and translate constraints so the hands stick to the character or visa versa.
There is no perfect easy solution or trick. Any how to's on this type of thing involve some kind of kluge. Unless you specifically set it up that way in the beginning... you get to a point and have to do some rejiggering.
One thing to remember... no one will know it isn't "seamless"... it is the end result that counts.
-vern
I suppose that all makes sense, thanx vern... I was thinking in my head of doing a little short story, and I get more caught up in the telling of the story, as opposed to how to tell the story...
I have all these creative little ideas, but when push comes to shove, don't have the know how or inclination to get bogged down in the technical aspects. I wanna do what I wanna do, and I wanna see the results right now... Probably why I've failed in earlier attempts at using Moho, as well as some other 3D apps...
I don't wish to become an animator, a modeler, or even an artist... I just want a creative outlet for telling little short stories, in a visual medium...
But I'll give it another attempt... Again, thanx Vern...
I have all these creative little ideas, but when push comes to shove, don't have the know how or inclination to get bogged down in the technical aspects. I wanna do what I wanna do, and I wanna see the results right now... Probably why I've failed in earlier attempts at using Moho, as well as some other 3D apps...
I don't wish to become an animator, a modeler, or even an artist... I just want a creative outlet for telling little short stories, in a visual medium...
But I'll give it another attempt... Again, thanx Vern...
You may want to start using story boards.
If you do a story board and plan it out ahead of time... you will know that something "weird" is going to happen that may not be easy to animate. Then you won't be so frustrated... you could try that part first... or design the project to that end... or whatever.
A storyboard also saves you work. If you know you won't need an entire room... just one wall and a chair... you only draw what you need.
The storyboards don't have to be very complex either, since they would be just for you.
-vern
If you do a story board and plan it out ahead of time... you will know that something "weird" is going to happen that may not be easy to animate. Then you won't be so frustrated... you could try that part first... or design the project to that end... or whatever.
A storyboard also saves you work. If you know you won't need an entire room... just one wall and a chair... you only draw what you need.
The storyboards don't have to be very complex either, since they would be just for you.
-vern
I certainly cannot deny the value of a storyboard, to help keep a story inline with my view, but in all reality, I don't see how a storyboard will help me determine how to build my layers. In this hand drawn storyboard (and while I don't have a physically hand-drawn story board in front of me, I know exactly what I'm going for, but for the sake of this posting, we'll assume I have such a storyboard lying in front of me) I see a picture of one stick figure holding another and attempting to fly off. It doesn't tell me how to build my layers.heyvern wrote:You may want to start using story boards.
This is a supposed to be a fun short little thing I was making for my girlfriend. I wasn't expecting a huge production with story-boards, multiple project files, duplicate characters, copies of bones here, copies of bones there...
Sorry, I know it's sounding like I'm whining, but I'm not meaning too. It's just that this was supposed to be a fun thing to do, I always hear about how much fun people have doing this, but again getting bogged down in the technical aspects and finding work-arounds increases my level of frustration, and certainly decreases my level of fun...
I'm not sure I'm following you. I know I can change the orders of my layers, and items on my layers, when drawing and laying things out... Are you saying I can change the order of layers in the middle of "filming" something?Fazek wrote:You can manipulate the order of layers with the layer's Z coordinate (with a very small distance because changing Z changes the scale of the layer) and with the "sort by true distance" option at the Project settings...
Say at frame 12, layer 1 is at the top, and at frame 36, layer 1 could be in fact the third layer down?
Exactly. This is an animatable parameter. All layers has a "Z" coordinate (its default value is 0 for all of the layers). If you switch the "Sort layers by depth" option on (at the File/Project settings menu), you can change the order of the layers with this coordinate. If the layer's "Z" coordinate remains 0, the program uses the layers' default order. But, for example if you change a layers' "Z" coordinate to 0.0001 (You can do it with the Layer/Translate layer tool, enter the value to the "Z:" field and press CR), you can change the order of the layers. Use as small values as possible because the Z value changes the zooming of the layer as well.Say at frame 12, layer 1 is at the top, and at frame 36, layer 1 could be in fact the third layer down?
For example, if you want to change the order of A,B,C,D layers to D,C,B,A, leave A 0, set B to 0.0001, C to 0.0002, D to 0.0003. A higher value means the layer is closer to the camera.
Sometimes you must change the Z with a bigger amount first, then you can set its real value. Perhaps it is an error in the program, I will check what to do with it. Yes, and set the interpolation mode to "Step" for these keys.
- - - Fazek