Character WIP. Full range of motion with skeletal animation.

mkelley · Post by **mkelley** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 3:13 pm

Ah -- something else occurs to me (and while this *might* seem OT perhaps not. On your next character you might well run into this).

It's not only clothing -- I think the cutout approach only works with very specifically designed arms and legs that lend themselves to this style. I was trying it with some of my characters and almost none of them fit this mold.

Perhaps I'd have to see how others do it, but it just seems to me to get it right requires characters whose upper and lower parts of their limbs are either very thin (like your character) or of definite disproportionate sizes (like big upper thigh and small lower calf). With my characters it requires a huge amount of fiddling and work to get it to look even half as good as I can get in minutes with Vern's bone setup.

Wes -- I'll send you one of mine if you send me one of yours <bg>. I'd just like to see if I'm missing out on something or if I'm correct in thinking this type of approach only applies to a style I just don't use.

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 6:43 pm

I don't have one handy with sleeves, but I'd be happy to swap techniques once I do. Probably tonight or tomorrow.

mkelley · Post by **mkelley** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 3:17 am

Yeah, it also occurs to me that perhaps the better way to approach this would be for me to send you one of my models (with or without the rig) and vice versa and THEN have the other one rig it as they would do so on their own.

IOW, the real test would be if my rig of your model would be as good or better than yours. OTOH, since you are doing completely different viewpoints I'm starting to think the whole exercise is probably pointless, because what you have probably won't work for me and the same is true in reverse. In which case I have *really* muddled up this thread and for that I truly apologize.

(Sorry -- I haven't been thinking too clearly. Perhaps I'm not *quite* over my illness yet :>)

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 6:16 am

Actually I think that's a neat idea. It would definitely help define the limitations of each technique.

But I must admit that I only have a couple of single view characters at the moment. I get carried away with scripting to often. I figure as soon as I get a story script together I'll ramp up production. Until then, I just kind of tend to 'play' with AS.

All of my current rigs are kind of a 'slap something together to get some actual animation done' sort of thing. But I definitely like the idea of a 'rig-off'. I'll keep that in mind. So don't be surprised if I IM you a character one of these days.

mkelley · Post by **mkelley** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 3:22 pm

Okay, sounds good. If nothing more, perhaps we can post the results somewhere (the more I do with AS the more tempted I actually am to try and put up some advanced tutorials on my main site. If my drawing skills weren't so weak I'd be more inclined to do so, but it will just expose me for the dilettante I am).

Even if we both stick with what we are doing I have a feeling it would be a huge help to a lot of folks to see some different approaches.