Not too much activity here...

[kamus1000]

I think that most people that need help try to find the answer in google before post here...

[MasterRobot]

or possibly there are people (such as myself) who just haven't thought about starting yet because of procrastination

[BuddyB309]

Originally Posted by MasterRobot

or possibly there are people (such as myself) who just haven't thought about starting yet because of procrastination

GAH!!!!!!! WHY DO YOU DO THAT TO YOURSELF!!! YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG GOOD ANIMATION TAKES???!!!!!

[16MentalTempest]

Yeah, 2046's goal is to do better than last year. In that case, we're already done! Actually, we've taken a pretty simple approach to it, but we're kinda forced to as I am the ONLY one doing any work and I have barely three months experience in the software.

[merybar]

Our team as well is off to a very very slow start this year.

[BuddyB309]

Originally Posted by merybar

Our team as well is off to a very very slow start this year.

Hey I know You edited your comment, But I'm referring to you say that Vets seem to get annoyed when newbies ask simple questions. Well I do get somewhat annoyed when they ask a question before trying to find out themselves. When ever I teach a 3ds max class I always stress that the F1 button is your friend, google is your next best friend, than I am your third best friend. Because I am not always around to help you solve your problems, and therefore you must learn to solve your problems yourself.

But there is something that I will do that neither F1 or Google will help you with. Critique. If you post a Work In Progress render of your scene/character/animation/model/texture/lighting/rig I will pick it apart and tell you exactly what is wrong with it and what you need to do to fix it. I will also give you suggestion on how to improve it. Guaranteed.

Its far more easier for me to see what is going on with your scene when I can see it in front of me than "HELP!! MY SCENE (insert random problem here)"

[MasterRobot]

yay for tutorials!


except ive either never been able to find a good one/ or tried hard enough to understand one for rigging characters....

[Church]

Originally Posted by MasterRobot

yay for tutorials!


except ive either never been able to find a good one/ or tried hard enough to understand one for rigging characters....

I think that's simply because rigging is HARD. Unless you're doing something super simple, you can't just drop in a skeleton. Each bone has to know exactly what it's affecting and how, or else the limbs will skew oddly when you try to move them.

It's the most dreaded part of my animation course. My teacher has showed me the basics so many times but I haven't gotten far enough to ever feel like I've gotten the hang of it.

And my team is also going slow. I'm mentoring a team and this is their first year on the animation. We just got their old computers updated enough to install 3d this week, so we're going to race to get something put together on time.

[fireball3004]

rigging... shutters... I hate rigging... I can get rigs to work, but it's awful, every time I try to make a rig do something new or different, I get something wrong with it... though to be honest, I much prefer modeling to animation... maybe that's why I'm a mechanical engineering and not an an art major...

In reference to asking for help, asking questions or watching dementrasions often makes learning easier. Of course my only experience with that would be w/ BuddyB over aim a few times...

Compile a series of power points, tutorials, and youtube videos from around the internet and that we make ourselves would be an excellent off-season project. I would have loved a source of information like that when I was first learning... still would actually... and it would be very helpful to any schools starting classes, or any heads of teams needing to teach their younglings(that's an affectionate term btw)...

[BuddyB309]

Originally Posted by fireball3004

rigging... shutters... I hate rigging... I can get rigs to work, but it's awful, every time I try to make a rig do something new or different, I get something wrong with it....

aw come on, rigging not THAT hard. First you look at the character and decide what is the best approach to rig it. Either bones or some other kind. Then build the internal skeleton with bones, geometry, and/or helpers. Then apply 100 different constraints to them to build the external rig that you control. Some scripting here and there. Then skin modifier, skin deform modifier, then about 100 morph targets. Character rig tests to see everything works right. After reworking it 3 times and 100 hours later you done! whoo hoo! on to the next character!

[Church]

Originally Posted by BuddyB309

aw come on, rigging not THAT hard. First you look at the character and decide what is the best approach to rig it. Either bones or some other kind. Then build the internal skeleton with bones, geometry, and/or helpers. Then apply 100 different constraints to them to build the external rig that you control. Some scripting here and there. Then skin modifier, skin deform modifier, then about 100 morph targets. Character rig tests to see everything works right. After reworking it 3 times and 100 hours later you done! whoo hoo! on to the next character!

Exactly. That's why I'm with Fireball on preferring modeling to animation. Although even better than modeling is lighting: when handled well, it is your best friend and secret weapon.

[BuddyB309]

Originally Posted by Church

Exactly. That's why I'm with Fireball on preferring modeling to animation. Although even better than modeling is lighting: when handled well, it is your best friend and secret weapon.

Ah yes, but even better than lighting is layer rendering which produces this result. You cant get glowy highlights in max.

[Church]

Yeah, it looks great. I've heard of the layering stuff but never tried to work with it. I feel like every time I get the hang of one aspect of 3d, then I learn about three more that I don't understand. And the Appliance animation is really awesome, by the way.

[merybar]

Originally Posted by BuddyB309

Hey I know You edited your comment, But I'm referring to you say that Vets seem to get annoyed when newbies ask simple questions. Well I do get somewhat annoyed when they ask a question before trying to find out themselves. When ever I teach a 3ds max class I always stress that the F1 button is your friend, google is your next best friend, than I am your third best friend. Because I am not always around to help you solve your problems, and therefore you must learn to solve your problems yourself.

But there is something that I will do that neither F1 or Google will help you with. Critique. If you post a Work In Progress render of your scene/character/animation/model/texture/lighting/rig I will pick it apart and tell you exactly what is wrong with it and what you need to do to fix it. I will also give you suggestion on how to improve it. Guaranteed.

Its far more easier for me to see what is going on with your scene when I can see it in front of me than "HELP!! MY SCENE (insert random problem here)"

I apologize for the edit on my post, i decided that i need to keep a few thoughts to my self. I agree with you that people need to research before they post, i dont agree however of letting people know this every time. It just gets people more agrivated. I think we should start just not answering the posts like that. If its something according to the rules or something to an extent where it can easily be found, it would make more a point just to not reply.

[amariealbrecht]

Originally Posted by merybar

I apologize for the edit on my post, i decided that i need to keep a few thoughts to my self. I agree with you that people need to research before they post, i dont agree however of letting people know this every time. It just gets people more agrivated. I think we should start just not answering the posts like that. If its something according to the rules or something to an extent where it can easily be found, it would make more a point just to not reply.

I feel that its not bad helping rookie teams or even people with questions...I feel that that is what chief delphi is for...in the spirit of gracious perfessionalism I think that no question is stupid...I do agree that if it something that can be found in the rule book however it might be better to look there first, rather than quick posting a simple rules question on chief delphi