It seems there are fewer questions posted, compared to previous years.
I wonder if that means fewer teams are entering in the Visualization Design competition or they just don’t need as much help? Or are there many teams that have problems but don’t realize what a great source Chief Delphi is for help?
As a mentor I personally have received assistance many times from this forum (making me look smarter to my students ). And I’ve tried to help others too.
I suppose we’ll see a flurry of questions posted the last week before deadline.
I’m not posting because it’s been a slow start for us… it’s too bad, I keep trying to get a move on, but there is a lot of resistance to doing another animation this year after 2 failed attempts… guess that means we’ll just have to win this time ;P.
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.
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.
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
Its the time I put into answering a question and haveing “Oh hey I figured it out 5 mins I posted my question!” That really gets to me. That’s why I stress students to figure it out first. It also teaches them how to teach themselves and not be dependent on the teacher. Because in the real world, nobody is going to teach you anything. They will help you from time to time, but as far as sitting down and teaching you, they wont. and that is why learning to teach yourself very difficult problems is key.
Well I felt like sharing this and I didn’t know where to put it so I’m putting it here. Last night I finally got a chance to go help my animation team. We worked late into the night. They were really excited. We all got a lot done, I help them cut down there project in half and showed them all what they had to do to keep the same message but make it 100% easier to make. Interesting to see what they accomplish. There was the idea of me putting together credits for them. That would be fun, I enjoyed making last years.
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.
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)…
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.
). And I’ve tried to help others too.