#ScreamerNet/Raptor Ships
10 messages in this thread
Glen, ok, you got your Raptor, does this mean that you finished your Skeleton
model? If not, I'm STILL REALLY JEALOUS. …The frames that used to take me
an hour to render…still take an hour. 🙂 If you did any more work on the
skeleton, I could still use it! Believe it or not, we're still not done with
our project, although we bought some models from Viewpoint. Boy, they ain't
cheap.
Just got a new catalog from them, they have some really cool stuff called
Biovision, or something like that. Some kind of ASCII file that has digitized
realistic motions derived from athletes with points marked on their bodies,
surrounded by 6 cameras. They have lots of motions including standing,
sitting, walking, throwing and hitting balls, etc. Prices are between $120 to
about $400 per motion.
The guy on the line at Viewpoint said that the motions are like nothing you
could ever achieve with key framing. Sounds nice, but it is hardly a turnkey
solution. He said you have to call tech support of the 3D software you are
using, and tell them you have this ASCII file with 6 degree motion, and you
want to use it… Also you have to supply your own "primitive", assign the key
points (to match the athlete), and so on. What a deal. Have you heard of
this?
Anyway, let me know if you have made more progress on the "bones", I'm also
interested in your digitizing hardware setup. Take care, and be happy with
your faaaast renderer. Glad to hear that things are taking off for you…
-danny
It is obvious that ViewPoint has bought a SuperFluo Elite Motion Capture
System (or the competition) and they haven't even bothered to help end
users get usuable data. Translating point info to rotational data is not
that tough, but for the typical end user who buys from ViewPoint, they
won't have a clue!
Oh well, maybe they'll offer that as a service in the future as well…
Grant Boucher – Amblin Imaging
"It's hard to believe grown-ups do this for a living."
Grant, you are right, I don't have a clue. It's kind of nuts for them to try
to sell a product which requires you to call NEWTEK tech support to even begin
to use it. Like you said, maybe in the future they will offer a more complete
product.
Good to hear from you! I'm jealous… you work at Amblin and I work at an
insurance company. But at night I turn my living room into a one Amiga Render
Farm. Do you have a RAPTOR yet? Take care and keep up the great work!
-danny
You work at an insurance company!!!! Darn, I am jealous :}
I have a Raptor under my desk (but it's not really mine to use alone…but
I can sneak a test in now and then), which was my goal before coming to
Amblin…go figure.
John Gross and Greg Teegarden , don't read from here on…
Because JG and GT read these messages, realize that my above post is a
GROSS understatement (no pun intended). I actually have been using this
Raptor, we call this one Junior, a lot while we've been on hiatus.
However, the hiatus is over and I fear we are about to triple our business
hehehe.
Grant Boucher – Amblin Imaging
"It's hard to believe grown-ups do this for a living."
Danny,
The skeleton is still in the closet! But I do have a nice "bronze" statue! Oh
God, I love what I do…but where did my time go? Although I always was doing
LW in my spare time….but then It was my stuff! :}
Well, Glad to hear that the project is underway…and sorry to hear you had to
spend soo much!
Those motions sound cool! I haven't seen them yet!
Right now, all I want is a way for LW MODELER to select points (like is done
with surfaces), and name them for BONE influence! Right now, making the bones
perform like I WANT THEM TO, is driving me crazy! Some darn little point
always wants to goof everything up!
Well, back to the statue!
GM
Glen, yup, I pretty much got frustrated with bones. I carefully placed bones
throughout the skeleton object, but then they distorted the limbs terribly when
I moved things about. Influence range is hard to use, because it is invisible.
Also, moving parented bones is an exercise in confusion. Kind of like trying
to cut your own hair while looking in a mirror. (ok, yes, I tried it
once…and it wasn't pretty) Maybe that's why I started playing with flying
logos…(frustration with bones, not the hair experience). Logos are nice and
they don't deform on you at the last minute. <g> Am I losing it, or what?
Hey, maybe you could help me… I am trying to make my lumbar vertebrae twist
about, realistically deforming the intervertebral disk (squashing and bulging).
The disk must remain attached to the vertebrae during the movements. I tried
morphing the disk from it's natural state to a twisted state, and matching the
positions of the vertebrae to the morphing disk, but this is very tedious.
I was hoping that the Dynamic Motion Module would do the trick… i.e.
deforming the rubbery disk as a reaction to the motions of the vertebrae, say
if they were struck by another object, or by some external force.
Unfortunately, deformation of this type is not yet a part of DMM, as far as I
know. The new Newton Physics program advertisement mentions "deformation",
among other enticing goodies, but I understand that it is vaporware at this
point.
Do use the Dynamic Motion Module? Just checking, 'cuz the guy on the phone
said that an upgrade was imminent, that was a couple of weeks ago. I haven't
bought it yet, myself. Sorry for ramblin on…
-good luck
-danny
Danny,
I do use DMM, but I usually don't have three days to "math" out a scene. (Maybe
my machine is broken, but most of the scenes I build for it takes forever!)
I have ordered Newton, but as you said, when it will ship is anyones guess!
I would try the following: The bone objects are solid, right? Well, then
build a cartlidge section out of a long tube and morph it. Then, place some
null objects and replace the bone segments following the morph. It should look
like it is bending. You might try to clip out some segments if you need it to
look like the cart. is in sections!
Just a hint! Tell me if it helps!
GM
Glen, thanks for the advice! It triggered something in my mind, and I think it
will work!!!
I will try loading just the intervertebral disks…akin to your cartilage tube,
as one object and morph it into a bent version, then insert the vertebrae
afterwards, using null objects as pivot points, i think… We'll see. I'll let
you know how it works out. Is that what you meant? I don't really want to
"make" a tube for the discs, since these are the focus of the animation, and
the ones I have are quite detailed (irregular). That is why they are so hard
to manage, They aren't flat on top and bottom.
Thanks again! I'll get right on it.
-danny.
Danny,
Hey, that might work…I hope you haven't left another message after this one
that says it didn't! :}
Another trick might be to space the verts apart, and save them as one obj!
Then, load a bone on each one and try to pull them together…hmmm, but that
would be a big pain!
I hope the bones become a part of modeler! Then, you could name points as you
do a surface. Then, only the bones with that name pull on the points with that
name! Geeze, that would fix a lot of problems!
Let me know how it goes!
GM
<Hey, that might work…I hope you haven't left another message after this one
that says it didn't! :}>
Nope, I won't tell you that it didn't work yet, I haven't had time to try it
yet! My machine is tied up rendering for the next few days, and I just
finished a rush slide show type video project that took up the last few days.
The presentation of the video was going great, until it ended abruptly…I
forgot that I had started editing the video, then gave up and started again
later on the tape…so when I rewound the tape all the way, it just ended after
the first chapter…yikes!
All was forgiven when it started up again, luckily it was just a graduation
party, and not a big seminar or other business setting. Everybody went "Awww"
when the video got interupted, and they applauded at the end, so I guess it was
ok.
<Another trick might be to space the verts apart, and save them as one obj!
Then, load a bone on each one and try to pull them together…hmmm, but that
would be a big pain!>
Yup, might be a pain, luckily, I think we are narrowing down the amount of
animation we will include in the project. I'll also fake some things out with
a paint program, instead of rendering so many frames. Trying to keep it
simple…like occasionaly replacing the word "animation" with "graphic" in the
script.
<I hope the bones become a part of modeler! Then, you could name points as you
do a surface. Then, only the bones with that name pull on the points with that
name! Geeze, that would fix a lot of problems!>
That would be great! To be able to SEE and CONTROL the points affected in some
way. I'm looking forward to it…someday.
By the way, I got T-REXX Pro and used it for the Slide Show Video. Worked out
great…and the new version controls the PAR. I guess I'll be studying AREXX,
eh? I would never have been able to accomplish what I did without T-REXX.
Recorded the video and audio portions of each section in one pass! Now I just
need SVHS in and out of my Toaster, the Sunrize Board, a new editing deck, a
Raptor….
<Let me know how it goes!>
Will do!
DSM