Veoh Issues =(

So I uploaded a 4 second animation to yesterday and it is still being processed. Something tells me that Veoh is going downhill if they can't process an 18meg video in under 24 hours. Well, I'm just going to have to wait to post the animation until it's done processing.

Weight Shifting - 2nd Krag Idle

So I finished the first-pass of Krag's weight shifting idle. Other than the one or two timing issues and needing more settle at the end, it looks pretty good. I'm still trying to figure out how to conver the rendered jpegs into .MOVs so I can load them on Veoh. No luck as of yet

Working Time vs Time Spent Working

So I have spent an unprecidented amount of time on this simple weight shift cycle. It's been a week and I'm still not done. I'd like to blame this on my inability to make Maya cooperate with me. The scene setup is not saving it's linear and time changes ; making it annoying to have to rescale grid sizes and time types every time a WIP is loaded.

Thanks Maya. Thanks a heap.

Renders...

So I re-rendered the 25 frame cycle. This time it took under an hour to render. A much better render time than the ~20 hours it took last time.... stupid lights.

I turned my renders into a .GIF file, but apparently BlogSpot does not like .GIF files, and will not allow me to use it as my Title Banner. I keep checking on a way to fix this, but I'm not holding out any hope.

I will continue to work on the few remaining clips I have planned for Krag, and then move on to the other two characters. I will have to, at some point, create tools for each character: posing, animation tools, etc.. Dunno when I'll get around to that.

Re-rig Flop

So, the re-rig attempt was a flop. I was attempting to add a nifty floorcontact control, but alas; my method was flawed. Of course, the flaw happened at the end of the rigging... when I was hooking up the last connection.

Anyways, back to making some fun test clips. Hopefully I'll have some test renders to show near the end of the week.

Re-Rig

Decided to re-rig my Krag skeleton. The Ball Roll control on the feet were not behaving as I expected them to, and I am still attempting to implement a changeable floor contact. Hope to have this rig redesign done by friday so I can get back to the fun stuff.

Shorts Update

Finally came up with names I can live with for my three characters for my ongoing tests, clips, and general fun animation. Krag, Milo, and Chug. You've met Krag, the TRex, and you'll meet the others as their models are created and their rigs come online.

Finished my first cyclic animation and rendered it. The render took ~20 hours in MetalRay for 24 frames of animation. I'll need to figure out a way to cut that time down.

I have finally succeeded in understanding the Maya Trax Editor. Now I just have to wait for Maya 2009 to come out and make it completely obsolete.

Lastly, I have made an executive decision to knock Monkey Business off my project list. It's simply too massive a project to tackle by myself, and that is just on the asset creation side. The research and piece assignment hasn't even begun yet; and will not ever happen now.

Fast Proxy with Control Rig

Finished making the fast proxy and control rig file. Now I can get started on making some cycle clips.

Proxy Rig

For the time being, I'm going to give up on texturing my trex. I plan on creating a proxy rig some time this week so I can get to the animation part of the process; the part I like.

Toon Rex Update

Finished the basic Control Rig. Only thing remaining to do on the rig is some facial clusters and the associated controls. Shouldn't take too long. Before I do the facial rig, I'm going to take the mesh into ZBrush and use poly paint to texture it.

Posted my fishhead on ZBrushCentral. First contributive post I've made there in years.