I got a small little potential work with a publicity company startup with an old friend of mine. He does 3D, but he doesn't have the time to focus on that as he prefers the internet side of things - webdesign.
So he asked me to associate with him and do something. So I started working on a new product showcase for him in my free time as I work parttime doing English and animating my shortfilm for a sale to a cinema line here - lot's of contingency plans!
Well I don't really have it rigged yet, I'll see how I'm going to do that, also, how I'm going to make it fly to bits and rebuild itself. I have to apparently even make screws for it.
Here's a small update! I got a new job teaching english, to pay for the bills. So I haven't been able to dedicate my full days. but it's good to be disciplined a bit more with my time - sometimes spending 10 hours on a computer isn't as productive as spending 5 hours on it while doing other things to refresh the brain!
But then again, I need 36 hour days with only 4 hours need for sleep!
Progress, made and rigged the box. Was a pleasure to do, not the easiest thing to do in TS! But I did it. I first did the design cutout on a plane, then thickened it in Blender, and continued to do the folding and rigging, UV and the rest in trueSpace. I really need to learn how to model in Blender.... it seem super powerful.
Rig was fun, easy, has two controls, enough for what I need it to do.
Nearly done.... then on to full rig, shaders with my pass system (for more effects) - streamline my layout, as it's bloated - then fix my pass script to reset the shaders, and try out Stans layers system!
Finished the modeling… now for rigging and planning the animation. Storyboarding persay - ah, and shading. Not to mention fine-tuning my script, and optimizing the scene. Right now everything is a mess, no flattened geometry, and all isn’t named properly. No hierachy, nothing, just… the concept… But we’ll see.
I made a short animation - done all in trueSpace. Using Clinton's keyframe interpolation system, I can get some cool.. effects, without having to tweak that hard to get to keysets/curves. Man, they are sooo hard. I take the ease of animation in SI (more powerful than maya I'd say) for granted! But in a way, keyframing and retiming can be done using his tool in a quick way. It took me a while to figure out.
A pro I found in TS is the animation libraries one can use. I don't like how I can't transition between animation clips - they jump around, but with a copy/paste from one clip to the other might fix that. They are awesome, and very handy. It is also very easy to modify an imported clip - which proves to be very very very handy.
A pro - and con - is the fact that rigs are animated in entirety. Why is this good? Cause then you focus on the whole rig and posing as a whole. Why is this bad? Cause then you can't isolate parts of the rig and tweak. Why else is it good? Cause animation has to tweaked globally, thus being much more efficient - and practice at making it right the first time will be pushed - thus more efficiency. Bad - because one would have to usually try animate from the beginning if one wants to modify.
In general, I see some potential of TS animation - just learning to avoid mistakes when animating in Euler rotation - and learning to animate with key poses, then tweens. Better to do that than modify curves, and if one needs to modify curves, it will be more efficient to do it globally with Clinton's keyframe interpolation addon, a Godsend!
I prefer modifying my curves to be honest, it works, and for TS more often than not it will overshoot it's bezier curves giving you annoying unwanted overlap or vibration, seemingly only fixed in the curve editor - but learning to only animate via curve types, dopesheet and keyframes and tweens (inbetween keyframes) will prove handy in the long run, as that is how most professional animators in places like dreamworks animate - well.. that is those whom I've met in person! Fascinating.
It is more efficient - but then one needs good animation understanding of how keys and curves work...
Con: it is really hard and time consuming to create new keysets - so also the concept of "global" animation on a rig will have to do.
I'm learning to animate in trueSpace.... and it's tricky. But actually quite simple and powerful if you know what's up.
-Rotations, try to keep it simple, and watch out when you rotate to world or object.
To retime rotations curves, try not modify the Fcurves very much, but just create a new "tween" keyframe and move it according to how you want it.
Clintons Fcurve interpolator addon is priceless.
Pass Through tracks means that it will not keep the value before nor after the clip - if you want to keep animating into another clip - keep the Pass Through OFF.
Additive tracks are not very useful with rotations.
Rotation modification in the Fcurves are not strongly recommended, things can get out of hand very quickly.
If you want to house separate animation Matrix clips separately, encapsulate your parented node structure and animate each item individually.
If you want to animate a whole rig, or parented node structures, then 3D encapsulate or "group" the nodes - all keyframes of children will be housed in the same animation clip - like an Actor rig.
If you want a 360 turn, you may have to have 3 or 4 keyframes - as truespace will calculate the shortest route to the next keyframe concerning rotations.
Don't be afraid to keyframe a lot - learn how to use Tweens (1stK ---- tween ----- 2ndK -> then move tween forward or back to change the ease-in and out or to create better arcs.)
But, before you keyframe tweens, do your key poses first, as it's very hard to modify everything later.
Keep your animation clips organized - not all clips are compatible with different objects and matrices.
Be patient with TS, the clip editor is not very streamlined (can't record to multiple clips at the same time, can't change length of multiple clips at the same time, can't have multiple keyset templates at the same time, no autorecord without addon, can't select clips or keyframes accross multiple tracks like as in a box select, etc) - yet at the same time the simplicity of the interface makes things a small delight.
Global keyframing can be a delight once you know how to tween and use tracks and clips.
To blend one clip with another on different tracks, when it's not an additive track, make sure you have Pass Through ON with the second track. To make it blend as if it was "additive", create a start and end keyframe without any modifications, then do your editing post and pre that, or shift that same clip to the same track as the original (unless it's overlapping).
General rule of thumb, overlapping clips should start with the same common value. I have to make a tutorial, this isn't getting accross clearly....
So start slow, and speed up, then slow down without modifying Fcurves - use clintons script to add a high flat bezier value to the end and beginning, then add a 0.333 value curve to the middle keyframe/s. This will create a nice smooth start and finish to that animation clip.
The dopesheet overview track is a godsend. Use it often.
