franky the return - Page 3 - Simply Maya User Community

# 31 14-01-2007 , 09:29 PM

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I'm doing the music for a movie, that is also what i will be doing for honours this year at uni, they asked me to do that!!?? I did the music to some natural histories masters docos and everyone went 'gee'. It won me an award, an undergrad award; now I have my degree (just finished 3rd year) they want me to study post sound as honours, Because of that award, I was asked to do the music for a movie, the one you asked about, that will preview in town in 3-4 weeks. Not sure when, the director will be here in a couple of hours and I will know the date better. It is supposed to be the 3rd of Feb but they are running late because it has a lot of CG an SPX. They had problems with codecs.

the movie will preview with a seminar on CG and animation ect. It is a myth story, boy buys artifact from strange shop, goes to sleep at home, wakes up in a land that is threatened by a CG serpent, the boy saves the land. All very dramatic, using a lot of diminished tones for tension.

anyway, there will be a lot of film people there, the director is giving the seminar. He is very respected around here, he taught the animation house that took most of the awards here last year. He usually packs the house when he gives these seminars. He is good at all software packages, boujou, shake, AE, fusion blah blah.

short story, I am doing the music for this short movie. music is my thing user added image

thanks for asking user added image

do you play music??

if you are in adelaide you can see it ! 'dreamcatcher'

take it easy and life will be easy

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# 32 15-01-2007 , 04:18 AM

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back to franky, i tried something different than the tut. I deleted the history before conversion, and used the options for the 'nurbs to poly' conversion. As you can see, i tested it on an earlier franky and got nearly the exact same shape as the nurbs model, the arm is polys.

the options have been changed to 'general' and 'quads' and I have changed the u and V settings; works a treat.

back to the latest franky though because I ave attached the hand ect on that one; I'll keep at it. I looked at the 'smooth' and it looks OK. I just need to clean it up a bit and stuff. I'll post it when I can.

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# 33 16-01-2007 , 08:35 AM

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Nice one Mirek, congrats on being offered the honours position sounds like it'll be very exciting, with lots of really usefull theory.

Something I can't do without, now that I've sussed it is Smooth Poly Proxy. I realise many people prefer to edit in nurbs or subds then convert to polys, I just found this way works a treat for doing stuff like ears, noses and other protrusions that are most easily modelled from polys.

I've done Joan like that. I work on 1/2 of her, in polys while all the while I've got a full-model (both halves) being updated in realtime, the way it'd look after having a polygon smooth applied. (even tho I convert to subds. weird, huh)

So much quicker than converting backwards and forwards and easier than trying to remember where to edit. - Just pull a vertex and watch the smoothed result being updated as you move. Though they are far, far from perfect, this was the easiest way I could find to fix up the ears and eyes for Joan.

Viva la Frankie!
S.

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# 34 16-01-2007 , 08:45 AM

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Yeah, I use the smooth Proxy all the time when doing anything organic, or that has smooth curves etc.

One other tool that I use a lot is the sculpt poly tool on the low poly model, really lets you get some good starts for muscle definitions (as long as the topologys there from the start) Alsot if you've got some uneven geometry the smooth brush can really help you out, you can have auto smooth on the push and pull brushes too.

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

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# 35 16-01-2007 , 09:13 AM

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yeah congrats... must of been sweet winning the award.

i only live 5-6hrs hours away from south australia, i shall stop over there again and watch it user added image

[EDIT: Hmm never really noticed about smooth proxy, i shall try it some time.]

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# 36 16-01-2007 , 07:49 PM

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thanks guys, gotta run, but yea, all the tools are news to me. Its great to discover them. The smooth tool Gster.., yes, just working on that now, i had it set to 'push' and i thought 'whats kurt doing I'm not' but then all questions answered with one click. I am still a little scared to use it.

anyone want to see the movie i'll glady sens it and marlon john, mate, i tell you the seminar might be worth the trip. I can help you about town if you do not know you're way around. no problems, you too Simon (and anyone else if thet want to catch the plane but I dont think it will be THAT good user added image

)

catch yu soon, gotta run.

oh yea, the director loved it, he said it made the movie 'watchable' (as he laughed, it was a sort of joke of course but good feeling for me because i was worried he wouldn't like it.)

the award.., I think they gave it to me because they felt sorry for me lol, thats what I said to them, they said, they just saw my name on so many of the movies; I guess maya helps because I did some CG on some of them, just a little.

thanks guys,

take it easy and life will be easy

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# 37 17-01-2007 , 01:05 PM

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tried to over come my fear of the 'sculpt surfaces tool' and this is my tentative steps, baby legs user added image

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# 38 19-01-2007 , 02:35 PM

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i know some places but not really the whole lot, it would be really nice if you did though lol. but thats if i came though, starting school next week and then i wont have a life again... lol

haha thats good you got feedback from the director himself. i cannot wait till that happends to me if i do get a job in animation.

marlon

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# 39 19-01-2007 , 10:33 PM

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yea, its nice when someone says that to you but its like you have to work 16 hours a day, any one here that has any credits to their name will back me on that. better to work hard than to slack out and simply prey for one's destiny. work hard young man and you will be showered with luck from the blue bird of happiness. user added image

take it easy and life will be easy

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# 40 20-01-2007 , 07:10 AM

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Im hoping someone can help me with the lines along the arm, I understand they should run along and down, I think thats right, the question is, should I space them more evenly, delete some, add more, what to do to get a good mesh. I should have gone in and manually smoothed the arms more, I will.., but I am wondering about the contor of the isoparms. Should I just forge ahead as is?? I am up to about, well, near the end of the second part of the tut.

?? user added image

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# 41 20-01-2007 , 08:02 AM

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and a bit more..,

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# 42 20-01-2007 , 09:35 AM

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Tried to post before, but SM was playing silly buggers with my pc so no action-jackson. This latest pic with the legs done too looks good, satisfying isn't it to watch something you've put together like this getting nearer and nearer to completion...

Anyway Mirek, here's what I was trying to say before..

Doesn't look too too bad ( user added image

) at all.

Perhaps spacing them more evenly will make it easier to get the 'zact shape you're after later, but it's really nothing to stress over too much. Just make sure that you use a new file every so often so you can always 'go back in time'.. Something I'd definitely NOT do though, is add more edges at this point - it just creates more geometry than you need at the moment and makes it harder to edit later.

Something that may be worth doing is making a duplicate of poly part then converting that to subds to have a bit of a look at how it'll look later. Just make sure you set the tesselation method to vertices in the option box for going from subds to polys if you plan on converting back and forth. If you're only going to do it to a copy, then who cares..

It's for the precise situation you're in now that I find smooth proxys to be great. You can work on the low-res version and see a higher res version (polys, not subds - but it's still pretty darn close) being updated as you move verts. There's no guess work anymore and no time wasted converting back and forth every couple a steps.

Here I've used them with all the mirroring features turned off. Note that I work on the ear on the left in each case and the ear on the right is constantly updated. No longer do you have to guess what the effect will be, you can just see it.

A spot this would help me with is the two lines close together running across his chest. You could straight away and painlessly adjust them to ensure that the area didn't look funny & unnatural when converted back to subds.
(As it is at the end of the tute)

Anyway, hope I've been helpfull.
Simon

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