Moving COmponents

# 1 02-11-2003 , 10:44 AM

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G'Day

I've just finished modelling nad texturing my first 3D object - a sea turtle. What I wanted to do now was animate it, and the way I understand it, that means moving the model around and assigning key frames, etc etc. Now my problem is when I select all on the model, and then try to move it, the different pieces move at different rates - like I'll move the whole thing forward 5 blocks, and the back left fin will only move 3, the back right 2 - that sorta thing. What's going wrong and how do I fix it?

Thanks in advance user added image

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# 2 02-11-2003 , 11:46 AM

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In order to animate it or pose it more easily you really need to add a skeleton to it and rig it; it is hard to move it around without. SM has a great rigging tutorial for a bipedal character

https://www.simplymaya.com/movie_page...html?tut_id=47

which would be worth doing if you are not familiar with the principles. There are also other tutorials linked here;

https://www.simplymaya.com/tutorial_links.mhtml

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# 3 02-11-2003 , 11:49 AM

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Excellent - thanks very much, I'll have a look at it user added image

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# 4 02-11-2003 , 12:56 PM

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No problem, if you just want to move it around as a whole thing you could also try grouping it together to ensure all the bits move / scale etc in sync while leaving you control over the individual bits.

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# 5 02-11-2003 , 02:03 PM

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OK I'm back - thanks for those links, they were great!

I've rigged up a simple skeleton inside my turtle... basically a straight bit for the back, then spearate 'bones' going out to each flipper that rotate and stuff exactly how they should. I can move that skeleton too, and it moves the fins perfectly! The problem now is in the head... I have a few nurbs circles as eye components (iris, eyebrow, etc), then I projected the top isoparm of the eyebrow onto the head to make a fillet... now when I move my head, even if it's grouped, these all move at different distances, and the fillet comes back with an error (insufficient input curves) because all the different components are 'splaying out' when I move them... I thought it might be something similar to the center pivot that I was playing with before, but I can't get any of that to work...

Thanks again for the help!

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# 6 02-11-2003 , 02:10 PM

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If it helps at all, here is a screenshot of what I have so far. It's not great, but for a first model I'm pretty happy with it user added image

Like I said, the eyes are all nurbs spheres (with bevelling) and the fillet goes onto the projected curve on the head (you can kinda see it there as blue).

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# 7 02-11-2003 , 02:15 PM

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You'll probably need to delete those surface's history.

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 8 02-11-2003 , 04:48 PM

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Mike, you're a godsend - thanks very much! Works like a charm, and it also moves quick (guess cause it doesn't have to recalculate those curves!).

One other quick question - you can see on the top of the shell, the pattern is really blurry... the texture I made in PS was 1000x1000 when I projected it onto the top surface of the shell... the projection window however was only tiny when I imported it, I had to scale it by about 5 times in either direction, and that's why it looks pixelated. Is this something I did wrong, or should i just make the textures bigger? I modelled the shell using a reference picture that was 200x200 pixels, so I would've thought 1000x1000 would be plenty?

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# 9 02-11-2003 , 05:11 PM

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Is the shell polys? If it is you could UV map it and map the texture onto it; that would give you more control over placement and definition.

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# 10 02-11-2003 , 05:45 PM

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Textures may look blurry in your scene as opposed to when you render.

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 11 02-11-2003 , 11:44 PM

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Like Mike says, if your render is ok then it's just the texture resolution is set low in the attribute ediitor for your shader. You'll find it under Hardware texturing. One other thing to consider is maya by default, adds a little blur to your textures. Look in the Attribute editior for your texture, under Effects. You'll see two options, filter and filter offset. Both are Maya blurs. Filter blurs evenly accross your texture , filter offset blurs according to the angle your camera is to your geometery.

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# 12 03-11-2003 , 02:30 AM

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Ahh yeah, that's it! Thanks heaps! user added image

OK now for this one, you'll have to forgive my naivety... how do I render all 100 frames? I tried 'Batch Render' but it only saved the first frame in IFF format... is there any way to tell it to dump all 100 frames in TIFF?

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# 13 03-11-2003 , 02:32 AM

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This should help:
https://www.simplymaya.com/movie_page...html?tut_id=49

Couple changes in 5.0 but is practicly the same.

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 14 03-11-2003 , 02:34 AM

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Excellent, thanks Mike, I'm getting it now - that was quick! user added image

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# 15 03-11-2003 , 03:39 AM

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Great video Mike - that was exactly what I was looking for! I've got my first AVI saved at the moment (just a simple shot of the turtle moving toward the camera without any fins moving). One thing I've noticed now though is that my textures, while at a higher res, aren't shaded any more... I've set a surface shader with a file for the texture, but when I get like a front on shot, its all the same colour and doesn't show the curvature. What's wrong with it? I've looked through the properties of all the objects trying to find some way to turn shading on, but no luck so far user added image

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