Character design/ point question

sbtamu · Post by **sbtamu** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 4:57 am

I would make the hat in its own layer. Watch this in HD full screen to see how I duplicated the hat layer and used invisible to remove the hat in the layer palette.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX2aGt9Y ... ture=g-upl

Matsuemon · Post by **Matsuemon** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 6:47 am

Hey Sb,
That was a cool clip with the hat. But I couldn't quite tell everything that was happening. Instead of actually having the hat come off his head, were you actually making it invisible and duplicating the hat and putting it in his hand?

neeters_guy · Post by **neeters_guy** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 6:50 am

That's a good approach, sbtamu. Another idea here:

putting something inside something else

This is something that can be solved a lot of different ways actually. In that same thread selgin describes a masking method, but, as he puts, it's the hard way. Sometimes the simple way is best.

sbtamu · Post by **sbtamu** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 3:53 pm

Matsuemon wrote:Hey Sb,
That was a cool clip with the hat. But I couldn't quite tell everything that was happening. Instead of actually having the hat come off his head, were you actually making it invisible and duplicating the hat and putting it in his hand?

There are 2 hats, one that stays on the head and one that stays in the hand.

I made the hat on the head at frame 0 then duplicated it then made the duplicated hat bound to the bone in the hand. When the hat starts to come off I invis. the hat on the head and make the hat in the head vis.

To you original question. I would make the hat on a different layer for sure, like the link neeters_guy posted.

There are so many ways to achieve the results you are looking for and just about everyone has their own little way of doing things.

I could actually add a back to the hat and place it in a layer that is behind Willy's head but still bound to the hand bone to give it some depth.

Matsuemon · Post by **Matsuemon** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 6:50 pm

Hey Neeters and Sbtamu, thanks for your input on this hat thing. I'll look more at your posts and start figuring out which I want to attempt. Have to design my character first. I'm wanting to do a short Sherlock Holmes animation to celebrate the new movie coming out later this month, so I'm a bit under the gun =). I may not have time to have him put on his hat, but we'll see how it goes.

Now, since you guys are so sharp, let me ask you another question about a future animation I'm wanting to do. Would trying to animate a guy riding a horse in AS be completely and ridiculously difficult or is it doable? Seems like I could actually bind his body to the horse layer so it moved up and down with the horse, then I could animate his upper body in response to the movement of the horse?

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 7:28 pm

I don't see any problem with that, other than much work.

Matsuemon · Post by **Matsuemon** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 7:51 pm

Hey again guys, I'm trying to figure out how to post a pic on here, even as my avatar, so I can ask you a question about this character design. But I can't figure out how to post a pic and I can't get the image size small enough (6kb!) to post as my avatar. Any ideas??

hayasidist · Post by **hayasidist** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 8:05 pm

take a look at viewtopic.php?t=18245 and viewtopic.php?t=18982 for some inspiration about horse riders (and I'm sure there are plenty of other places to look to .. but Diana's work sprang to mind).

image uploads. find a friendly hosting site, like imageshack. put your image there and link it with the "img" button above the message compose block.

avatar: same idea, but the link is in your profile.

Matsuemon · Post by **Matsuemon** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 8:34 pm

Ok guys,
I'm going to attempt to post a link to an image of a Sherlock Holmes cartoon character that I want to model in AS for a short animation. But I have a question about his hair. See how his hair is parted in front and goes to either side? Well if he's turning his head to his left (our right), for example, what would I do with that section of hair? Do I just squish the points down to his head so it appears to be gone, or is there another way I should go about it? Maybe a depth sorting issue?

hayasidist · Post by **hayasidist** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 9:43 pm

ah ha - the old head turn question... try viewtopic.php?t=15846 and viewtopic.php?t=19414 for starters...

Matsuemon · Post by **Matsuemon** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 10:01 pm

hayasidist wrote:ah ha - the old head turn question... try viewtopic.php?t=15846 and viewtopic.php?t=19414 for starters...

haha yah I basically know how to do headturns but with a character like this, with slightly odd hair, it's creating some variables that I'm not as comfortable with. So i'll check out the links you posted

Thanks!

--Jason

hayasidist · Post by **hayasidist** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 10:40 pm

also depends how you want the hair to "bounce" as he turns... but yeah - centre parting will stay aligned with the line of the nose... so the far edge needs to squish. just think what he'd look like in full profile - decide how much of the quiff extends outside the basic shape of the head.

same with ears really -- just 90 degrees off ... imagine looking at the back of a head (without hair to obscure the ears) you see the back of both ears with the side detail "squished" then as you turn, one ear disappears behind the head and the other ear gets the detail un-squished as the back edge gets squished...

ok there'll be some technical terms about perpsective that I could've used but ...

Matsuemon · Post by **Matsuemon** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 10:50 pm

Well, luckily I've got a front and side view of this character, too, so I have all the reference material I need. The only problem is I can't just start designing each view of the head without thinking ahead, because if you don't have the same number of points/shapes, it can mess things up. If I didn't have to think about that so much, I'd just go for it. I'll do the front view today, at least, because everything is visible and I don't have to worry about any of that other stuff yet. =)

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 11:50 pm

Maybe you should first do it freehandedly, just so it looks right - then redo the result with the correct number of points.

The idea of doing sketches and preliminary artwork first seems to be completely strange to many users here, methinks.

Matsuemon · Post by **Matsuemon** » Sun Dec 11, 2011 12:00 am

slowtiger wrote:Maybe you should first do it freehandedly, just so it looks right - then redo the result with the correct number of points.

The idea of doing sketches and preliminary artwork first seems to be completely strange to many users here, methinks.

Hey Tiger,
Yes, I planned on drawing the reference models by hand so I could make sure everything is the correct scale and matches each other. At first I wasn't going to mess with it because I had great reference photos, but rather than try and scale them exactly, I'll just do it by hand.

Character design/ point question

Horses?? =)