Do not mess with My tail!

here is my staging/planning of the shot that I am working for the Competition.

I am planning to do:

  • Rock / basic rigid body interaction
  • Try to use Locomotion
  • Interact with some CNS (attachment and PIN)
  • Build the RAGDOLL for the fish, (nice fins and secondary motion)
  • Bounce and RAGDOLL, belnding to a last beat of acting at the end… (will add some signs off bad words to help the acting … Like … ! # &*.“”.!!xxX F…$% )

Let’s see how this goes !

Questions:

  • @Jason and @marcus Is there a Tutorial to use the Locomotion with a terrain? or basically the idea would be to eyeball the position of the locators and let the collision SIM walk on the terrain. ( I have not used environment/terrain yet, any tip?)

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Hahahahahah! This crab will never learn! You can assign any static geo to be a terrane for markers and you can do the same for locomotion, since locomotion is separate from your ragdoll solvers it has its own Terrane geo connected to its locomotion.

J

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I did start by refining a bit the camera and fish to time out the whole action …
I did run the SIM on the Fish , and Recorded it to the Joints, it is looking nice… (I consider it done for now as the rest of the shot depends from it)

Now.! I have to deal with the Crab actions and constraints…
let’s see how far I can get it done !


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One step at time !

this is a WIP , testing the AttachCNS set up and forces…
Finally I got to make this CRAB taken the fish ride !

I guess now on order to land on the spot that I want, I will have to test a couple of additional options!

I will keep sharing my progress

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Looking great!! Landing on a right spot was tricky for me! but hey, your crab goes off screen… :smiley: Many options teehee…

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Many thanks ! your is also looking nice and coming along !

Yes… I am thinking on baking what I have, extracting that position on a Locator, Animate the Landing “gravity” on this locator.
then delete the anim layer to continue with my SIM
then use the new locator to take over the motion. Using Attach CNS “again”

let’s see how it works !

Awesome. :slight_smile:

Are you using a high Air Density to make it look under water? When the crab falls to the ground at the end, it looks like the density is still active. Don’t forget you can animate it. :slight_smile: Should probably be close to 0 if he’s in free-fall.

For the environment, have you considered using the Assign Environment instead of markers? It would make contacts more accurate and you wouldn’t need to turn things into convex hulls.

Hey Marcus, ! thank you !

yes I am using Air Density, but as the fish “kick him out” it flies way too far for the inertia" , Even tried with DRAG fiel to kind of contain the motion a bit, but it was not friendly/ easy to set up .

Now I am trying “hand key” that parabola/bouncy motion… and take over from there…

Oh nice the environment, I did not use it before… I was expecting to see a PluginShape, and I thought it did not work.

I did select my GEO / RAGDOLL> Assign Enviroment

Thanks ! will post more progress

A few keyframes on Air Density can take care of that. :slight_smile:

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Interesting !!! Got… it !!! the trick is the other way…!!! Go HIGH to slow him down and then go Low0.1 to make it fall!.. Love it ! I will definitely give it a try !

For now ! I blocked this out and run to work ! (Anim Plotted working correct)

@marcus … Air density and a couple of tweaks here and there made the CRAB land in a good spot and good pose to take over and do the last beat of performance …

I am still half way ! missing all the beginning and locomotion part !

thank you !

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This is looking great! The fish is feeling really natural !

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Really really natural, nice work.

I realised the Air Density trick would also affect the fish? I can’t spot it in your video, maybe you manage to work your way around it. But an alternative is isolating the effect to just the crab with a Drag Field. It’s basically Air Density, but in the form of a field. This would let you affect only the crab.

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hey guys thank you… Can not do it without your tips and guidance.

Yes you are right about the fish, because of that this is the workflow that I am doing: (Layering my passes basically as I don’t plan to resolve the whole shot on one single SIM, that would be too hard to control… Maybe with more advanced knowledge …)

1 - Rough pass… find what I like and what the SIM gives me
2- Refine and squish as much of the sim as I can… once is in good shape, just bake it and use it as Kinematic…(That’s how I did the fish, first nailed the timing and overall action, then Switch it to Kinematic and Lock it there). So for example now, I can start adding details on the CRAB arms and legs to give them some love and more performance.
3- Extract elements, positions, and timing using External Markers and banking them on a layer and keep them as Kinematic. (that’s why I refined and locked the fish first it is driving the whole action including the camera)
4- Now that I have the main 3 positions of the CRAB, I will reverse engineering the Locomotion of the beginning" ( Point A- B and will see how much of it I can control/ keep in the same SIM, or just Baked it and Banked on an animation layer to Blend between actions), Also with that main Position B is where I will build the performance of CRAB pinching/clapping the tail, it still needs to read better and funnier. We will see how can I manage it
5- I guess once I have the whole shot on Blocking- I can Record the CRAB and start adding more nice details and do the small beat of animation performance at the end. And let the RAGDOLL do its magic and give me some extra nice details and overlaps, etc…

stay tuned … clock is tickling for the final week!

thanks, Jason, !..
I did a quick Spline IK RIG on the fish to use a cheap sine deformer, get the base motion and let the ragdoll do its magic on top of that mainly for the fins and also it added some extra cool stuff on the body… ! I did use a Motion Path for its motion
Basically, apply some of the Tentacles setup that I did before…

WIP:

  • I had to re-stage/layout the first part of the shot to make it work Distance vs Speed and tell the story better. (Camera, set proportions and set dressing)
  • ROCKS interaction Added and baked
  • Start adding small adjustments to the poses of the CRAB and tried some clamps motions as he flies on the air… (Many details could be added)

Still, I have a long list to do pending: (Next passes)

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… Using Attach Constrains on the Legs and Body I manage to Blend the the Anim/SIM to add an extra beat of animation… ! Nice…!!! Loving the Workflow !

Now I know how to fix the beginning and use Locomotion to help that Walk…!


Making fast progress, loving the updates! :partying_face:

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That head shake is gold!

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Here is My submission for July competition, this is as far as I could take this shot … It could be more polish … but overall I am happy as I hit the points and goals to push my skills with the System.

:partying_face: :disguised_face: :nerd_face: :100:

Overall Love the workflow !
10cents to the Locomotion System. : I could not make it work underwater… Lol ! t seems that if it happens -Y "negative there is not way to reposition the Locomotion …

Cheers !!! and thank I learned a lot !

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