First projects in Carrara...

Dartanbeck

wgdjohn said:

Hey Dart in "Just A Bit of Fun" did you animate the horse walk cycle yourself?

No, I found some horse walk cycles online  l o n g  ago, and cannot remember where. They're very nice though, especially for a free set of four-legged PZ2s! 

However, like most animation files I buy, it is rare for me to use them exactly as they come. 

► AniMating in Carrara  describes how I used to edit aniBlocks, and that was originally written in the old, old forum around the time I made Just a Bit of Fun, and (I had to check - couldn't remember if I edited it or not! LOL) have edited it since, by talking about fixing Genesis after using M4 or V4 aniBlocks on them using the Graph Editor.

Back when I wrote that article, I didn't really know what to do with the Graph Editor, so I had a completely different method of deleting key frames, all but about four per second for each joint I wanted to adjust, and then adjust just those four for each joint to how I need them to be. The graph editor method is not only a LOT faster... it's also a LOT better, since we're not deleting so much animation data.

Of any animations you might find on my YouTube channel, very few were created entirely by myself except for the animation products promos. Even this one makes more use from animation data I've purchased than animations I've made entirely on my own - though almost every animation on my channel has also been heavily edited by me, unless it was made by me, if that makes any sense.

 

Here's the thing:

Yes, I do LOVE to animate. But I also don't want to have to animate everything myself, since there are so many wonderful products available to help me save time - something I have very little of. So I like to (as mentioned in the article) take 'this' motion for the hip and legs and mix it with 'that' motion for the arms, while making my own motions for the head, face, and fingers, etc.,

aniBlocks and animated PZ2 products rarely include animation data for expressions and/or fingers, which (in my opinion) is exactly how it should be, for easy-of-use of the end user (me). This way, I can use a hand pose file made for a specific prop product and the finger data won't become corrupted during the animation. It also allows me to inject my own mood, vocal actions, blinks, etc., on the faces as I see fit.

Another thing about nearly all of the stuff on my YouTube channel, is that they are almost all just test renders. I actually have a LOT more animation work done that has never been seen by anyone but myself than anything else. This means that, sometimes I haven't done the fingers yet, haven't finished some part of it, etc., since I was testing timing of how I've come so far. I render a LOT of tests. Many of them just cannot be shown to people. The specific need of the test often has very little or no entertainment value, but does help a lot in the end.

One of my favorite works so far is a recent battle between Dartanbeck, the character, and Demonecornuto, by Predatron. I hope to show that publicly one day! ;)

wgdjohn

Thanks for the link to the animation part in your Carrara Information Manual... had thought about it but got a bit busy and fergot.  I'll get that added to my new Animation thread.  Not that I know near as much as you and many others...hoping to get others excited about animation... perhaps I'll learn a few things along the way. :)  Gunna have to check that graph editor out... looks like fun.