Thanks for taking the time to explain things to me, I really appreciate this. Its hard to be a "nissemann" as we say in Norwegian, meaning its hard to be a Santa man:-)

Again, Lua script???? alien language to me:-)

What about the good points I mentioned from KelleyToons? Any thoughts on that subject or comment with insights?

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Best regards
Albin
(AlbinosGambit)

@AlbinosGambit
There are a lot of resources to learn Blender on the inet. Some free, some you have to pay for.
Speaking for myself, I am no Blender expert and I learned mostly by *doing*.
It is an extremely complex app and would overwhelm anyone who has never used it before.

But if you want my take, just forget about Blender for now. It is not an essential tool in iClone animation workflow (at least for some time).People are making great movies and clips
without touching any of the apps outside of iClone suite. Go slow.
And revisit an advise planetstardragon gave you couple of months back: https://forum.reallusion.com/FindPost436495.aspx ;)

Thanks, man for the advice given.

Go slow, use only iClone and learn it well and follow the advice from planetstardragon :-)

I am eager to learn, its just a new world for me! I will start doing 1 thing at a time, I got myself a work buddy which is also a noob, we have decided to make a project working with cameras first like this:

make a scene of a street with buildings on each side, place a character at the far end of the street and make him walk to the other end, but we will use 3 cameras to get different angles of the animation.

The cameras will be:

1 High above looking down at the whole scene

2. Camera in front of the character tracking him as he walks (using a Dummy object to ensure a smooth track)

3 The camera behind him looking over his shoulder.

What do you think? Is this a good start point?

Suggestions or ideas of what to work with for us noobs? Any advice will be greatly appreciated!

Have a great night man!;):):cool:

We will then use the “Switcher” to select what Camera view to use at what point in the animation to get the final result

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Best regards
Albin
(AlbinosGambit)

On that same subject (of going slowly) one thing to learn in animation is that if you don't know how to do something, fake it.

By that I mean there are a LOT of times it's far better to not do something even if at your heart you feel it's necessary.  Let's take a relatively simple example: you want to have your character drink out of a glass that perhaps has some poison in it.  It's a very dramatic necessity to show, and yet to show a character pick up such a glass, tilt it back and have the liquid move in the glass as he drinks is beyond a LOT of folks' pay grades (I know *I* wouldn't try it).

No problem -- you put the camera on a close up on the glass as the character's hand reaches it.  You *might* even show his hand wrapped around it and lifting it out of the shot.  You hear the sound of a drink and then the glass is replaced, empty, on the counter.  Lots of variations here -- you could cut to the character as they finish the drink (so we see the drink leaving the character's mouth with an empty glass).  You could show the reaction shot of the person who is poisoning them.  You could... I think you get  the idea.  Lots of ways to "fake" the essence without actually robbing your audience of anything (indeed, a good case could be made it's far better to do it in those ways than just a straightforward drinking scene).

Same could be done from the walking down the stairs -- no real reason to show the walk but even if you wanted to you could simply have a half person close-up so you see the upper body but no legs and watch the person go up and down as they go down the stairs.  An easy fake.

So many things in animation that are really faked are done that way in live action films, not so much because they can't show those things as they just don't need to show those things.  A closeup shot is far more effective most of the time anyway.

So -- yes, by all means learn all you can and learn all you can do but NEVER let it stop you from telling your story (which most of the time doesn't need all those techniques anyway).

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Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

When we start talking about scripting and stuff, it is rather advanced. I think with the Python scripting in iClone 7 that it is just a matter of time until someone comes up with s plugin to compute the proper gait for any given stairs. But that is rather new for all of us, so it can take time.

I have no idea what the proper way to address those other points is, beyond "great ideas". :)

But I am playing with different guide shapes to use as the terrain beneath the stairs to achieve proper motion without sudden snapping to the next level. Up is actually harder than down, for getting just the right shape.
77% of original size (was 655x19) - Click to enlarge

Wow, that's a nice find!
Tried it out, in our case (Stairs Loft) not really fitting.
Any chance we can put other walk motions (with another "pace") into the "Mixmoves Tool" directory?


Toystorylab on Vimeo : 77% of original size (was 655x19) - Click to enlarge    Crassitudes (my "Alter Ego") on Youtube: 77% of original size (was 655x19) - Click to enlarge

Hey! Someone accepted Challenge :w00t:
Thanx for contributing...
So, you used Animas automation with the exact same stairs, right?
Slightly adjusting her "height" (as she is floating a bit) and using the "terrain" option might make it a real nice one.
Though I don't have Anima, no option for me.
Thanx anyway! ;)




Toystorylab on Vimeo : 77% of original size (was 655x19) - Click to enlarge    Crassitudes (my "Alter Ego") on Youtube: 77% of original size (was 655x19) - Click to enlarge

Cool, will try this with a "curved terrain"... Thanx ;)


Toystorylab on Vimeo : 77% of original size (was 655x19) - Click to enlarge    Crassitudes (my "Alter Ego") on Youtube: 77% of original size (was 655x19) - Click to enlarge

So, since Mike accepted the challenge, and with Rampas more scientific way included, we have 3 contributions...
Mike probably spent fewest time of all with a relative decent result, drawback, you need Anima...
Rampas way is taking 1,5 steps at once and my way is a bit shaky/choppy and I spent about 2 hours on that...
Any further contributions welcome!
And I guess Rampa will have some more findings/solutions to offer ;)


Toystorylab on Vimeo : 77% of original size (was 655x19) - Click to enlarge    Crassitudes (my "Alter Ego") on Youtube: 77% of original size (was 655x19) - Click to enlarge

Hi sorry to butt in and I may be out of line jumping in without reading all the chat between you guys but just out of interest have you tried mixamo.com, Im sure i saw a stair ascend and descend animation there. This might help with getting the right gait and i do find these mixamo animatons can really help....sometimes. 

Hope it helps guys

Woody