Blender --Help Center--

[gameboy]

If you're doing animation - put a tutorial in for rigging (segment 1) and then just keep expanding it with further segments. I assume that after having a model, rigging is first. Correct?

Correct.  Making a good armature can go a long way to make animation a lot easier.  A while ago I redid a couple of animations for one of Dark Magic's units, and I had to mostly redo the armature because I could barely make sense of the other guy's work.  I'll be sure to make this the first part of my tutorial.

Sorry for the double post, but was the guy me , if so please correct my mistake, tell me what i did wrong.

[Kung Fu Panda]

3 shows the circle in from another view (not sure what to call it)

It's called side view
anyway, thanks.
BTW, I made the model of the front half of a submarine! (it's part of the tutorial) and it took me more than 4 hours!
You know why? If I give a command to a group of vertices such as 'extrude' IT TAKES A MORE THAN 20 FREAKIN SECONDS FOR IT TO RESPOND! You know what? I wasted a full 5 minutes trying to save the half finished model! (it was the 1st time so it would take some time but NOT THIS MUCH!)
I have a Pentium 4 computer 1.5 GB RAM, 80 GB internal HDD  (but I have an external portable HDD drive of 120 GB ), a 3.2 Ghz Processor sooo ... even if I learnt blender I wouldn't be able to help you guys out coz I NEED ANOTHER MACHINE and dad isn't agreeing - says I'm still too small and I'm 14 years old!
lucky archmage101 

[Hectate]

That shouldn't be right. I've successfully run recent versions of blender on a 600mhz Athlon Gateway computer that I bought in 2000 (yes, the year) with less than a gig of RAM. Rendering was much slower than I'd like, but I was doing 3D modelling with POVRAY on a 486 years ago and that was "Go get something to eat and watch a TV show, it'll be done later" slow (at least a full resolution render, like 640x480  ).
You should do some checking on your computer to see if there's something bogging it down. Spyware and the like is the first suspected culprit. Maybe even do a fresh install, if it's an option. Wipe that drive!

[Hectate]

Umm.. u can just go into edit mode by pressing 'TAB'.

Yes, unless ur in edit mode the circle always faces the Z axis when u create it, if u go into any other view i.e. num 3 or num 1, it appears to be a line, that's because all its verts are on the same plane.
1 shows the circle in side (num3) view.
2 shows the circle from top view (num7).
3 shows the circle in from another view (not sure what to call it).

It's pretty close to what's called "Three-quarters view" (3/4 view) that's used frequently in RPGs (like the original fallout, for instance). Nothing like a diagonal angle to fake the third dimension!

[John.d.h]

Sorry for the double post, but was the guy me , if so please correct my mistake, tell me what i did wrong.

Yeah, actually it was. 

Mainly the things I noticed that made it a little more complicated were the way you rigged the legs and that you made all the animations part of one action.  I find it a lot more convenient to put each animation as its own action.  Also, if you use IK solvers for the legs and extrude a bone down from each heel, you can use that bone as a "handle" for the whole leg and it makes positioning the legs and feet a lot easier.  Also, it helps if you name all your bones so you can more easily select them from the action editor.

I found the following tutorial to be very helpful in this matter.  I'll try to incorporate this into my own tutorial when I get around to making it.
Lower body armature
Final rig adjustments

[gameboy]

WOW! nice tuts. i learned animation almost by myself, so yeah i'm a bit crappy at it thnx for the tut XD

[modman]

Ideally we should have an art or design subforum. Right now everything goes into the mods forum and either is out of place or gets pushed down as new mods and other posts show up.

You are sooo right!  I was thinking the same thing.  Martino! 

[-Archmage-]

Well, my dad see's me doing lots of work on the computer, so he knows I can manage a computer very easily.

[John.d.h]

Okay, so I think I'll start putting together a video tutorial this weekend (if I can get through my already-massive "to do" list).  So far I think I'll just follow the outline of the animation tutorial I linked earlier, but in video form and tweaked more towards Glest (it should still be helpful for other stuff too).

Outline:

1.) Upper body: building the armature
2.) Upper body: weight painting
3.) Lower body: armature and weight painting
4.) Final rig adjustment (more advanced)
5.) Posing the model and animating a simple action
6.) Animating a walk cycle
7.) Animating multiple actions and exporting

• Is there anything else y'all would like me to include?
• How long should I make each video?  I don't want to make one massive video that's like an hour long, but I don't really want to upload like a dozen separate videos either.
• What is the best free software for recording this in Windows?  What about editing it all together?

[-Archmage-]

John, as you once told me: "Google is your friend".
(Although, I don't agree with them supporting Al Gore's Global Warming theory )

[John.d.h]

lol Yeah, you got me.

Well you're one of the people trying to learn to animate, so is there anything specific you want/need me to address?

[-Archmage-]

Well, how about...........anything about animation, that you don't have on that list!

[Hectate]

John, I've had good success with CamStudio. Youtube limits videos to 10 min, but youtube isn't a requirement, just handy. It took me about 45 min to upload my 8 minute video, but it was at full desktop resolution with sound. Not to mention that my connection might be worse (or better) than yours.
I dunno about topics because I haven't an idea of where to start. Thats what I need, an absolute beginner's introduction to blender animation. I can model and texture, but hep meh!

[John.d.h]

Sounds good.  I'll try to include everything from that tutorial that pertains to Glest, and anything else helpful that I've learned, and try to make it so someone who has never even thought about animating before can create something decent looking.  I think I'll add something about creating reference videos, but that's going to be a bit harder for me, because I'll have to edit together different clips, and I've zero knowledge on how to do that yet.  That part will probably have to wait.

[-Archmage-]

I look forward to seeing the tutorial, and hopefully, making some really awesome animation in Blender.

[Hectate]

Windows Movie Maker works for editing but it exports to WMV and lower quality than I liked. I didn't find any open source alternative for Windows that was a good option. Blender can do it, but it's beyond my current skill. Tutorials exist though. It'd be neat to try.

[John.d.h]

I bought a new mic for my computer because the built-in one sucks, but this one doesn't even fit the jack, so it looks like I'm going to have to record the video and then do the voice later when I get a better recording device.  I'll start tonight or tomorrow, I think.

[-Archmage-]

Man would I love to do sounds, my mom always told me I should be an actor, because of all the weird voice I can do.
To bad my built-in sound isn't that good either.....

[Hectate]

I had a friend that bought a high-quality mic just for podcasting, but I haven't seen him in years. It did great sound though, USB plug in actually. Very high-end.

[-Archmage-]

Actually my built in sound is pretty good.
I just have to get that sound converter program I found a while back.

[Hectate]

I'll need to add this to the free software thread, but did you mean Audacity?

[-Archmage-]

did you mean Audacity?

Me, no, I haven't used audacity before........
It's some Windows program that was sooooooooooo helpful, and so basic. I had it running under WINE, but we'll see if that works, otherwise, I might take a look at Audacity.......

[Omega]

For recording, I use my rock band mic. Very effective.

For video, I STRONGLY recommend commercial software. I myself use Sony Vegas Movie Studio, very nice. Worth the $40 CAN that I paid a year and a half ago.

BTW: When you finish any tutorials, why not post something on the Glest Guide's archives (which are up by the way). If you need to make a custom post such as say, embedded youtube, just email me.

[John.d.h]

I've recorded the first of my tutorials.  It should take the viewer through the process of adding a single-bone armature and applying it, weight painting a simple object, and making a ridiculously simple animation.  I'll work on the second in a little while, which should show how to build a more complicated (humanoid) armature.  I should have both uploaded some time tomorrow.

[-Archmage-]

I look forward to seeing it!
And hopefully I'll be able to present something interesting.
Working on something right now!