#minlis

[draisestruespaces]

Finally managed to make a short little animation! I was pressed for time and I did it to try make my lady smile, but it worked! Was a fun little 5 hour project. Hope you like it! It was a good experiment to try use free software for the final result. I still have to work on his characterization, animation, and learn how to make him awesome. I am starting to think to use constant end value keyframes mixed with some bilinear and linear keyframs might bring up some nice fun animations. Due to TS being beta, the rig often swims around. I will have to find a way to avoid that, in animation techniques, or a new type of rig. But I have enough... for the time I had. I still need to learn how to move, hold, move, hold, and time the expressions right... I am still not there... so much to learn! I need some constructive critiques to give me some hints.

[draisestruespaces]

One time keyframe layout. I am wondering how to save animations, and I did a little experiment. TS will not save rotation offset in clips, they won't work, so I will have to program jumps, runs, movement on the spot and then work the control parent to run it around and make it do things. The time is not set in this, the intermediate frames are not set, and there needs to be a lot of cleaning up. I am just doing this to relax, make a library of animations to work with. I have written down a large idea of libraries, and I'm still wondering how to make a modular animation clip library, but we will see. The idea is that the more dynamic the library, the faster it will be to pump out lots of animation and get lots of episodes fast.

[draisestruespaces]

Shot 006

I have complete a rough animation for Shot 006. I am now running it through post processes and will soon add it to the sequence. I could do a better animation, but I wanted to get it done asap. I think I need to start working on other angles of the project, get things up in more frequent manner. I think I can have one more shot, a look away shot of what grabs his attention, then I will leave it at that. I will also work more on the folley or have my friend work on it tomorrow. Then I will work on strictly characterization animation and clip animation to store in a library, making future animations quicker. It's good to think ahead. I also need to sit down and think up some good stories, idea. I would love your input!

[draisestruespaces]

Recorded the first voices!

Me and a good cyber friend of mine from the  trueSpace forums have recorded the first sounds of our trusty old Minlis. He's starting to become something, and it's very very exciting. Coming soon will be some sound to the sequence, and an interesting end to the starting shots! I have to work harder on scripts, stories, a whole series. I also.. have to characterize and store libraries of animations for this strange quadroped cyclops!

[draisestruespaces]

Tentacles animation experiment doubling as a shot in the small short for Episode 1! I used two tracks for this one, and I'm finding out that it will generally only keyframe joints that have changed values within the skeleton, that is a relief. The software still has potential.

[draisestruespaces]

I have a new animation queued and ready to create to test the rig of Minlis in a short little animation, also to test out new compositing methods, color grading, a look and feel visualization and learn how to edit, export and render videos using only free software! Would like to join me in the experience, just follow the instructions below!

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Email - draise14(a)gmail.com Phone - [phone]