[Dark_4ce]

Hi Ya'll! I know I've been scarce lately, but the video course has kept me hugely busy. Sorry... Anyway, to the meat of the matter...

I need help in animating characters realistically! Now, I've seen some pages on doing some weird type of motion capturing using pixel tracking, but is there anywhere where there are preset walk patterns and stuff? Well, basically what I need it for is the Star Wars Fan film project I'm working on! I gotta render and animate stormtroopers in one way or another. See, I don't know anybody who has the armor, and I've found some REALLY good models for them for 3DSMAX. My friend is in the Special Effects department, but he's still pritty new to animations. So if anyone can help, PLEASE! And if anyone is actually interested in participating in making this film, come aboard! CREDITS will be given!

Basically if anyone is interested in helping, drop me a line. Heres a short list of stuff that I would REALLY appreciate help in:

New "CLEAN" models for X-Wings (animatable)

Space Station (not quite sure yet)

Hangar

Tie Fighter Pilot in cockpit (animatable)

Stormtrooper animators

Like I said, credits will be given. I'd really appriciate it.

[Nico]

sorry, rigging and animating characters is quite a big job, I'll stick to my own project.

[Dark_4ce]

Np.
Know any good sites with good tutorials for making realistic movements or have realistic movement patterns? My friend is really interested in the field, but like I said, he's still quite new to it. So if anyone can just show some good sites where he can learn good methods and tips in animation, please help.

[Unknown Target]

Well a basic tip for ppl is: Keep your movements bound to what the human skeleton is capable of. Also, don't make the movements too fast or slow.

[Nico]

try www.3dcafe.com  there should be a few tuts on inverse kinetics and character studio.

[Dark_4ce]

Thanks! Been checking out the tuts and they're really good! I've also found a rather good way for motion capturing movements, then saving the motion files to be then later placed into the skeleton of the Stormtroopers. All I do is wear black with some white socks on my arms legs and chest, basically all the points that require tracking. Film my self walking. Then for each point, motion track the white, save the motion file, then repeat for each white point. After that, I place each point into the approriate place on the skeleton. Now this works to a point, but problems emerge when trying to do the other side of the trooper and tracking movements in a 3d enviroment instead of straight 2d. I filmed myself walking past the camera, I still heaven't tried walking towards the camera yet. My friend also came up with a theory for actually placing lots of white or black dots on a body, then basically applying the vectors to the body in each frame. This will take ofcourse a ****load of time, but in the end, the stormtrooper would only have to be placed ontop of the character and the stormtrooper should then follow the movements of the vectors. Hmm... I don't know if I've made any sense, but this is what I think my friend has been talking about. Any more theories or help on the subject would be great. Thanks.

[Nico]

I think you're really going for the complicated way
really with what comes with character studio ( basic tools plus a few motion captured .bip files ), you should be abale to do about everything. Try it, you'll see, if the process itself is quite time consuming, it still remains quite easy, and, honestly, very pleasant to use. personnally animating characters with CS is something I enjoy a lot, it's great fun.

[wEvil]

use character studio.

Its essentially a fully MAXscripted IK rig with all the contraints and bones setup already.

Physique (setting the mesh to interact correctly with the biped) is an utter arse to do, but you'll have to get good at it if you want to do animation properly.

CS comes with a bunch of preset mocap settings, but if you dont try to put too many keyframes and spend a month or two playing with it you'll soon get the feel.  MAX has tutorials to show you how to do most things, but it has to be done by hand to look good at the end of the day.

it is a BIG job - i've got the whole year to do a 2 minute peice on char animation and it probably wont be enough time.

You may want to consider bluescreening/chromakeying techniques instead of character animation to be honest.

[Nico]

1 year for two minutes? now that's maybe a bit too much, no?
Anyway, it's true physique is a pain to set up, but once you understand a few very helpful bits, it's not that hard to do.

[wEvil]

pretty much. storyboarding and postproduction etc. up until christmas and then its all animating until the end of may.