ZBrushCentral

The Juggler (animation)

ZBrush Artworks
#1

He’s having a ball as you can see :slight_smile: Fooling around with some new functionality, my widget makes animations like this a breeze! Everything that is going on here is completely scripted except in every frame I mush the face a little bit and a few times I move the hands. The eyes and the balls are just doin thier thing.

I have found in addition to the 5 animation objects that you have at your disposal, you can use Position Markers to recall object. This is what I used to control the hands on a different layer.

In case you haven’t checked there is a new Standard Version of the Animation Widget on Z-Place, it fixed a frame bug and also added automatic Filename incrementer on the Export Frame button. If it is Frame 0 then it asks for a filename.

I have decided to modify and break up my widgets into Standard and Advanced versions. I have a feeling that it might be easier for some people to get the hang of an simplier version before moving on to the more advanced version. I will be releasing the Advanced Animation Widget soon and I will also be going over my old Widgets to see how I can make them simpler to use and understand.

Anyhoo

Joker head courtesy of Atom Art and Super dooper hands by Martin, thanks guys, one of these days I will learn to model something.

#2

this is another wonderful animation, Digits!

here is a humble question by an animation-newbie (i finally found time to experiment a bit (i did not touch the framepart yet) with animations v. 3):

:qu: is there a way to increase the number of objects drawn within an animation of each curve (like for instance in the interpolate-scripts: time-settings)? i thought that the max.frame slider would do that but whatever value higher than 10 i put in there the folder i save the .psds to ends with 11 frames and i found no way to have more of the objects drawn. hmmm, or to put it the other way round: what does the max frame slider do? is it of use with the frame to frame part only?

ok, that have been much more than one question, and i wonder if i have made myself clear enough!

TIA and thank you for your animationswizardry once more!

  • juandel :smiley:
#3

Hmm Juandel I don’t know what is wrong, changing the number of frames is as you deduced the way to increase the resolution of the movement. You should be able change the number of frames and get that many psd files when it is over with.

it also might help, if you haven’t figured it out to create your base filename with either 00 or 01 like “Aanimation01”, some programs like flash will then import the whole group in one whack.

If you use the “Export Frame” button make sure you start on frame 0, as that is the only place it will ask you for the “Base File Name” - also remember if you have to redo a frame, the program has actually incremented the filename so you will have to trim the unwanted frame out of your series.

TIP

If you want to extend your animation do this.

example:

10 frames

  1. do your 10 frames
  2. for each of your objects

Recall End
press “Get Start”
then move your object where you want the end of your added frames to be, and Press “GetEnd”
If you are using the Export Frame button the program will automatically keep updating the filename number
if you are using the “Execute and Export” button make sure you use a different filename and combine the two later.

In case there is a old version or something on the server I have posted a new one or here

Digit_Widgets_Animate.txt

One change is that this version has to go in the same folder as the other Digits Widgets

Here is an updated Digit_Widget_Common
Digit_Widgets_Common.txt

As you know this file provides common functions across all other widgets. New in this one is

  1. Postion Markers now have 10 buttons associated with them, you can use a marker by pressing SHIFT+“the number of the marker”
    you can save the current object that you are holding by CNTRL + SHIFT + “the number of the marker you wish to save to”

  2. Also Position markers will now recall the Object, Material and Color of the saved object IF you are not currently holding active another object ie. in DrawMode not T W S or R. If you are holding an object active it just moves that object to the Marker Position without changing its color or material.

Anyway put both files in you Digit Widget folder and try it again. Can’t imagine what it isn’t working for you. Hope this fixes it.

#4

muchas gracias! works like i guess it should, amigo! i think the problem was that i had loaded the script without having it in the widgets-folder. just made a 50frameset with 5 objects - whoooah! but not special enough to make it worth uploading. ok, lots of most exciting experiments ahead of me now… thank you for your advice! i bet there are lotsa questions to follow as soon as i enter framesetspace and get serious! :smiley:

  • juandel
#5

cool animation you got there.
but just a little tip and im not 100% sure
ok look at the picture and look on the “left” as your looking at the picture as the ball is going “UP” see how its got a line in it and it looks a little choppy and going down on the right side both do it in the same spot across from each other.
i think thats because you don’t have enough frames in it or the frame speed might be off causeing it to do that.
i had it happen to me and i fixed it but i for got LOL… but all in all you did a great job

#6

Hey, excellent script St.-Digits!
Unfortunatly God wants to stick with the 24 hours in a day and won’t listen to my imploring to extend it, so I NEED to find some time in the day to sit down and study this - Which I’m itching to do!
Your very clever!

Hey, just an idea I had from the zacademy days, - “Surface-Markers”. The ability to embed small markers on the surface of your tool that only effect the surrouning surface radius on the tool. ie, surface-markers around the “mouth” of your character. You can move the marker and it effects the surrounding surface area of that tool - so you can make your model smile or be sad and export these models as morph targets. I guess this is a crude version of a “bone” in other 3d programs, and I proberly wouldn’t be far wrong in stating that this is more in Pixolators camp.
Oh well.
Shooting the breeze.
Gotta fly.
Upham :slight_smile:

#7

Awsome animation Digits! :slight_smile:
I’m still playing with that nifty script, it’s so fun!
:slight_smile:

#8

Great picture Digits! Can’t wait to play around with the script a bit more.

#9

Damn fine picture–and animation–nice work on the script and kudos to “Ed’s” Head–(Bloke) good goin!!

#10

This is GREAT! Excellent work, Digits!

#11

I could stare at it forever it is so good. It might not be the most exciting, but I still could.