3D Light Saber power on effect...

[jwalt]

Got sidetracked, again. I know there are many ways to handle this in 2D. Wanted to try turning on a 3D light saber. Here's what I've got:



I'm using two bones, in a triangle arrangement, to pull out the mesh: one to extend it, and one to keep it straight. It mostly works, but the first three frames have proven impossible to keep straight. Nor have I been able to hide the blade section in the handle, so the blue is always visible. I could kill the first three frames in the animation, but wondering if there might be a better solution. Thanks, as always, for your valuable feedback.

[Ghost]

That first frame where the "bone erects" looks really out of place. I'd mimic the method they use for toy lightsabers- use a set of "hollow" cylinders and slide them out to make a blade. That should also allow you to fit all parts into the handle and hide the glow.

Behold awesome shematics done in MsPaint:

[Scavenger]

Make the blade a different mesh, then put it inside a group with itself. Set the pivot point to the base of the blade, where it comes out of the hilt. Now, when you reduce the scale of the blade mesh (on one axis), it should look like it's going in and out of the hilt. No bones required. In order to maintain the actual scale of the lightsaber, group the blade group and the hilt mesh together. When you want to move the saber around in 3D space, move the group and not the mesh (you may want to parent constrain the entire thing to a locator so you can move that about instead.)

[jwalt]

Thanks, folks. I'll see what I can do with it.

Edit:

In Anim8or, Ghost's and Scavenger's suggestions were accomplished with a morph, no bones about it. Here is the revision:



Pretty easy, this way. Thanks, again, for the feedback.    Any guidance for my whip issue, in the troubling Ponch's thread?

[Ghost]

Yes- Roll it up! And tell everyone Ponch used too much starch on it

Seriously, no idea. Whip sounds hard to animate fluidly. I'd either go with a smooth bezier OR a whole lot of small linked segments (chain-style). No idea what's more feasible in that Anim8tor software because I don't use it

[jwalt]

@ Ghost -   +1 to the starch idea!  I've come close a couple of times with bones and limiting the degrees they can move through. Then, I usually mess something up and have to start over. I'm working on it.

Nothing to write home about, but thought you might like to see this:



I have never really made a face that was worth much. Think I need to spend more time with Armageddon's Loomis Books.

[Armageddon]

I think you need a better modeling program, but that's just me.

[Gilbert]

Anim8or is actually quite good.

[Armageddon]

This is the most detailed I've seen with Anim8or.



This is just some decent looking things with 3Ds Max and probably ZBrush.

[Gilbert]

It's just how much effort an artist has put into the work. Tools are just tools.
For example, this.

Moreover, Anim8or is free and is (again) actively being developed.

It's drifted vastly off-topic though. So:
Personally I like the original version of the light saber more.

[Anian]

From this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ey3g6BmuTI
I'd summarize it to a slight "kick" it has when you're animating the character holding it (most people feel the jolt of the lightsaber firing up) plus the new animation* is good, but it's a bit too slow. Instead of maybe half a second, I think your is longer than 1 sec. As you can see in the yt video above, only in episode V and VI do lightsabers actually take some time to extend, everywhere else it's really fast (well it varies slightly but still faster than your animation), almost instant.

* this one http://i1341.photobucket.com/albums/o756/jwalt10705/morphSabre1_zpsd47cef98.gif


As for the Anim8tor, yes you should probably excange it for Blender, but, as I've mentioned before, you should learn how to actually model a human being, maybe start with something like this
http://www.3dk.org/tutorial/Modeling-Texturing-and-Animating-low-poly-Lara-Croft-in-3ds-max-Part-I-.html (it's a 3ds max tutoorial, but it's not really software dependent)
You just keep making a box and extending limbs from it then smoothing it out, you'll never progress that way.

And as for the images Armageddon supplied, the first two (from Anim8tor) actually suffer from poor rendering more than from actual modelling or other limits of Anim8tor. And I'm almost certain the Jasmine model is from Zbrush since somebody forgot to smooth out her tiara and the usual subdivison polys from Zbrush can be seen (they haven't been smoothed out), plus the lines in her hair are much easier to sculpt in Zbrush than to model. The Journey head one is a mix of everything, but it's probably Maya or 3dsMax model (they didn't specify software in their job position requirements, so I'm assuming they use various stuff)

[jwalt]

Speeding things up is fairly simple. The kick is harder to judge:



Until I looked at Anian's YouTube link, I would never have said there were that many light sabres going off in the series.

Regarding spaghetti arms/legs: I assume Anian means that my models show no muscle definition, as in calf/thigh/biceps or six-pack abs where appropriate. I'll work on it. I have my doubts about how visible those things will be in game size walk cycles for characters in a low-rez game, but I am very likely a poor judge of such things. There are no games with my name attached. The assumption here comes from the fact that Anian's suggested tutorial link begins by pulling a boot out of a cube.

I like Anim8or, but doubt that my models would win any awards. I also have some doubts about the Anim8or ray tracer, but honestly haven't played with it, at all. The shots I'm posting are with the "default" set up from the base scene. Anim8or has features not available in the old sPatch modeler, but is missing some things that I found useful in the Hexagon modeler. Anim8or has taken me to a new level, although it might not look like it. I do thank Armageddon and Anian for their continued input. If they stop pushing, I may really be beyond help.

Edit:

Worked on the whip a bit: