Day 32: Spin Me Right Round Baby Right Round
Continuing from where we left off, I attempted to rig the flower as promised. Unfortunately, I ran into hiccup that may involve the way Masterpiece Motion and Tvori are talking to each other. Although there were no strange deformations this round, there were visibility issues where the flower would disappear/reappear depending on the camera distance. So once more, if you're mixing and matching different tools together, always be prepared for wee bugs like this to show up because dev teams are not psychic and are doing their very best to make the optimal tool they have before them. And as I alluded to in an earlier entry, we're in a rare space where they're tremendously helpful and responsive so rest assured our flower will rise like a phoenix soon enough.
So like I said, hiccup. That doesn't stop the animation train! So what you'll see next are raw progression shots for both BuzzBee and Lawnmower Boi. I mention raw because this is any kind of post effects, lighting or depth of field comes into play. I kinda like it when it's in this phase because the characters still look like they're made of Sculpey clay. For this round, I really wanted to focus purely on a 3 second loop sequence for each character just to see how that would feel before doing anything else. When I was satisfied with the overall expressions, I moved on playing with the little planet next to really give some dynamic motion to the overall piece. Because the road is bumpy, the lawnmower becomes more like an offroad vehicle while the bee never loses her cool staring him down. It felt right to have them stationary while the flower and the planets are in constant motion. They are the central focus after all. I mean look at her, she's just not having it.
And as a related aside, you should know that I'm very inspired right now by a fellow Tvori power user by the name of Jeremy Casper. He made the first ever all VR animated short called Lightning with the help of Oculus Medium and Tvori. But so much of what he's accomplished is purely because of his storytelling sensibilities, ingenuity and gumption. He singlehandedly got me into Tvori because of a rigging animation test he posted with his Lightning character last year. Week after week, that character evolved and inspired me to dive in. He's just one example of many pioneers in this community who push themselves and me everyday to create good art. It's hard to express how blessed I'm connected to such amazing folks.
Look what he made in just one day this past weekend from modeling, rigging to animation. Also, Amblin just Liked it. As well they should!
