Office Hours – Wayne’s Office – Wednesdays (AUS) (Tuesdays for USA)

[Wayne Dixon]

Hey peeps.

Welcome to my Office.
Well not my office office – that would be pretty weird.  But welcome to my Office Hours thread.

What is this?

Every Week, I make myself available to help you out live with any problems/issues/questions you have about animation and/or rigging.
This thread is to post stuff you need help with!

When is it?

Currently the best time for me is

10am Wednesdays – Sydney, Australia (UTC +10)

This translates to…
5pm Tuesdays – Los Angeles, CA (UTC -7)

8pm Tuesdays–New York, NY (UTC -4)

1am Wednesday-London, UK (UTC +1)

The time may change in the future (sorry UK), but this is the best time for me at the moment.

What if you need help and you can’t be there live?

Not a problem – that’s what this thread is for.  Just post your questions/issues/files/wip or whatever it is in here and I can record an answer or feedback for you.

I’m looking forward to helping out as many people as I can

[Markus Berg]

Hi!
Just a quick question. Hopefully not too late.
If you’re using the camera as a first person shooter perspective during an animation,
how would you create a setup to simulate eyelids opening and closing? Not difficult
to just add to bones moving towards and away from each other. But any suggestions
on how to make it at least somewhat realistic?

[Wayne Dixon]

Hey T,
Here’s you link.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/15qalopk17kofi3/T_office-hours_02.zip?dl=1 

[Wayne Dixon]

@thebergh – here’s a quick video response for you.
Hopefully it helps.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/19rxz9g1i1hnusu/markus_eyelid-question.mp4?dl=1 

[Markus Berg]

Hi Wayne! Thanks for the reply. I guess it’s the perfect opportunity for me to practice my lip-reading skills because there seems to be no audio! ;p Unless it’s something on my side, luckily it’s a short video.

[tanya]

Hey Wayne – I have two questions if you have time tonight.

1. What is the best and easiest way to put something down and pick it up?  

2. It was interesting last week to see how you sketch out an animation.  How do you organize the an animation with a couple of scenes and shots?  How do you organize the files?  I seem to end up with a disorganized mess.

Thanks – T

[sheila5]

Can you please video tape it and share? At 2 am I’m asleep 

[Wayne Dixon]

Hi @tanya53 – I’ll see what I can do to answer your questions.

@sheila5 – If you have any questions/problems that you need help with just pop them in here and I can record an answer for you.  I don’t actually record the whole thing.  I only record the problem solving for each member and then I can send it to them start away with any files etc.  This is the easiest/quickest way so I don’t have to edit snippets out of a full hour of recording.

So even if it’s in the middle of the night for you – I can help you while you’re dreaming about Blender.
(or at least I think that’s what you’ll be dreaming about.
That’s what I dream about.)

[Wayne Dixon]

Oh my – Sorry @thebergh
I did not get a notification about my stupidity.  So I only saw your message today.
let’s try this again. https://www.dropbox.com/s/08iuxl8tovu6zy6/Markus_eyelid-question.mp4?dl=1 

[Markus Berg]

Hi @waylow No problem. I forgot to tag you anyway. (maybe not working in here for me anyway!?) Thanks for taking the time to record again.
I actually did look up lip-reading tutorials and I guess I could understand about 60% or so of what you said in the last video.
Hand gestures helped a lot as well. Although some mention of “hamburger” made me question my attempt. Besides making
me hungry I guess it made sense after thinking about it.

I created a pacman head from a uv sphere and put the dolly camera inside of it. Added two bones to help close the mouth/eyelids
with the bottom bone copying the top and set the influence to a lower value to make the top close more. But since you said it would
look strange on camera I’ll go back and change it later.

I was trying to think of an animated movie that shows the character like this with closing eyelids. I know I have seen at least one
this year but can’t for the life of me remember which one. I only remember the character was breathing heavily like he was about
to pass out, eyelids getting heavier starting to close. Perhaps it was one of the Kungfu Panda movies. I’ll go and check it later.
If you can think of any or come across one later, feel free to let me know if you still remember. 🙂

[Wayne Dixon]

It’s weird, that effect is used everywhere Markus, but it’s actually hard to find it when you want to see haha.

I didn’t actually think of using a Pac-Man style enclosure but that might work.  I was thinking more perpendicular (and straight) from the angle of the camera.  But perhaps a Pac-Man would give less camera perspective distortion as it could stay the same distance from the lens.
I’d have to test both, but really at the end of the day it probably won’t be noticeable at all anyway.

[Wayne Dixon]

Hey T,
Here’s a video for you
https://www.dropbox.com/s/y8kz6acdj0yiybm/t-video-crit.mp4?dl=1 

[tanya]

Hey Wayne – try agin with the suggested changed.

and the first part of the other one 

thanks for all the help.  – T

[Wes Burke]

Hey everyone, 

This is the last week for Office Hours. 

For the past few months, CG Cookie’s team of instructors has made themselves available to have an open mic to answer questions from our community, and it’s been a lot of fun. So many exciting projects and questions from the community. ❤️

As this experiment ends this week, please join me in a massive thank you to the instructors for making themselves available, sometimes at odd hours, to help elevate those in the community. If they were helpful to you, please let it be known below. 

We’re passionate about helping you make cool stuff with Blender and will continue to innovate and evolve ways we can mentor and help those also looking to wield the power of Blender. 

If you did participate in Office Hours, we’d love to hear from you either below or by answering a few quick questions below. 

Submit your Office Hours feedback – https://form.typeform.com/to/kr1dzrgQ 

Thanks again and happy Blending! 

Wes Burke

Founder, CG Cookie

[Author]

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