Car Animation?

posted to: Night Time Version

So Close To The End!

I'm looking for help with the vehicle's animation. I know I saw a video about it somewhere in the course! After looking back through all the lessons, I cannot find it. Guidance, Please.

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Reply
  • Omar Domenech replied

    If I remember correctly, there are no animation lessons in Cubicity? You can watch any of the other animation courses though.

    Linking up:

    https://cgcookie.com/courses/fundamentals-of-animation-in-blender

    https://cgcookie.com/courses/animation-bootcamp

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  • Adrian Bellworthy replied

    Yeah there is no lesson on animation in this course, Omar's suggestions should help you out.

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  • Eric Szabo(Eric) replied

    I am sure there was a video amendment. Not in the course itself, but on one of the lesson pages. Kent wrote something like, ‘I didn’t want to leave you hanging with the animation, so here is an additional video that should cover most of what you’ll need.’

    Omar, I’ll look at those links in my next sitting. 👍

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  • Omar Domenech replied

    Interesting, that does ring a bell. I wonder where that was...

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  • Adrian Bellworthy replied

    Maybe a livestream, or on YT, or a article post?

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  • Eric Szabo(Eric) replied

    Guys, I'm sorry: this is not good guidance.

    "No it's not here," and "Here are 40 videos you can look through," is not quality help. This is not the first time this has happened when I've asked for help on this learning site. I can go scrub through YouTube, but I'm paying for this service for higher quality and, I was hoping, encouraging help.

    The compounding result is I have become resistant to engage. I'm putting in good effort, and asking for help because I don't know. I'm exposing what I don't know in order to improve.

    Eric 

  • Adrian Bellworthy replied

    Sorry you feel that way, you asked a question to which there is no answer, because as we said, we don't think such a lesson exists. 
    I have searched for you and cannot find any such lesson. We have even asked the instructor, don't think we stop investigating after those few words.

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  • Adrian Bellworthy replied

    Update: I have searched again, watched all the videos on YT related to Cubicity, searched through the library of courses, livestreams and articles. I still can't find the lesson you are thinking of.

    Kent does use X (PKA Twitter), maybe he posted something there, I don't know as I don't use X.

    The only other place I can think of is you may have seen something is the Blender Basics, Jonathan uses the Cubicity animations by Omar in that course.

    Sorry if this is not the answer you wanted, but it's an honest one and although my memory is still fully functional, there still maybe things I forget or perhaps never knew.

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  • Eric Szabo(Eric) replied

    A productive response would be "Here is a link to a specific, quality resource. A resource that we, as expert purveyors of Blender knowledge and education, feel confident that you will benefit from."

    I am still hoping for this.

  • Omar Domenech replied

    I'm sorry you feel that way as well. As Adrian said, we didn't stop helping out, asking Kent if he knew something about it or searching through livestreams and lessons, but that takes some time and there's lots of other people asking for help. Also approaching the answers here like a conversation helps keep things organic, you wont get a robotic, corporate, cold answer from me.

    I don't know where else you say it has happened before, but we will always help out, we're always gladly helping out, so try not to be resistant to engage. Again, we will always help, with a caveat though.

    Because we try to keep a balance of not too much hand holding. You have to leave room for the person to challenge themselves, watch a related lesson, read or investigate a bit by just pointing in the right direction, make things on their own. If we only serve answers on a golden platter all the time, people just don't put in the necessary effort and their learning actually gets worst since from there on out, they expect all the solutions get delivered to them and they become reluctant to lift the mental weights that makes your brain grow stronger. Difficulties strengthens the mind as labor does the body. So we also have to be mindful of keeping that balance and it's not always easy and people don't always understand.

    So if a car animation in Cubicity was not part of the course and it's not anywhere and you want that animation in your result nonetheless, we will point out links for animation classes, so you can learn to animate the car and put in the effort. We apologize if that doesn't seem enough help from our part.

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  • Kent Trammell replied

    Hi EEric - I appreciate your interest in the animated car setup! It's been nearly 2 years since I released this course so please bear with my imperfect memory. I remember aspiring to make a video about the car anim setup from the trailer but thought I never actually made that video. Your insistence on an addendum or specific video has stimulated my memory...and I do recall directing a question somewhere to this YouTube tutorial that taught me how to do it:


    Perhaps this is what you're thinking of?
    Please keep in mind that I and the Instructor Assistants (Omar, Adrian, Martin, Phil) have a LOT of channels to monitor from course questions, YT comments, twitter questions, instagram comments, blender market support, facebook, etc. I commonly watch my own tutorials to remember what I said or how to do something 😅 That's to say it's a challenge for us to remember everything we've recorded and answered. A cordial and respectful attitude keeps this community great.
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  • Eric Szabo(Eric) replied

    Kent, yes! This does seem to be the video I was thinking of. Thank you for linking this resource. I first glanced at it, probably 2 months ago now, and wasn’t far enough in the course to make use of it. But I am now! It looks to be a bit of a challenge for me, and I’m looking forward to seeing what I can do with it. A lot of effort and time went into getting this far, and I am excited and eager to see my final result!

    Separately, I feel like I’m getting piled on a bit here. I raised my hand asking for help and the initial responses were ‘no’ and a link to 2 entire courses. On its face, it was simply not useful or instructive feedback. I gave a candid, albeit a bit frustrated response, because A: if the roles were reversed, it’s hard for me to image posting any one of those responses and feel like I did my job well. B: this has been my overall experience: Very good tutorials, w/ generally discouraging guidance when I ask for help. 

    I am intimately familiar with both labor of the body and of challenges of the mind. I have both run a small business and been an educator. It is not handholding to provide clear guidance; An apprentice mechanic asking how to adjust a push rod isn’t simply handed an engine manual. A chemist-in-training seeking clarification on nitrogen’s SN2 reactions isn’t simply handed a text book by the professor. Instead, good educators tailor that guidance to the learner. They point them to a specific chapter, or section, or video. In your collective capacity as Blender experts and instructors, I put faith (and money) in your ability to provide that fundamental, general direction. In short, the answer ‘how do I animation this scene?’ cannot be ‘go learn to animate.’ This is/was my goal, and this is/was a single exercise towards that goal, but the response can’t be a gatekeeping ‘work through 60 hours of our courses, then you have earned the right.’ Instead, with a little tailored guidance, this becomes an educational exercise that I can now work through.

    It seemed too obvious to mention that any quality video would do. Indeed, when I clicked on the provided links, that is what I expected to find: a pair of videos within the Blender Library that aid my Blender education. My insistence was the combined reaction to ‘not included,’ realizing I’d just being handed a textbook, and previous experiences here. Therefor, my follow-up was for the sake of expedience, to clarify that I was aware that this is not an animation course (which shouldn’t have been necessary on my part), and perhaps, just maybe the curators of CGCookie could pluck an already available and relevant video off the shelf and provide it to an engaged community member asking for help.

    I could, of course, spend hours digging through YouTube. Burning time on bad advice, or the wrong techniques. But that would been a poor use of life. A better option is lean on those that already have amass expertise for direction and guidance towards which resources will serve me, as a learner, best. A better option is expedience in getting my hands and mind on the most salient information, and then taking my time and digging into that rich soil to bear the best fruit. That isn’t handing something on a golden platter. That is simply smart, efficient time management. Because, much like yourselves are busy managing questions, YT comments, twitter questions, etc., I too have limited time. Unlike the collective you, I am not an expert in 3D design and Blender. It is why I am here, seeking guidance in this massive new endeavor. 

    If history is any guide, my feelings and experiences here are mirrored by others. So, as a community member and as a customer, I hope that collectively you get something out of this response. Perhaps you will. Maybe you won’t. That’s up to you as individuals. Teaching and being part of a small business is hard. Learning Blender is hard. So is learning 3D Design largely on my own.

    I’m still actively seeking an encouraging community. I’m open to it being here.

    Respectfully,

    Eric

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  • Omar Domenech replied

    I see your point, but sorry Eric, we are not ChatGPT, we cannot conjure such a specific, niche video on a whim that even Kent had a hard time remembering and finding and that he didn't even produced on a course himself. He shared that video on his personal time, we didn't even know about such content and it's unreasonable to think we ought to, the content on the internet is gigantic and that video isn't even CG Cookie content. There's only so much we can do, we are not servants, we're guides. 

    As we said, there wasn't any animation content on Cubicity, that was the initial response, a perfectly valid one. That's the "no" you're referring to and I don't know how that is a negative thing, only a truthful claim. The fact that you didn't need a whole text book on animating, only a tiny sliver of it, only a very very very specific use of it... or perhaps you know a little bit of animation and don't need a whole lot of content, is beyond our ability to predict. Your description of "I'm looking for help on the vehicle animation" on a thread called "car animation", perfectly falls upon a course about the fundamentals of animating.

    As like you, we can't go and spend enormous amounts of time digging through YouTube. Because again, we're guides, not servants. So the Fundamentals of Animation, is another perfectly valid suggestion, since it is the fastest way at reaching your goal, given the content on CG Cookie. 

    And even so, we continued to dig around for you, asking Kent, and Adrian watched every single Cubicity Livestream and YouTube video to try and find what you were petitioning. And out of it came what we felt as an undeserved, brash and uncalled for response when a merely couple of hours had gone by. We get so much love and good feedback all the time from the CG Cookie community and Blender community overall, I guess your expectations on what it was to help out were inaccurate. We will always help out, it feels so good and rewarding to extended a helping hand to a fellow Blender artist. But please understand, we are not like a personal bodyguard to the president or a doctor on an ambulance that rushes to the scene of the crime to perform live saving CPR, we can only do so much and again we apologize if it isn't enough for you. We still always help out and try our best.

  • Kent Trammell replied

    FWIW I think this thread is a classic example of where text-based internet communication falls short.

    I see where you're coming from EEric that generic animation tutorials isn't terribly helpful advice for the specific geometry-nodes based car animation featured in this course's trailer. Omar has a sterling reputation in this community both as a kind person and knowledgeable blender artist so I know his intention was not to be unhelpful. Perhaps he didn't immediately connect to the specific kind of animation you were asking about. For example if you mentioned that you remember the car animation being procedural, I suspect Omar would not have recommended non GN courses in response, nor would Adrian have affirmed it.

    Thankfully your follow-up response about being certain that I "didn't want to leave anyone hanging on the animation" jogged our memories and made us remember that something was indeed mentioned somewhere. I look back and read Omar and Adrian's responses as affirming your insistence.

    However I think you misread the tone and took the convo to another level when you lead with an apology: "Guys, I'm sorry: this is not good guidance." By apologizing I think you knew you were taking the convo up a notch. In hindsight, you're not wrong about the responses being largely unhelpful (to that point). But Omar and Adrian were not wrong for either forgetting or not being aware of something I mentioned years ago some place. Maybe it could have been better to not respond if they didn't know for sure BUT I would argue it was key that you had to respond with insistence and the quote about me not leaving anyone hanging. They then forwarded the convo to me and we jogged our memories until I remembered the YT video that I recommended.

    That said, it's only understandable that you would feel piled upon. Our IA group is constantly scanning for questions to answer and they share comradery in that role. That's surely frustrating when you (correctly) remember something they (and I) had forgotten.

    I still appeal to a misreading of the proverbial room that led to premature criticism of IAs trying to help. In the end, internet communication is profoundly imperfect. BUT we did figure out the correct answer together!

    I vote we blame the difficulty of internet communication, consider this a net victory, and march toward a lens-flare-soaked sunset arm in arm 🤝

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