Thanks Wayne for this tutorial.
The only one online I found that walked me through.
The arm rigging is great challenge and thanks for keeping sharing new technics…Bendy.
From beginning to start, I struggled with why bother doing it... so many bugs in the 2.8. and more than most the points concept... If I got it right the Points concept allows to create the shape without creating ‘real vertices’ that complicate the calculations.
For me, these points are always there and influence.. the more I used the more I dealt with the secondary effects.
I hope it’s just my learning, as if you can keep both worlds a part… though ignorant as I am, I admit to find it counterintuitive, i.e. these points don’t help to create clean workspace. While the concept of draw and animate is brilliant, and some nice 2D animations online produce in 24 hours (ex: hero) make me dream…. My reality is that it’s obscenely time consuming and complicated… the old good curves are simpler and quicker.
Also, I didn't understand actually how you used the clamping. The points remain in the workspace, at least for me. So for one character it's a nice solution but if I have other objects. In addition, the clamp didn't work for the Arm layer, even if it has the same settings as the Body layer.
In the Arm layer, I just went to Edit mode and moved the points manually... then I rendered.. as you can see the shape are stretched and there are gaps because of the Bendy.
Then, when I added the BG layer, all points became visible. i.e. Body layer, shadows and highlights.
Can you explain what did I miss?
Also a general question: The rig was a great lesson, but why did you opted for this rather than the sculpting mode in all other tutorials?
This is just a curious question.
Else, nice BG music;)
Thanks for the message DB!
At the moment Blender 2.8 is still in Beta, so bugs/issues will be present and annoying but everything will eventually be fixed and improved. It takes the brave people like you to start using it and helping the dev team squash all those quirks and bugs!
I think you mean 'boundary strokes' when you say 'points concept'. Is that right?
If so, yes, the devs know that the fill tool needs some work and they are working on improving it at the moment.
It isn't an easy thing to do though. I think this tool has a hard job. It has to find points that could be anywhere in 3d space and then try to fill them with a 3d stroke that is projected onto a 2d plane that best represents the area within...aaahhh, sounds easy to me haha.
But don't forget you can clean up the strokes with the 'clear boundary strokes' operator.
You'll get the hang of clamping and working with Grease Pencil, like anything you learn, it takes practice. And at first you want to give up and pretend that you never even tried, but it takes time to improve. Have you ever attempted to brush your teeth with your non dominant hand? I bet you last about 10 seconds before you give up and switch back saying 'this is impossible'.
With the issue you mentioned, I'm not entirely sure I follow what you mean. If you find a bug, which it sounds like you might have with the BG issue. Then try to find a way to easily replicate it and report it. That will help everybody. But maybe you can post an image or video of what the issue is.
Why did I rig this instead of sculpt it? For the exact purpose you mentioned above. 'curves are simpler and quicker'.
What if your whole character was rigged? Then you could combine the powerful tools of armature animation with the beauty of 2d animation. (The best of both worlds)
I will show more in the future as the tools become more stable but what I have shown here is to hopefully plant the seed of possibilities for your own work.
Maybe you will find Grease Pencil is a great tool for the things you want to do with Blender, or maybe you will find that although when other people use Grease Pencil it looks awesome, it is not really your thing.
Both are totally ok. You are the master of your learning ;)
I admire people that can model and sculpt. I can't. I haven't put in all the practice hours.
But I'm ok with with just admiring their work.
Oh and by the way, I've got an album coming out next week, you should buy it and leave me a review on iTunes haha :P
Thanks for your answer.
I have no problem with bugs and obstacles. But due to my limited knowledge, I struggle to distinguish between my limits and systematic ones, i.e. when to persist.
Also, through the little contact I had while reporting bugs, I found a very dedicated developers unit and it feels great.
The BG issue: herein the link that visualizes the problem with the BG. Though for me, it's not a bug. Or else, I missed something about clamping.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1VSZXmp69hc_aprGx4waHx1ZgZd9Wftxn
If the clamp acts as a mask it should consider what exists before it in the 3D space. When I place thus a BG, these points should be displayed, like when I place any other object mesh, etc'.
Thus, I used world settings.
In other words, my issue wasn't why it appeared on my BG layer, but rather how it was displayed on your "magic" BG layer.
Also, cleaning the boundaries strokes didn't change anything for me.
About the points/bouderies strokes - and the toothbrush analogy - I have no problem with banging my head against the wall, it's my life story. Only that here, I note that I don't really even have the illusion I might break the wall. It's like being a relationship you don't trust.
At the moment it's like I feel, I don't trust the process, I cannot even visualize a process of making something out of it. So I have questions.
As the master of my learning, I ask if that will bring me somewhere...I cannot tell yes, thus, I need to take it into consideration.
I need to improve my animation time production which comes with work and more work. Yet, if I compare the time ratio between Melvin hand and Melvin 3D lip sync is 10 to 1. and the later end product is higher quality.
I'm willing to bang my head against the wall, but currently, I ask if I should not be more humble and realistic and use older version that is more reliable. I just feel less confident I'm doing the right choice.
Saying this brings to my mind... I traveled once with a guy that didn't brush his teeth to make them rot and he could replace them with dentures. Just another day and new choices to make;)
Ahh, I see what your issue is.
Clamping will only display where there is any alpha behind it (all layers below). So when you turn the BG layer on, there is alpha behind all your overhang, and therefore it will display.
In my "magic" BG layer, I have actually used a separate GP object.
Ouch, I hope you didn't travel with that tooth rot guy for too long. I'm going to brush my teeth again right now.