IKBooster - Info & Gotcha's

[tyrot]

knock knock

[Ryan Roye]

Just a small preview:



The final video will be 1600x868 resolution, and compiled in a format that should hover around 300MB per hour of content... hopefully it won't be too burdensome on people who have slower connections. If people really need a more compact filesize I have the option to compile "small" versions of the video. Also, I will be certain that the final video has closed captioning as well in case anyone is hard of hearing, or want the option of having the material auto-translated.

There is still a good bit of work to do to get everything put together. I'm thinking this weekend I will finish the online IKBooster manual, then publicly release some of the training material demo files. There is some other IKB content I am going to make freely available in the coming weeks as well (about 2 gigabytes worth, actually). I know its a hard wait but this isn't going to be just any old training content... it is going to be the #1 training content when it comes to Lightwave animation. Time to unchain the shackles we call nulls and motion modifiers and do some animation

[tyrot]

wow . this is something WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better than i expected. BUT NOW it is more HARD to wait... OPEN BETA!

[Davewriter]

Okay... once we nail all of the doors and windows shut and then drain all the gas from the car... he'll have no choice but to finish.
That, or else he'll be perfectly suited for the zombie apocalypse.
Either way, he'll thank us.
Trust me.

[jwiede]

Chaz, do you have an idea yet on pricing?

[tyrot]

Okay... once we nail all of the doors and windows shut and then drain all the gas from the car... he'll have no choice but to finish.
That, or else he'll be perfectly suited for the zombie apocalypse.
Either way, he'll thank us.
Trust me.

hahaha yes yes.

[Ryan Roye]

Chaz, do you have an idea yet on pricing?

At this time, no. Mainly because this is the first non-free tutorial content i've ever worked on, so I'll be discussing the whole pricing thing with Kat over at Liberty3d and seeking his advice on the matter.

[Afalk]

The teaser video was great. I am very much looking forward to getting my hands on this and diving in!

[Creativetone]

Great! I am waiting

[Davewriter]

And I noticed that the local hardware store is having a sale this weekend on hammers and nails...
Just saying

[Areyos Alektor]

It promises

[snsmoore]

The "Comprehensive Guide to IKBooster by Ryan Roye" is out!

I just bought my copy of this 2 part video guide, which includes:

-The IKBooster Comprehensive Guide, parts 1 and 2 (parts 3-5 are still in development)
-Scenes, prefabs, and example/demonstrative Lightwave content to open and play with
-5 character models
-Sample IKB relative motion files
-Sample commented Lscripts demonstrating time saving functions
-Bonus video


You can order it here on Liberty3d com:

http://www.liberty3d.com/2013/11/new...-by-ryan-roye/

And you can get 25% off using the coupon code mentioned in the lightwave newsletter.

https://www.lightwave3d.com/newslett...ve-newsletter/

I've been looking forward to this training material for a long time and have been waiting for there to be a renewed interest in IKB. Ryan has put a lot of work into it and has been very helpful to the community. It is a much higher quality training product than just about anything I've seen (the video is clean, has transitions, zooming and good titling - it's not just a bunch of raw recorded video, but a well thought out, edited product.) Great work Ryan!

[Ryan Roye]

I've been looking forward to this training material for a long time and have been waiting for there to be a renewed interest in IKB. Ryan has put a lot of work into it and has been very helpful to the community. It is a much higher quality training product than just about anything I've seen (the video is clean, has transitions, zooming and good titling - it's not just a bunch of raw recorded video, but a well thought out, edited product.) Great work Ryan!

Good to hear! In regards to other commentary i've received, universally people say that the content covered is excellent and provides valuable insight into a powerful animation workflow. On the criticism side of commentary i've gotten, an area that they'd like to see improved (or changed) is the pacing at which I cover the material which was way too fast in some areas, or there were certain things that I should elaborate more on, like what shortcuts I'm using and what the keys for them are (if they are Lightwave defaults), perhaps a quick explanation of the custom RMB menus that I used in some parts of the content. So... basically the "meat" is there, but perhaps I need to push the envelope back a little and allow more time for people to absorb the content as they watch.

Parts 3-5 will benefit from this commentary and I'll incorporate the suggestions as I work on future content.

[snsmoore]

Actually I didn't mind the faster pace, as I was able to stop and play back certain key areas. Plus reviewing it again will be quick. Maybe elaboration on certain areas could be done as bonus content, that way the topics that people need more depth can be done at will.

Probably things that stood out that I'd like more depth on were:

1) the ikbind setup nulls (really wanting to know how those work - but you did allude to doing that later)
2) seeing you expand the fps back to 24/30 and seeing the effect on the walk or run animations, just to complete the animation steps - maybe that's a bonus content item, since it is a more general topic

I do like the fact that you kept changing the scene and characters -- It also made the video more captivating.

BTW, When is video 3 coming out?

[Ryan Roye]

1) the ikbind setup nulls (really wanting to know how those work - but you did allude to doing that later)
2) seeing you expand the fps back to 24/30 and seeing the effect on the walk or run animations, just to complete the animation steps - maybe that's a bonus content item, since it is a more general topic.

1) Bind (either by itself or through bakespots), takes the absolute position of the child object and calculates the path it travels during a range of frames, then "injects" that movement to the topmost parent item inversely. This is what allowed me to have the box roll around in part 1 despite the fact that the child nulls contained no keyframes. Admittedly, the concept of binding isn't the easiest to explain. Part 3 will reveal a bit more on practical usage examples regarding character/object animation... I will try to have some visual aids in place in attempt to help explain *why* it works, so that viewers can expand on what they learn.

2) Changing the FPS does not change the animation at all, which is why I recommend animating at a lower FPS... it is incredibly RARE for situations to occur where one would need the level of detail that would require the animator to animate at 20+ fps. Higher FPS means exponentially higher computational burden, more keystrokes, and tons of wasted time even with normal IK rigs. This is because when you change motion between 15/30 FPS, or 12/24, the keyframing data simply adapts to the new FPS (interpolates). As mentioned in the video, the only things to be concerned about when changing FPS is subframe quaternion flipping (fixed by euler filter which is linked in the resources text file of the video content), and anything that doesn't operate off of keyframes to animate such as Hypervoxels and MDD playback.

BTW, When is video 3 coming out?

Late January or early Febuary is my goal. I am taking the month of December to work on some Delura content, then I'll be able to jump right back into tutorial content with a fresh mind!