Character Wizard Mods

Lex · Post by **Lex** » Fri Jul 15, 2011 10:44 pm

Being a newbie to ASP, I was very interested in the character wizard and, like others, I was not initially impressed (I promise this isn't a complaint). The character wizard does, however, provide some valuable advantages if the right combination of imagination, creativity, and skill are applied.

I believe jonbo has the right idea regarding the Character Wizard. The big advantage is the ability to customize items (like heads, hands, feet, mouths, etc.) and compile actions. If you shift the perspective of the Character Wizard from that of a "Character Creator" to that of a "Character Template Library" then its genius begins to come into focus. We just need to supply our library... great idea for the Character Wizard Models thread.

I have a character I'm working on that was created using the Character Wizard that I would be happy to share, but I'm embarrassed to say that I don't know how... I don't know how to post images or share files for download on this forum. Could I trouble anyone for advice?

jonbo · Post by **jonbo** » Fri Jul 15, 2011 11:11 pm

I use MEDIAFIRE which is a free file sharing site. You sign up to the site and then upload your anime files. Then copy the link for the file and paste in your thread.As far as images check this thread:

viewtopic.php?t=19375&start=0&postdays= ... highlight=

I'd love to see what your mods look like. The more people share what they're doing with the CW, the more likely we can get it to be more useful.

Lex · Post by **Lex** » Fri Jul 15, 2011 11:33 pm

A work in progress. I haven't added details (i.e. face or tail) to the other switch views yet. I've been spending a lot of time trying to figure out how I wanted to create and rig the tail, and I'm not completely satisfied with this one yet. A little more tweaking I think.

http://s1143.photobucket.com/albums/n626/BagHeadLex/

Edited to include:

The majority (easily 90%+) of the character is a product of the Character Wizard. Coloring aside, I only modified the head/face and created the tail. The idea was as I described earlier: Using the Character Wizard to customize a rough template and adding details for the finished (or in my case yet unfinished) character.

Please bear with me. I'm new and my approach somewhat crude.

jonbo · Post by **jonbo** » Fri Jul 15, 2011 11:44 pm

That's great Lex, I hadn't thought of that one yet, but now I'm getting a bunch of ideas. See that's what I mean about sharing.

Lex · Post by **Lex** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 12:15 am

Hopefully this works... These are the Character Wizard export switches for the same character. As you can see I've only been working on the Front view.

http://tinypic.com/r/ivbgpt/7

I did that wrong. How do you insert the image for view on the post? The links are great, but the tabs can get cluttered quickly.

Second (embarrassing) Edit:

Okay. Silly me. Let me try this one.

jonbo · Post by **jonbo** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 12:36 am

Excellent Lex, keep at it. I too find it easier to start with the front view and work my way around. I find it useful to pull all the views out of the main switch layer, and then use layer translate to have all the views side by side. I can then use copy/paste to duplicate elements to the other views.

jonbo · Post by **jonbo** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 6:35 pm

Here's another head mod I've been working on. It's only the front, 3/4 front, and side views. I haven't got the other views to look right to me. If anybody has a good idea on it, please post it. The mod is a skull, here's the link:

http://www.mediafire.com/?6jyb1fm3n92q1ku

neeters_guy · Post by **neeters_guy** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 9:23 pm

I did a male, so here's a female mod: Lady_wip.zip

Most of the mods are in the facial features. I mainly tried to make the parts work together. If you really go to extremes, you can tidying up the resultant file. Small variations work best though.

As you can see the body is the generic one, although the proportions are what I wanted. For a change, I decided to tweak the body in the exported file (this file is included) and do a quick animation.

Most of adjustments were made in the torso and pelvis layers.

jonbo · Post by **jonbo** » Sun Jul 24, 2011 4:45 pm

Thanks neeters for the mod, she looks great. Although, that action seems a bit odd, kind of like she's getting goosed

neeters_guy · Post by **neeters_guy** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 6:19 pm

Yeah, I was testing the deformation between the torso and pelvis, and it just evolved into this goofy action.

Loved your skull head btw.

jonbo · Post by **jonbo** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 2:45 pm

I've done a hand mod with a lot more positions, you might have to un-dock your layer palette to see all of them. Some of the hand positions may look odd, but they were made for dependent arm positions. Some of the child layers might need to be adjusted better, but my eyes started to cross so if you use them, you'll have to do it yourself. Here's the file.

http://www.mediafire.com/?q6n5t6a3vadjnuj

neeters_guy · Post by **neeters_guy** » Sat Aug 06, 2011 8:10 pm

Hey jonbo, some interesting "gestures" in that collection of hands.

So here's a variation of the lady mod. Character Wizard parts, preset, exported anme file, and tweaked file are here:
Lily_wip.zip

This time I tried to fix the knobby wrist and ankle joints. Also, I found out moving bones around in the file can do some strange things to the built-in Actions. Fixing them typically involves resetting or adjusting bone angle and locations on the timeline of the Action.

This is a screenshot of the layer palette: Character Wizard layers. This might be useful for taking notes if you do any layer sorting.

Exported file views:

Tweaked file views:

jonbo · Post by **jonbo** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 2:44 pm

Nice one Neeters. Thanks. I was watching the 1980's version of the RETURN OF THE KING animation by Rankin & Bass, and even though it butchered the story, I really like the style of the animation. So I was inspired to make this little guy. This time, I've included the presets for those who know how to add them to their CW and the hand set I posted earlier since it's part of the presets. Hope you don't mind neeters, I used your DUDE head that I modified, it fit the style better than my base head. I think I might make some other characters from the story. Here's the file

http://www.mediafire.com/?6bctsf8ryxz8yd8

Hobbit Views by jonbo64, on Flickr

Hobbit WIP

Hobbit WIP by jonbo64, on Flickr

neeters_guy · Post by **neeters_guy** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 7:10 am

jonbo wrote:Hope you don't mind neeters, I used your DUDE head ...

Not at all, go for it.

This Hobbit actually looks and animates well right out of the box. Also, for some reason, the default walk works well with stocky character like this one.

Can't wait to see what other characters you come up with.

jonbo · Post by **jonbo** » Fri Aug 12, 2011 4:18 am

Here's the next LOTR character. I've included the presets, mods, and the tweaked front view anime file. Each one I do I try to do something different. This time it was a beard which may be a bit of trouble in some of the views, and something a little different to the feet. That's why I included the tweaked view so you can see how I handled these issues. Here's the file:

http://www.mediafire.com/?t47p9b982afu2bl

Dwarf WIP:

Dwarf WIP by jonbo64, on Flickr