Mogra 
I was asked by Gabriel the founder of duckduckgo if I could open source the raw files so below you can download the original project that I worked with. I left all the key frames and what not in it. There are two projects files, both are the same the only diffidence is I universalized one so that it can be used one systems that don’t have English as the default language . This way the expressions don’t break.
For some reason the other day I felt like I need to model something. So I went to my basement and digded through 3 or 4 bins of old toys and I wound up with three; Leonardo Ninja Turtle with spinning arm action, Old original mini transformer, and Nickelodeon Hand Clapper from McDonald’s I think. I ruled out the Ninja turtle from the beginning, it was just to play with, and went with the Hand Clapper.
It took me about me a while to get the base of it done. I tired to model this the more correct way rather then my normal quick way of cutting everything using booles. Adding some details and getting the edges right took another hour or so. I was going to keep adding more detail to make it as close to the toy as I could be then I got the Idea for some Xpresso and finished quickly and jumped into that. That might have been the reason I didn’t model the hands ( model from turbosquid ).
The Xpresso in this project is not too complicated, I liked all the moving parts (trigger, applause sign & hands) together so they move in tandem with each other like the toy does. I also have an automatic switch that allows the hand to clap on their own without any keyframes. Originally I had this setup planning to use if statements to switch it and increment the value, then I found this forum post which showed an easier way. All you have to do is choose the speed and range you want it to clap and hit play. You can also adjust the curve to create some unique claps. There are switches for high quality as well.
That’s pretty much it. You can download the model with the Xpresso setup and use it anyway your like. I’m rendering out an animation with it and will post it when it is finished.
I though I should share my result for roberleger.net Xpress0 Task 7. The first file below has my setup for the product table. My setup is pretty straight forward with only one extra flair for a custom shape. I would suggest looking at the results page to this lesson and checking out the other solutions.
The second file is part of my lego swirls file that I used to make the animation for this lesson. It’s not the whole file since I did buy the model but it has the rising tunnel and the lego parts as they swirl around. I though it might be cool to post up how I solved this task. There are a couple of ways to go about it and I choose my method because it gave me the look I was going for but an alternative could have work just as well.
Base Product Table File Zip | Lego Swirls File Zip
The only issue is reading the Xpresso nodes, so for that I have created a mini gallery here so you can check it out. (WordPress is having some issues so this will be up in a bit.) You can also check out the My Xpresso setup in the C4D file as well. My set up it pretty much the same for each item just different ranges on the range mapper.
I made a little teaser at the beginning using the android droid mascot. I did all of the movement with the(2) animators except for the hands and head. Oddly enough though the item I used to show the espresso is a an apple iPad…
I thought it would be cool if I cleaned up my my rig for the minion character and posted it so people can play with and maybe make their own cool characters. It’s noting to pretty inside so this is one of those as is type of files.
The rig has the ability to control the eye(iris) position, the eye lids for the top and bottom independently (lazy eye), both lids at once for a squinty look, and a full close. The mouth has 4 poses including smile, which I fixed now so that each range corresponds to a pose (ie: 0-.99, 1 to 1.99, etc…). Before I just had 0,1,2,3.
The arms are fully IK and so is the feet but it only allows for small movement since he has now legs… There is an also controllers for the middle top of the head and the bottom by the legs to add some extra movement.
It’s self contained in a zip file.
My other quick submission is my style frame for the cool golfers logo animation. I finished all of the animation correctly now which looks pretty good. I was planning on rendering it to today but I ran out of time.
My goal with the final design is to try and make it seem on top of the grass or some what coming out of it without a light really beaming down on it.
I still need to work on the lightning of the logo and I notice some errors in the text.
The biggest error that I missed though is that in all of my previous submissions I spelled golfer golgers. It’s funny how you can miss things like that. I wish cinema had a spell check for times like this. I’m sure someone made a script for this.
I worked more on my possible submission for the aetuts contest although i need to work out more of a clear idea for what I want to do. My submission for today is more work on the app I started yesterday.
I wanted to increase the functionality of the app so that it does look completely broken when the phone is flipped. I also wanted each minion to link to their respective sites.
I was able to figure out how to have different images for the screen orientations and link the minions to their sites. My issue came up when placing them. There doesn’t seem to be an easy way to layer object and place them. The I used the image sprite which seems to like to jump around and not stay still.
There doesn’t seem to be to many option for alignment so I might be asking the forums for some help if I can find some one with a similar issue in online resources. You can check out my source if you want below.
I was looking on twitter and I saw a post from some one about the aetuts+ contest which some how escapsed my normal look through of my feeds. So this prompted me to think if I should make something real quick just to do something.
I decided to pick a psd tut to do for it. I picked the Despicable Me tut by Mirko Santangelo. My quick idea was to do something using this character to show of the tuts+ network based on the site that I use the most. I’m thinking of using the puppet but I may break it apart some how after I customize my minion.
So I made my despicable character base of the tut, which is nice but the tut was excellent so of course the result would be pretty good automatically. But I wanted to submit more than just a tut result so I finished setting up the app inventor for android which I started a few days ago.
I wound up design a mini interface for my fav tuts+ site with the minion characters. It’s pretty simple overall, I just took the logos from each side and made and put them on a background from the tuts+ sites.
The app doesn’t do too much, pretty my much the same as the hellopurr tut they have but mine will link to a tutsplus+ hub when you click the image and if you shake your phone you hear the minions laughing.
If anyone want to check it out I’ve included a zip file with the source and my apk file.
This is my result for the expresso task 5 from robertleger.net. I was able to have all of the required functionality plus I added a spline warp that gives it path follow capabilities. I have also included the file below if anyone want to check it out and use it. I made a screen cast of it in action which is taking a while to upload so when it’s done I will add it to this post.
G2BProductions Xpresso task 5 Final
***DeviantArt Post Submission****
This is Toy Tractor Xpresso Rig for Cinema 4D. It is an as is release. You are free to do whatever you like to it. Please post a comment or fav what you do with it so I can so I can check it out. This setup is not un breakable but should work for most purposes and you can always just undo or import a new version.
Check out the video here—- [link]
Composited In After Effects
What can it do?
Front wheel turn. Truck rotation left and right based on the back or front. Truck rotation up and don based on the back or front. Automatic wheel rotation based on x axis movement or spline movement. Manual control as well. Spline control for movement and up and down movement for when on spline as well.
What can’t it do.
Walk the dog…and some rotations on spline mode will make it go all crazy.
Credits
Model from tubosquid.com – [link]
Robert Ledger of [link] for awesome Expresso task and inspiration
Music – The Color of All Colors by Gurdonark [link]
