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Elf Animation
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
Elf Animation // Work in Progress
Post by Finis // Dec 2, 2007, 6:01am
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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I am making a movie to use as my Christmas card this year. Some portions of it will be customized for each recipient. The recipient's name will appear in appropriate places.
Your help, suggestions, and critiques will be appreciated and needed.
I started this project in TS 5 but I have TS 7.51 now.
Since I am still unfamiliar with TS 7.51 and have less than a month to finish this I will probably continue to use TS 5 for modeling on this project. I encountered many bugs and quirks with TS 5's bones/animation. So I will try to animate the Elf character and scenes in TS 7.51.
Here is the Elf character's head: |
Post by jamesmc // Dec 2, 2007, 6:18am
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jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
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Looks awesome!
You can use tS7.51 bones with the bridge turned on if you import your object and then resave it using the top right hand corner save object "rsobj" option. I haven't had a problem as yet.
Keeping the bridge on as you load your rsobj in, then you can bone and skin in the workspace side and it will work quite nicely on the modeler side.
I would caution to complete everything you need to do on your model before committing to boning and skinning in the Workspace side as some weird things will happen if you try to change things after the model is boned and skinned.
The speed which animation is rendered now is amazing. I would say without much exaggeration that is is five times as fast on render than the older versions of tS.
Yes, you can bone and skin on the workspace side and use lightworks on the Modeler side to put out your animation, works quite nicely.
Can't wait to see your elf doing elf stuff. :) |
Post by Finis // Dec 2, 2007, 6:24am
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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I'm having trouble attaching the bones to the skin in TS 7.51.
I loaded the elf head and its bones, modeled in TS 5, into TS 7.51 using the TS 6 files feature. Then I attached the skin to the bones and saved that as a rsobj file.
The trouble is that I must edit the connections of bones to skin. My edits do not persist and the points that are connected to a bone or joint seem to change randomly.
If I edit it, select another object, and then select the elf again the connections have changed. This may also happen when I close and reopen TS. |
Post by jamesmc // Dec 2, 2007, 6:35am
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jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
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Unsure why it would change each time you load it up.
With weight painting, one can get very exact on how bones and "joint" areas interact with the surrounding mesh.
Alignment is key here and it's not to hard to use different views to make sure one has alignment.
After you get alignment, then it's time to attach skin to skeleton (not bones)
Then you can do the joint configuration where you restrict each of the joints.
I forgot the series of the videos I got when I purchased the package, but it was very thorough on how to use the skeleton system. I'll try to narrow it down and repost here. It was very, very helpful. |
Post by Finis // Dec 2, 2007, 2:03pm
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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Thanks James! The weight paint tool looks interesting. I'll be sure to finish modeling before rigging with a skeleton.
Reading the manual has solved the attachment "problem". I misunderstood what the Remove Vertices from Active Muscle or Tendon tool does.
The manual states that the Remove tool leaves the vertices attached to the nearest bone. I thought they were just left with no attachments. I was trying to unattach everything and then make only the attachments I need.
This misunderstanding and not reading the manual is probably the source of my TS 5 troubles too.
It makes sense that all the vertices must be attached to something. Otherwise what would unattached ones do when the skeleton moves? So, I tried selecting a non moving bone and attaching all vertices to it followed reassigning some vertices to the appropriate bones. That worked well.
I also learned from my experiments (suspected it might be trouble importing skeletons from TS 5 so made tests in 7.51) that a much simpler head skeleton than mine would work. I'll stick with the one I've got for this so I can spend time on other parts of the project. |
Post by Finis // Dec 6, 2007, 6:40pm
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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Here is an animation test of expressions. His eyebrow bones can slide up and down and rotate but only rotation is part of this test. Smile, frown, and open and close mouth. I'll leave out eyelid movement to save time.
His collar needs work on the wool just under his chin since it sticks out too much. Most things in this movie will have a style similar to these trees.
I'm using the model side for this project.
I need your help:
-- How can I delete all animation in a scene or associated with an object? I tried the delete all animation, cascade feature in the scene editor but I must be doing something wrong. The animation remained.
-- Can I get 30 frames per second when writing an .avi file from model side?
All comments, crits, and suggestions are welcome of course.
Finis |
Post by jamesmc // Dec 6, 2007, 6:49pm
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jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
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Awesome expression! :)
Looked at your questions, but catching a cold - so drowsy and can't think. :)
Will try again tomorrow, maybe some one will help you out before then. |
Post by 3dfrog // Dec 7, 2007, 3:17am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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Nice expressions! Coming out nicely. Keep up the good work. Is this done all in model side or workspace side? Are you using motion studio bones for the face? |
Post by Finis // Dec 9, 2007, 7:39pm
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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3DFrog: Thanks. It's all model side. It started in TS 5 and modeling is mostly still being done there. I made the head and body bones in TS. No Motion Studio in there.
James: Get well. Get over that cold.
------------
I'm getting frustrated trying to attach the elf's skin to his bones. The head went well but the body is not working out well. Too disgusted and tired to describe the problems now. Joints return to some pose or another unexpectedly and nothing I do stops that. I attach skin the way I want only to have the attachment change unexpectedly even though I know what the Remove Vertices from Active Muscle or Tendon tool does now. I don't even use that tool now ... just the attach tool. Sometimes the whole character gets distorted by skin reattaching itself strangely.
It's looking like I'm not going to get this done in time for Christmas. Not even an abbreviated version. I'm tired of fighting with the program instead of making a movie.
Here's a picture of the control mesh with the bones. |
Post by Finis // Dec 11, 2007, 7:45pm
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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Well, I got his skin attached mostly. I discovered that editing a joint by rotating it can cause the skin to twist. Reattaching the effected portion of the skin at the vertex level fixes that. The lasso and rectangle select tools are quite useful for that.
I like the way trueSpace's bones tools (model side) are supposed to work but it is very unreliable. It crashes a lot. Sometimes twisted skin would fix itself if I clicked the object tool (arrow, selector). That's an unreliability thing too. Inexplicable random things happening is bad.
The simple control mesh I made didn't work well. It made a good SDS mesh but there wasn't enough detail to prevent strange folding etc. when limbs moved. Quad dividing the control mesh produced an SDS surface that was squarish. So, I did one level of SDS on my simple mesh, extracted the surface, and used that as the control mesh. That gave enough detail to have options in how the skin was attached.
Maybe I should point out that I'm attaching the control mesh to the skeleton and the doing a layer or two of SDS. That's the right way to do this isn't it? Should I extract the final mesh from the SDS and attach that instead?
A film of Snowy Evergreen's first step is attached. I need to learn more about moving and posing him but this showed that the skeleton and skin attachment will work. His toe and boot bend like I wanted but his knee has less bend than he had in the keyframe pose.
I also must learn about the clip feature of TS 7. That looks promising. As does the workspace side but I won't get anything done by Christmas if I don't stick the semi-familiar stuff for now.
Due to lack of time he will just wave and smile and hold up a Christmas card or such. I'll still make the short film I had in mind when I have learned enough to do it. |
Post by Norm // Dec 12, 2007, 7:58am
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Norm
Total Posts: 862
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Reading one of your earlier posts, I could not help but wonder if you were restricting the movement of joints or leaving them at default (no restriction). This is where a lot of quirky poses can come from. I always argued that a joint, by default, would have no more than say 10 degrees of freedom. This would force you to go in and edit the degrees of freedom the joint has. But beware because there exists too much freedom in default joints.
Regarding which technique to use with assigning verts to bones, it depends which way you want to approach it. One or other may appeal more to you but knowing you could use different approaches may be helpful in the long run. Allows you to be more flexible in your work.
Looking good so far though :) |
Post by Finis // Dec 13, 2007, 6:47pm
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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The bone circled in the picture became unselectable for muscle editing. When I used the select muscle or tendon for editing tool clicking this bone did nothing. I could select it in the scene editor but the edit muscle tool still would not work on it. It would work on other bone/joints. I think this was the first bone placed in this skeleton. I found only one thing unusual about the bone. In the scene editor there is an extra object labeled "nail" but it has a different symbol than the regular nail. The regular nail is on the hip bone. I deleted the mystery nail, in the scene editor, but nothing changed.
It gets worse. After several attempts to select the bone, other bones, or joints, or use the edit muscle tool ... the edit muscle tool would no longer activate at all for the elf body. Not by right clicking the bone while the skeleton was selected (which had activated the tool before) nor by selecting tool's icon. It would activate for a cube with a couple of bones I made, in the same scene, to test it.
It gets even worse. I saved the scene and exited TS 7.51. When I started it again the skin had become distorted. See the boots picture.
I must now ask: Has anyone really made an animated character, all in TS, no plug in's, using the native TS bones/animation system one the model side?
Norm: Thanks. I did limit the movement of the joints. |
Post by Finis // Dec 15, 2007, 11:19am
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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On my browser at this time I have one tab where I am typing this post. On another tab I have a page describing XSI Foundation.
This was supposed to be a thread where I would happily share my work on this project. Instead I have encountered a nightmare.
I started TS with version 3. I don't know just when that was but it was at least back to 2000. TS3 and TS5 have done a fine job for me. Mostly the bugs etc. in those were tolerable. Sure the expensive programs do more. I certainly can't afford them and TS gives a lot per dollar.
This is my first attempt to do an animated character. I have done simple animations with TS before. A toy train. A camera fly by of objects stopping on a Primal Particles snow globe. I used bones in TS5 to make Santa's hand poseable for this picture http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=1710. (Note: this link goes to the thread but not directly to the picture and behaves differently if you're not logged in. The picture is one of the last ones.)
This elf movie started in TS5. I got TS7.51. Trying to import the TS5 objects and bone and animate them in TS7 worked for the head but the body produces an endless amount of bugs, crashes, quirks, and generally strange behavior. In TS5 if I saved the head with the skin attached then upon loading that object into a scene the skeleton would be moved away from the skin and nothing would correct this.
(TS7 Model Side)
Head: Control mesh and skeleton done in TS5. Saved each as a .cob. Loaded into TS7 via TS6 files feature. Saved as a rsobj files to ensure any conversion was complete. Loaded those files in and attached skin and adjusted the attachment. After I corrected my misunderstanding of a tool, that worked fine.
Body: Control mesh done in TS5. Put in TS7 as above. Bones made in TS7. See troubles in previous posts.
So, I thought, some of this is me and some is bugs in program and some of those can be worked around. I asked, "what worked and what didn't?" The head worked. Simple test TS7 objects worked. Maybe an originally TS5 mesh and a TS7 skeleton aren't compatible. So I made a TS5 body skeleton and followed the same procedure as for the head.
To be continued ... |
Post by Finis // Dec 15, 2007, 12:56pm
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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(...continuing)
Now working with objects made in TS5 and brought into TS7 just like the head's ... which worked. This is all model side.
I scaled and moved the skeleton and the joints and bones to fit the skin. The Skin is not attached during any of the following.
Suspecting there would be trouble (now why would I think that?) I made a "before" screen capture. Then I saved the scene. When I reload the scene one of his legs was distorted. It had never had this position until now. Also, the nail had grown to enormous size (diagonal lines off top of picture) . See attached before and after pictures.
The leg was bent at the knee, around behind the elf, with his foot inside his head. Worse, if I clicked on the leaf bone, the toe, another joint and bone were added even though only the move joint and move branch tools were selected. Other parts of the skeleton could be moved normally. If I left the extra bone there then I could, and did, move the leg back into position. There I discovered that the extra bone was not extra! The toe must have been missing after reloading the scene and the "forced add" bone was the toe.
Only the top view would show the entire nail when zoomed out a lot. It could be moved there and otherwise worked normally but changing the bone the nail is on using only the top view? Not good enough.
I saved the scene and reloaded it and all was in the same condition as when I saved it. Bones in the correct positions and the nail still huge. I exited TS7. Just now I opened it and the bone has shrunk to a useable size.
So think about that.
-- I can't reliably save my work. Stuff changes merely by saving and reloading a scene.
-- I can't use my TS5 objects ... at least not for animation with bones. TS should certainly be backwards compatible with its own files with a minimum of trouble.
-- Random bizarre things happen. The nail grows then shrinks, etc.
Maybe if I had made everything in TS7 this would work fine. See comment above about backward compatibility. Maybe everything else in the program is great. That doesn't mean this shouldn't work. Saving your work correctly is essential. All programs must do that. I don't trust the rest of the program now. There is a serious quality problem here.
I see great work posted here that people have done in TS7. I haven't read most of the postings about difficulties so I don't know what others have experienced. I should read such postings.
So you're going to say, "use the workspace side." I look forward, well I did look forward, to learning about the workspace side. Maybe it is so awesome that it brings joy to puppies and kittens and everything will be perfect forever. But I paid for both sides.
Norm mentioned earlier that flexibility is valuable. It certainly is. I prefer the detailed, numbers, see-the-mesh kind of work. The model side kind of work. How about the flexibility to use TS5 meshes in TS7 animations?
I'm not giving up easily on TS. I'm going to watch the tutorials that came with it, study the manual, and watch to see if bugs are fixed and the fixes available free of charge.
So, I am looking at XSI Foundation. I see claims about what it does and how good it is. I'm thinking, "Deja-Moo" ... I've heard this bull before. |
Post by trueBlue // Dec 15, 2007, 1:04pm
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trueBlue
Total Posts: 1761
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I would try this if it was myself.
Import tS5 Elf from model.
Use the Mesh Collapse.tsx plugin if necessary.
At this point I like to relocate the Axis to the center and bottom of character. Then Normalize the Elf's location, putting the bottom of his feet at 0, 0, 0.
You could then save this as a COB file within Model.
Switch to Workspace.
You could then save this as a RsObj file within Workspace.
Open up 4View layout and position all views to encompass your Elf.
Select the Build Skeleton tool and start by adding your first bone in the upper Torso area.
When Skeleton is completed, select the Attach Skin to Skeleton tool and then select Elf's mesh.
Select the Set Pose as Default tool.
At this point you could set the Bone Envelopes but defaults work fairly well.
Next select the Weight Paint tool and then a bone to start painting. Be careful to unpaint the areas that you do not want influence.
When you are done painting select the Dynamic Pose tool and move your Elf in every which way you can, to see if there is any stray vertices that have not been painted. If you find some stray vertices, select the Weight Paint tool and paint those vertices back into position. If you have areas that are influenced by other bones then unpaint those areas. Now select the Reset Pose tool. Repeat if necessary.
Next you could set the Joint Limits, add Locks and Handles.
Of course save this Rigged Elf in Workspace.
I think you will find the Workspace far more enjoyable then in Model, two entirely different systems. All of the above assumes that trueSpace7.5.1 is running in it's Default settings as when first installed. |
Post by Dragneye // Dec 15, 2007, 11:03pm
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Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
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Hey there finis.
Listen pardner... catch your breath, grab a coffee, and... read on. I apologise in advance if this is what hijacking a thread is/means, dunno (I ain't good at politics, but I am going thru as we speak the same frustrations and gar... [I'll leave it at that], that your going thru; figured it's a good place to unleash some Dragonfire, because I need to make some decisions within a month or so)
You are not alone!!
I bought 6.6 Nov. 06. I have spent a year getting to learn how to model (I ain't great, but I got the swing of most of it). In the last month or so I have spent all my time learning to animate. The reason I bought this program is to ANIMATE. That's my bliss, that's my goal... always has been. The program worked great with almost all my crashes happening since then. Had dropped my first attempt at skinning ('Elegant Swans') cuz I can't even attach a skeleton, and when I did after many days of trying (by what seemed luck since I hadn't changed much of anything), would move an arm or leg and the model/skeleton would go nuts, ending up in poses that I couldn't even imagine on my own, not to mention continuous crashing.
EVERY attempt since then has been a nightmare, the latest one 'Journey's End' soldier., so bud... you are NOT alone.
Now I too have seen some great work on here with 7.5. I have also heard stuff like, "Oh 7.5 is so much better than 6.6 for animating." "6.6 is/was buggy", "7x is a new architecture... it's so much better" etc etc.
HOLD ON! The between the lines in 'New architecture' is... NEW and better bugs! So we can blame the architecture, the 'newness' concept. We can say "we're phasing out the old model"; fine, it's the nature of the beast in this field. Fast changes and upgrades are inevitable. We can say that many of the crashes are due to one's computer not being able to handle it ( my instinct says that may be some of mine and others reasons for the crashes; granted. But SOME). Alright... it's getting long-winded.
Here's my point. Finis, one of the issues may be a bad modelling job, or too many verts, or rogue verts. All of these will mess ya up. Your elf seems simple enough vert-wise that I can only guess that it's the model/workspace incompatibility that's doin it to you. All I can offer is, get used to creating/doing your work in the 'new' side of 7.5. It seems the way to go from here on. It also seems that mixing 'old' with 'new' creates many unwanted, or un-needed, headaches.
To those I upset... well, dat's life. Tell me though... how many works have you started and didn't finish because the headaches got too big? Or worse, how many of you have looked somewhere else to get your job done?
To those that I made smile... there's nothing to smile about. This is a good program that we are all fighting to make even better. I actually love this program, and it has great features, and a great future (I have a copy of the demo 1.01! Whatta ya think of dat!). My instinct says (and when pure and unbiased, my instinct is always good) that this can be/ will be the new big boy on the block (here's somtin I've kept to myself. I think the 'big boys' are trying hard to avoid any real comparisons because in their hearts they KNOW tS is a great deal, and a good overall product. How can they then justify their high prices for almost the same thing?)
To those that can make a difference... DO NOT release the next version without addressing, and Solving these basic ills. (WHY does it prefer to just crash rather than interrupt the procedure, or slow down its calculations, or whatever it needs to do to keep going? It's not like it a good failsafe that at least saves the work. What the heck is the program freaking out abt, or from?) You will be killing marketshare! You will be killing long term profit, and admiration.
Lastly, your patience with past vocal dissentions is admirable. I know for a fact that you have gained extra respect from others and myself on this point. We won't even look at sites, or programs, that squelch honest opinions, or debate.
Finis... sorry bud. Didn't mean to go this long. I owe you a beer ;)
Now back to your regularly scheduled program.... |
Post by Steinie // Dec 16, 2007, 6:40am
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Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
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There is nothing you guys are saying that I am disagreeing with, except your approach.
Why are both of you starting with major models to learn bones and animation using ts? Sure it can be done because I've seen the results of others many many times. However their early works started as basic shapes until they learned the ins and outs of the application. Look at what Frank does as an example. Nothing but simple shapes doing realistic actions.
This is just my opinion watching your frustration. There is a huge amount of discussions regarding Animation using different versions of tS in this forum and previous forums. Maybe someone had the same problems and you can learn from the help they recieved. I would help you myself (and I wish I could) but my focus has not been Animation yet. When I do start I'll start with one joint and two bones and test the stuffing out of it until I understand the strengths and weaknesses of these tools. Increasing complexity as I go until an Animated Soldier, Swan with flapping wings, or even a fully articulated elf could be accomplished.
I think that in the future if we can get bones working in shared space the Animation Classes by 3DFrog will have even more students. |
Post by Dragneye // Dec 16, 2007, 11:50pm
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Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
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AWWWSOME!!! I have a great new idea for a short!! It's called "Critix" or somtin like that. Thanx guys!
Stienie your point is a very valid one, and logical. Problem is... I did. I did the Can tut; I did the 3 section tut; etc. And I had problems with those. There couldn't have been any easier models than those. And, many times, using the same model without any alterations, sometimes it works, and sometimes it don't. Maybe it's me, or my models; maybe it's my technique; dunno. But my animi headaches have been so numerous, the crashing so prevalent that the process has been way too daunting to be fun, or efficient, and ultimately, effective. I'm not a praying kind of guy, but every other minute as I go thru the process of skinning, or moving my model when the skin finally does attach, I pray that I can make it a lil more before it all falls apart. It's a terrible way to work, or advance. It starts to destroy confidence, or enthusiasm; it starts to wear on loyalty, and it starts making me look elsewhere.
Now that wouldn't be a problem, loyalty must be earned, it don't come free. I can move on. Except... 1- I have spent a year learning THIS program 2- I love it; I think the inerface and tools in general are great, better than most other programs; and (personally) more importantly... 3- I think this is a great group. From the forum members, and from my small experience, the staff. They have been supportive, helpful, and pleasant.
Bottom line is... I Don't Want to go somewhere else! And I don't want to have to. trueSpace is the CG future bigboy... I feel it in my bones. It may be the case that all animation programs crash from time to time; it may be that much of it is me and my computer. But not all of it, and because I am overall very happy to be here, I want tS, I want Caligari, to succeed...
Which is why I bother to say... take care of, clean up, find solutions to (No matter WHAT you have to do), what you have Already. I shouldn't have to buy anything external to do the same job I bought tS for. |
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