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Hi Gary, it's great to see your familiar icon again! It sounds like you have already consulted more knowledgeable minds in the children's media world than us and gotten some clear "not interested" replies. It's hard to ignore that. The expectations for fit and finish in any media is very high these days, just to get anyone's attention. Mark Largent has gotten eyeballs and some fan notice for his "Stalled Trek" shows that he made all himself, but... he hasn't made money on them and no content distributor has expressed interest. Of course, he didn't expect serious interest either. After numerous ventures at the indie comic world he knew that entertainment is a very competitive field. I think we all got into 3D because we had a project in mind. I've been part of several other people's projects and it was fun to help out but not much came of them, ultimately. Today I do 3D because I enjoy the craft instead of having a career goal for it. I enjoy helping and answering A:M questions so if you should decide to pursue your project... because you enjoy it... I and other helpful minds will be standing by.

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply to my pondering post - much appreciated! @Rodney HR Pufnstuf! OMG now you have jogged my memory! I remember watching this as a kid but I can hardly remember it - although I do remember Witchy Poo I think a fair bit of my project does stem from childhood memories, for me The Wombles and The Clangers whom I absolutely loved. I think my work is defo in that sort of arena. Whether it is still popular today who know but they have made a 3D version of The Clanger recently - I think. Funny thing is as I was writing this post I thought 'I think I will just do an update here and there rather than the whole flick I made'. I will take some of the short animations I did and revamp them with the animation skills I have acquired from my training at Animation Mentor and work I have done since. I also remember talking to a publisher and they said I think you should change the main character to the fairy 'Hannah Bannah' and have 'Bella' as here side-kick but I thought 'Nah!' not having none of that, they are the dynamic duo @Roger Interesting what you say about posting the stuff on YouTube, I did start a Facebook page for this stuff recently but it hasn't really moved much… And only this morning I was looking at adding a couple of the new flicks I have created. As for having time to do all this I am self employed and almost semi-retired so I do have a fair amount of time free to work on this. Trouble is the wife is always finding things for me to do and the grandchildren are very demanding LOL!

My thoughts: 1) If you don't try, you'll never know. If trying isn't going to financially ruin you, then there's no reason not to try. 2) There seems to be an insatiable demand for actual quality children's content. I don't think you can go wrong going after that market. 3) AI throws a wrinkle into things, but the things that I've seen done with AI all seem to have a very similar look. Either they have that hyper-realistic look (think of those alternate imaginings of movies set in different time periods that you see on YouTube, like a 1950s Star Wars on Cinemascope, that kind of thing) or they have a more cartoon-like Pixar sort of look. But I don't think you'll ever see anything *truly* unique out of AI, since it can only produce things that look like what it has been trained on. My gut instinct is that outside of certain narrow use-cases, it won't be the panacea everyone is making it out to be. That said, I could easily be wrong, the type of stuff that AI was producing just 3 years ago was fairly laughable, compared to what you're seeing now. But I still don't think it will be able to come up with anything truly unique. 4) As far as publishing your work, YouTube might be the best way to go as there is a pretty big kid's market there. However, in order to get promoted by the algorithm you'll need to produce shorts on a weekly basis, which is a pretty tall order.

@gazzamataz It's always great to see you. From time to time over the years I've seen projects here in the A:M Forum that really capture my curiosity and not just from a general perspective but from one that I guess I would call 'commericial'. In most of these I think... this is a really intriguing concept. Where things get a bit more fluid is where I think, "is this commercial enough?" and "How could this be simplified/polished". I should say that your project reminds me of some of the classics like "HR Puff n' Stuff" which really capture the imagination (and definitely did when I saw the show as a kid. Music has it's songs that are 'ear worms' that we find ourselves humming or thinking of frequently. When thinking of HR Puff 'n Stuff some of the design elements are like this. I think of Cling and Clang as supporting characters but almost all of the characters have an odd appeal that captures the attention. Your 'Bella the Bear' has some of this 'odd intrique' and you've put a lot of effort into the concept over the years. As you've suggested the look and feel is definitely vintage early 2000 CGI which in its own way has some appeal but for most probably lends its self more to curiosity than commericial viability. So to the question at hand which is: ```should I revisit my project once more to see if I get anywhere with it or is the market for children’s characters and stories so saturated I should just tinker with my project for the fun of it?``` I do think you should revisit the project but I would suggest for the moment tinkering with a 'for the fun of it' focus. You already know Bella and Friends could use a refresh in order to test if the concept can be made more viably commercial. While you don't care 'Bella' to be something you don't want it to be it would be a good exercise to consider what a commercial marketing house that took on the project might do to make the concept more marketable. I don't know how familiar you are with Eastman and Laird's experience with 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' but their story is something of a legend. There comic book characters and concepts where purchased and adapted to 'kid friendly' animation and the world took that and ran with it. Some of that success was rather problematic... and lots of changes to characters and concepts happened. All of this to suggest that you firstly and foremostly need to make yourself happy. (While still having enough money to eat and have a roof over your head of course!) You might need to let go of your characters a little (but not to the point where you can't always do your own take as you see fit... in other words: reserve some rights to personal use). If tomorrow someone offered you a truckload of money to license 'Bella the Bear' and they ran with it... where would they take the concept? While having fun... within your limits of production capability... and while waiting for lightning to strike, insert yourself as that someone with the truckload of money and... run with it. I would start with the title concept "Bella the Bear". Bella is a bear. There's where I would start.

Have tried all the things mentioned above and STILL no solution. Chrome keeps trying to open another window even tho I have one open. It tries then closes it. Have researched this browser trying to open and tried all the things suggested online. NOTHING! Every 5 min. or so google keeps trying to open another window and then closes it. AM is still randomly losing the cursor arrow and freezing interface. Running out of ideas but will keep trying to research. If I find anything I will post it here but so far nothing is working. Thanks for all your responses please let me know if you find anything that works.

I've never had such problems with updates myself. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I'm saying you can set Windows to wait on updates until you are ready. There's a control panel option to pause for 7 days (or up to 35 days if you wish). For most people it will be unwise to leave the computer permanently un-updated. In any event, I routinely image my C drive every month anyway.

OK, one year later and I am posting again Some here might remember me from many years ago when I was using AM on daily basis to create my own characters and stories. Well I didn't get anywhere with my ideas other than a few smiles here and there. I tried publishers and some production companies to see if it generated any interest but never got much feedback so it was a bit of a dead duck. I did try the Children's Media Conference back in 2014 but again no interest and more recently another book publishers but that was a no go either. So my question or rather what I am thinking is should I revisit my project once more to see if I get anywhere with it or is the market for children’s characters and stories so saturated I should just tinker with my project for the fun of it? I know it is a question only I can answer but I would like to hear other people opinions since I know there are few people here who have done the same thing. Also with AI getting better and better the world of animation seems like it is going to get inundated with loads of stuff that looks all the same? Oh and here is the link to my project: Bella Bear. It's all a bit old now vintage 2006/7 but I think it could look a lot better. Looking forwards to other people's replies

Yes Rob this does happen, an yes its windows background updates that cause it dont know which versions 22h etc etc, version 19.5 all variants it gets this, I went through this last couple of weeks, fresh install of Win 11, it worked fine for a few days and then haywire after the system did some security and system updates, to the point where it just corrupted the system drive and went into boot, error loop, even with windows restore points and hard drive image backups as soon as it connects to the net and does a software update, you can be guaranteed that it will bug out AM - moral of the story dont let windows run an update once you have a stable system and clone your drive to another one just incase it does, because sometime restore points and or hd images get corrupted too. I had to go back to ver 19 on Win 11 for a stable system, have tried to totally disable any updates but that is " against MS EULA " . . .

I'll note that you can opt for Windows to hold updates until you want it to... https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/making-windows-10-prompt-before-updating/42c226b8-150f-4bef-b0e9-928f8e0ee0a4

The falloff capsule should only show when "Has Falloff" is ON for that bone and the bone is selected. It is showing all the time , even when bones are not selected?

Just FYI my computer is a mini-pc (Beelink) with OS10 windows. 8gig ram. But this problem is something I've never seen before.

I've also had strange things happen when my computer is installing an OS update in the background...it doesn't automatically tell me it's doing that, which is frustrating.

Reset settings had no effect, again this is happening at random times. Sometimes I can work for a while and all is well until it happens again and when it does I have to use the Task Manager to shut down AM. Tried installing v19.5 - no effect. In bones mode in model it turns on the CP weight yellow capsule and that seems to piss it off the worst. Can't enter bones mode without the weights thing coming on. Has not been happening with any other app or desktop GUI so far. Tried creating a sample prj. file with a simpler model and can't seem to replicate the problem. Only happening with the big fat complex prj. file. Will try a different mouse tomorrow and let you know if that helps or not. thanx for responding.

That does sound odd. -Have you tried Help>Reset All Settings - Does any other program have this navigation trouble? - Is this a laptop? Does it have any built-in pointing device like a track pad or pen capability? -Try a different mouse. I had a problem with unintentional scroll wheel events happening when my mouse was failing.

Last 2 weeks have been plagued by strange interface anomalies. Arrow cursor disappearing, can't select CPs, trying to drag material onto group in the project tree just drags (scrolls) entire tree or the whole interface becomes completely unresponsive & have to shut it down with the task manager. This of course is random and is temporarily fixed with a restart but then returns. Just wondering if anyone else has seen these things or is it just my "curse" acting up again? I tried installing 19.5 but problems are still here. Anyone else running into this???? Any help appreciated.

Good to hear you're back. I was on top of the world last October, getting ready to put my website together with my Android Project, my Hyperloop Intersection concept, and of course put the characters in somehow...Then I got steamrolled! 6-7 months of not having any contact with anything online, just a few relatives to call on the phone. Plus while I was away, it seems my briefcase was lost in a fire, so my 'almost ready to go' Android Project is gone, just gone. But I'm able to get my website up and running, even though it's not what I think it could be...and I'm looking forward to staying on my new mind stabilizing medication, so things like that don't happen again!

I guess we'll just have to wait until both of you are not at your real job on the same day. 😀

I got lost in my real job, I sent you a PM and have not heard back?

In 2001, I was commissioned by a designer friend to create a book illustration for a novel called Angry Young Spaceman. A few years earlier, I had done the back cover illustration for Flyboy Action Figure Comes with Gasmask by Jim Munroe. For this next novel, I got to illustrate the front and back cover and even created a short looping animation, which we made available as a screensaver. It's always so fun to work on book illustrations and then go into bookstores and see your work on the shelves. Proudly all made in A:M

I removed the password and added a video file. AI is good at telling me how to explain things. I ask it how to say "The animations will get better" and you can see how eloquent it can say that. I'd say like "Animations suck for now, but you get the idea". Search engine bots should pick up on it now...We'll see if any people notice! I'm trying to put a place for comments. It doesn't show a box to type comments yet, but if anyone sees one, if you could, type something. You can type anything, I don't care, I'm just trying to see if it works. Right now, it doesn't seem to be working...

Interesting, thanks for posting this.

Thanks for posting Rob!

You'll get live answers to your A:M questions at Live Answer Time... Noon CDT Saturday May 31 2025! Neo-classicist painter Andrea Appiani was born on this day in 1754. Hey, Are You Looking at Me? Self portrait (c. 1790) Portrait of Madame Hamelin, née Fortunée Lormier-Lagrave (1798) Portrait of Ugo Foscolo (1801)

Love the Mad Hatter, rabbit and walrus...I wonder what a horde of walruses in Quake would look like?