Obnomauk

http://www.am-guide.com/SetUp/ of course you can always buy the book... -David

Great to hear, so you've reported it and submitted data then? -David

Popping due to gamma is an issue that hash addressed i think around 10.5 (but it could have been earlier or later) you can get popping in the model window but it should remain stable and 'locked' during animation. I think you might just be seeing a re-draw glitch, especially since you say it goes back to normal when you enter muscle mode. I'd render to file (final quality) to make sure that this shows up. if it does you might need to file one at http://www.hash.com/reports -David

Well considering any pages past the limit in the contract results in a charge to my advance.... I think I'll just stick to the page limits. If you guys want to gather your nickles and send me the $4 per page they will dock me over the 600 then we can talk Printing a production for an additional 400 pages would not be inexpensive for the publisher so I can understand their stand point on the matter. -David

but it would make the book about 5X longer which for a comprehensive A:M tome would ratchet the page count up into the 900-1000 range easy; which most publishers aren't going to do, as it will have to cost you the consumer in the 80-100 dollar range. We writers are pushed down with page limits so all the clarity and step by step with each step illustrated type tutorials wind up just cutting into the amount of the software that can be covered. I'd love full color as well, the only publisher I've seen do a real good job on this was New Riders, the remiander of the feild is pretty cheap. They give the author the option to have a set of 'color plates' but those are so far removed from the text that it needs to relate to that it does very little good. I opt to put the color versions of all the figures on the disc instead.... All that being said, as I am currently writing the update all this discussion on what people want out of a book has certainly been distracting and helpful . I too look forward to whatever Georgia and her author have for us! -David

Looks fun! My only question is: where is shaggy? -David

Hey David, Great looking rig so far. I do have one critique to offer on the leg control set-up and the complexity thereof. Specifically on the ball pivot/rotation of the foot. what I'm looking at here are basically three working bones + smartskin for what I would think is basically a single bone/heriarchy+expression solution. It also does one of those things that I just don't like it places a control in a position that seems unrelated to it's function. I know you have the bone named in the PWS but the animator is just going to want to grab a bone and 9 out of 10 of them won't think that the bone floating in front of the leg has anything to do with heel lift or ball-of-foot pivoting. just my opinion of course. I have attached a simple leg (basically my same standard leg rig from my tut but with heel lift and secondary pivot controls added in.) that shows where I would put the control and how it can do the job pretty much 100% with hierarchy. I didn't on this example but I would also add an expression to make the toe manipulation bone rotate in opposition to the heel lifter at least in the X axis, allowing the natural hierarchy to control the Y axis needs. Give it a look-see and see if you agree, or not (P.S. sorry it took so long for me to get back to you with this!) -David simple_leg.mdl.zip

Obnomauk whenever is fine with me. just let me know a day or so in advance and I will block out the time slot. -David

Have I mentioned that wings are hard to rig it's been on and off the burner for weeks now and while I think I have a fairly manageable solution for just wing and feather happiness in general, folding a wing is a very complicated maneuver, lots of feathers sliding over and under other feathers. But I do love a challenge! I hope to have something substantial to report soon(ish) -david

see now that is what I'm talking about Thanks for the project Steffen when I have a chance to get to cloth (still pushing on composite) this will be a big help. -David Rogers

Keen little egg, and for three bucks a steal! I for one am glad to be welcoming eggprops back! -David

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8810 How about this Paul? -David

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8810 We are progressing here folks. Glad to have your interest Frank! -David

A:M Guild (as culled from the logs of wednesday night chat ) OK here's the deal and the vision as it sits. First off this whole idea is in place to help produce more quality animation, and more users that are trained and capable of producing said animation. I have been approached not only by people who are interested in learning but also professional animators who are interested in training people. (And when I say professional I mean people I myself would be more than willing to apprentice under.) The immediate goal behind apprenticeship is this: The people who are the most capable of providing direct and focused training are often those who really have the least amount of time to do so. How can we help them make time to help the community learn? Conversely the best way to learn something is often by having a more experienced person provide direction and critique on our work, but for most A:M users this would either cost a lot of money or just isn't feasible for a number of reasons. (i.e. can't quit job to go to art school full time.) If only there was a way they could get access to a knowledgeable tutor and focused critique.... HEY you got chocolate in my peanut butter! the intermediate goal is to increase the A:M user talent pool. You spend lets say six months to a year learning and working on some animation as an apprentice, you walk away a better animator. You apply that learning to your personal projects and you find it's easier, and you make more progress more easily. In say two years the number of short animations produced by the community increases as does the overall quality of those animations. That's good for Hash inc. its good for users its good for all of us. In a few years you might say to yourself: "Self, I know a thing or three now and I might like to help some new folks learn like someone once helped me." You just happen to be working on a short film of your own. You take on an apprentice and pass on the lessons you learned and the cycle is completed. We build a stronger community, we create more animations, we help pass on our learning. If none of that sounds like a good idea to you then... well skip it please. But by the poll there does seem to be enough interest to at least get a first round started. So I'm going to go ahead and spend some of my personal time to get it running. (Yes this costs me something (as if four hours of sleep a night was too much.)) First some guidelines for both Mentors and Apprentices: Mentors: will need to have a project description, and an idea of what they can offer to a prospective apprentice. They will need to demonstrate a firm knowledge of A:M, art and animation. They will need to be available via email, A:M Community, or some other instant messaging/chat service, to the apprentice for the duration of the apprenticeship. A given mentor may not take on more than two apprentices (just to be certain that each apprentice gets the attention they deserve.) Apprentices: will need to have a basic level of A:M knowledge, this can be demonstrated by completion of the exercises in TAo A:M, anyone who has a certificate from Rodney qualifies. if you have done the exercises on your own but have not gotten a certificate please post your exercise results and get certified . They will need to be available via email, A:M Community, or some other instant messaging/chat service, in order to receive assignments/critiques from the mentor. An apprentice may not sign up for more than one mentorship at a time (lets keep this sane ok? ) Other than that it would be up to the apprentice and mentor to come to terms on what the apprentice would be working on and what kind of schedule they were working on. I have some suggested guidelines but if an apprentice and mentor agree to something different then they can work that out on their own. as a general guide: An apprentice can be expected to start on something small, like back ground animation. but they should be constantly working towards bigger more involved tasks, ideally ending up with some amount of "hero" animation as a final goal. The apprentice should expect prompt response and full critique of their work by the mentor, this means that the mentor will generally say something other than "great work" indeed the mentor might seem to be very harsh. (Depending on the mentor of course, 'cause some of us are cuddly wuddly.) The apprentice should expect the mentor to point out flaws and pick nits. The apprentice should expect to work hard... let me clarify that: ANIMATION IS HARD WORK, you should be willing to apply yourself to the full extent of your ability towards your assignments, if you can't see yourself putting in more than a few minutes a week on this then you should probably wait until you have the time to spend. In turn the Mentor should expect that an apprentice will work on an assignment and keep them informed as to how they are progressing. It should not be necessary to send constant reminders or ask for updates. The mentor should expect to spend time viewing the apprentice's work and providing full and thoughtful critique of it. The mentor should expect to be asked questions and be fully willing and ready to answer them. The mentor should be willing to hand over work to the apprentice in line with their progress meaning that you shouldn't hog all the hero shots to yourself. A Mentor should not expect to put the apprentice to work on all the 'boring' stuff that they don't want to deal with. A project should be the extent of an apprenticeship once the project is finished the apprentice should have 'graduated.' Projects should be non-commercial unless the apprentice and the mentor agree otherwise. Otherwise we are all adult(ish) here so we should be able to come to terms amongst ourselves. I am working on a set of criteria for Mentors and will post those as soon as I have a general idea of what those will be. I would like to keep this moving along at a rapid clip as momentum is definitely required to have this work. Lastly I have read this thread: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8775 and I do appreciate the concerns expressed. However, nothing is going to be perfect especially right out of the gate. there are years of hard won experience and thought behind this proposal most of the alternative suggestions have been tried or failed to get off the ground. Short of charging buckets of dollars to compensate professional instructors for their time this seems the most feasible way to get more involved/in-depth training. If you don't think so or don't like it.... well don't sign up. -David

what's that saying about being a nice guy....

I have already posted this in the New Users Forum but thought I would take a moment and post here as well. Take a moment and read this thread over: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8730. Basically I am just looking for a show of interest in a program of this type. where a new(ish) user can pair up with a more advanced "mentor" and learn both the ins and outs of A:M and a little about producing an animation. This would be free for the apprentice payment would be an extra pair of hands to work on a short film. which can then be used by the apprentice in a demo reel or portfolio. It seems win win to me, but before I or anyone else slaves over getting it started I'd like just a little idea of how many people would have an interest in participating. -David Rogers

Well as character modeling wraps up I thought it might be nice to post a render of the Villains of the short assembled for all to see. This is just my scale test chor (to make sure the characters are all the same scale) lit with Skycast to make it pretty from right to left: Thug, Roma, Rutger and Peppe. The tomatoes were modeled by myself Peppe was modeled by Troy Gilliland. These characters are not textured yet, but I'll be passing them off to the texture artist as soon as I finish rigging them. Comments and Crits welcome. -David Rogers

my guess here is that you added your model to the action as an action object on accident. that you basically have an action with no model and simply have an action object of the character , when you drag and drop that onto the character in the chor it works find, except it brings in the action object that is the character... just my guess here. -David Rogers

V10 and above have the new implementation the 2002 versions still exhibit popping (which is why it was covered in the 2002 guide ) These days Gamma is not to be feared Huzzah! -David

you have to up your passes until the offset look goes away. I recommend a minimum of 25 passes for real good results. -David Rogers

like balls and blocks man since i misplaced my video tutorial from v4 I haven't seen any of those old shorts.

Thanks Hutch, It's possible in the future but at the moment I'm a wee bit too busy to add another thing to my plate. here's a basic rundown: Hierarchical Booleans are booleans that do not cut mesh that is assigned to bones that are children of the cutter bone. YOu don't have to do anything to turn them on they just are. For each eye i used a cutter (since the eye-sockets are no where near spherical) and made children of those bones to contain the parts of the mesh that are likely to intersect with the cutters (eyelids etc) that i didn't want cut. Of course since I will want to move the cutters to move the eyes the children of the cutter are also constrained to bones that are under a different hierarchy (the head). This way I get non-spherical eyes, and round irises/pupils that animate easily hope this helps clear the technique up a little. -David Rogers

Frankly in this situation it makes animation possible. the eyes on this character are a little more than just non-spherical they are completely egg shaped. Since teh introduction of Hierarchical boolean cutters though I can no have the iris just cut into the white of the eye (creating the pupil while it's at it) and I can simply move the cutter like I would any other eye (there is some smartskin in there to keep the cutter oriented to the white of the eye as it rotates around.) the Pupil is also part of the cutter and simply scaling the cp's for that section on a pose slider does the trick for dilation. It's a very flexable and workable solution. -David Rogers

Javier: Samurai yes, squash no He's a pickle i don't think the textures are all the way there yet though. Dearmad: He's just lit with a three point light set-up (key is a sun fills are kliegs) rendered in 10.5p modeling on this character was a collabrative effort with Troy Gilliland and myself. as you can see the splinage is nice a light and overall easy to animate. the eyes are cut with a hierarchical boolean which makes the non-round shape possible. Thanks for all the positive feedback guys!

Thought I'd toss up one more teaser from my project. This character is finished modeling and rigging but is slowly going through the texture process. Comments Etc welcome -David Rogers