Rodney

@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.

It's all 'math' to me... My question as it relates to 3D modeling is: How does this contribute to continuity of adacent (relatively) planar surfaces? There is another element of this video suggests 0-0=0. But is this more 'pulling rabbit from hat'* in considering that an x - y = z where none of the variables are (invariably) equal? How equal are they and when are they equal? *To use a phrase from the video. This underlying schemes concerns polygons. Useful for math but historically an obstacle for splines and patches. Terms to consider regarding continuity: Triagons, non intersecting diagonals Potentially useful: The Hexagon is a useful construct in that it can be divided into quadrilaterals. Going deeper down the rabbit hole: In the second video we are introduced to the idea of a null subdigon which is the equivalent of a two point line. This is also referred to as the 'roof' of the shape under consideration.

As a workaround until that gets fixed you might try applying the video/reference to a single patch (as a patch image). Decals also work when timing is animated so that is another option. Layers... do NOT appear to work so they are likely effected by the same bug as Rotoscopes.

Robert, Roger and I were discussing various topics and some of Walter Lantz's drawing and animation resources were shared and discussed. Here's one that we didn't discuss on creating characters that includes a storyboarding session. Several currrent day legends in the animation business such as Eric Goldberg claim that watching Walter Lantz's shows delving into the process of animation were early inspirations to them. What got me thinking in the direction of Walter Lantz was his book 'The Easy Way to Draw' which I had never heard of but have recently added to my library.

Change: Along with processing the different values of coins we add some error checking in this one.

Attempt at Scrabble: Note for the curious: A key element of the program is changing inputs to uppercase.

Guest speaker for the CS50 course in 2005... some guy named Mark: As is the case these days... not a lot of people in attendance in the class.

I seriously have issues... JUST DO THE ASSIGNMENT. Is that so hard? Me: I think I'll change the assignment to make a pyramid instead. Gah! J U S T... D O... T H E... A S S I G N M E N T !

Wow! Outstanding. That's a lot of characters. I hadn't realized just how many characters you've created.

In Week 0 the Harvard CS50 course demos programming using the learning tool called 'Scratch'. The first intro course I took in programming used 'Alice'. I liked Alice because it could load OBJ models and Animation:Master could output OBJ models! Scratch is more popular and used more often and its likely if you are younger than 30 you've been exposed to it if you had any computer related classes in school. In Week 1 the course move on to using the C language. This being quite useful as C++ derives much of its standard usage from C. And C++ is what drives programs like Animation:Master.

Here's your chance to master the art of programming and computer science. The course is starting today (officially) but has been ran continuously for the past few years. The course is self paced. Link: https://www.edx.org/learn/computer-science/harvard-university-cs50-s-introduction-to-computer-science Take the plunge. You know you want to. You know you need to.

My current take on this gap between bipartite grids and four color theory is that at the moment we join 'areas' (grid squares) we need to establish a new 'color'. According to the science we don't need more than 4 colors but we can have as many colors as we want. So... Underlying the whole gamut of shape and group assignments our algoritm can chug away at reducing to 4 colors. We then dictate in some fashion the shapes and extents of those areas and build upon and extrapolate from that. To the observant this might appear to place us at the intersection between raster and vector graphics. Attached is this 'nonbipartite' grid project: nonbipartite.prj

Here's an example of a non-bipartite grid, meaning that no two grid squares of the same color touch (even at the corners). If they could touch at the corners they could be termed 'bipartite'. In A:M we can work around this by having multiple groups of the same color. In effect, masking or hiding what is actually happening. In other words, presenting a grid that appears bipartite when in fact it is not. Something worth observing here might be that initial choice of what grid squares were white (given that underneath it all all the grid squares are black). In the first row our white group has started with the second patch. In the second row we shift and choose the patch to the left. We could have just as easily chose to shift right and add that to our group instead. There is something of significance in this choice as it sets the stage for what other grid squares can be selected and included in our group and what grid squares must be left out. But we must make a choice... so is one choice more correct than the other? Should we turn left or turn right? As with continuity it would at least intially appear that consistency is key. Our decision being made we must proceed and deal with the consequences.

If A:M were autogrouping I'm curious how it would color these areas of continuity. Especially as A:M's named groups can consist of areas also covered by other named groups. Four color theory would suggest we need a minimum of 4 colors to assign a unique color to every patch and have no two patches adjacent to each other be the same color. If the surface is a grid... we can get away with only 2 colors (ala checkerboard). But our models rarerly fit into a perfect grid. And discontinuity leads to many problems... In fact, I'd say it runs smack dab into the 4 color theory problem but in this particular case (that of grids (read: patches) thinking we can eternally steer clear of being represented with a less than 4 control points/colors. Added: Here we likely need to look into 'strongly colored grids' or 'king's grids' where no two grid squares of the same color can touch each other. If they do touch then that creates a cascading effect where other grid squares also must change color/grouping. In A:M we see this when we attempt to group patches and inadvertently have other patches join our group becuase they share those other area's control points

One of the (many) plusses of spline continuity is how we can use processes such as 'splitpatch' and autobeveling to increase or potentially decrease the density of our meshes. We do have to watch out for those extraordinary vertexes... er... patches. We don't control all the processes so we have to consider closely how those processes deal with discontinuity (whether preceived or actual).

This intermediary outline (ala lofting*) has a few advantages. One of those is how it avoids creating internal patches. *I rarely here the term 'lofting' anymore. Extrusion seems to have displaced the term almost entirely. I had to think hard just to remember the term and that old A:M plugin A:M Loft.

At this point we should note that there are other ways we can resolve this crisis of continuity. For instance rather than connect edges prior to extrusion into depth we might add a contour of our surface inbetween that surface and its other side. This middleman approach can be used if the surface has continuity at its corners or not but here I show it with the surface with corner continuity:

Moving too quickly to resolve our model to be all 4 point patches can lead to new issues of continuity: That might be fine... if we able and willing to track those cases of discontinuity. Perhaps, even leverage those outliers as opportunity.

One way we might resolve this is to ensure our outer contour (the edge that will extend in depth) has continuity: Astute observers may notice a simularity with that 'basketball approach to spline coverage. While not a problem for us here, the 3 point patches on the corners should be noted as they are not our ideal. This assuming an ideal patch consists of four points which is something we have not yet proven to be the optimal case but for now can take that on faith. We might step past this potential obstacle by bisecting those three point patches and adding the 4th control point but that might not be optimal for viewing peaked models:

Splines and Patches have (thankfully) some unique characteristics. However, as has long been experienced, this presents some unique challenges in a world that doesn't deal well with continuity. I'm attaching two versions of the same model... one is just peaked while the other not-peaked. In the peaked version we might not see the problem as it is hidden from our view. The corner looks like a single line/spline connecting two copies of the same surface, slightly offset from each other. If we unpeak this model we can see the problem: We have continuity but that continuity leaves a gap (a leak so to speak) in our collection of surfaces. Aside: It's fine to have gaps but we want to be able to know exactly where they are and be able to control them) ThicknessAndEndpoints_peaked.mdl ThicknessAndEndpoints.mdl

I guess this might be my take on the ends of boxy or cylindrical shapes: (The basketball splinage approach... although I do sense that we maybe should call it the Malo Method as it allows for interating and increasing/decreasing detail and patch count)

Because this is impossible we must do it. Now all we have to do is live that long.

I feel a bit like I've just woke up in an alternate universe. This has been a thing for a few years now and I'm just now discovering it. (Probably because this is the first time I've used Powerpoint and Word in years) Here's what surely must be Euisung Lee's Running T-Rex of old school A:M fame... obviously repainted... but... ...imported into Powerpoint as an animated model that can be turned around, duplicated and scaled... ...and exported as an animated gif with transparency or an MP4 video. Trexes.mp4 What is a bit disconcerting to me is that Microsoft has shut down/deprecated its Paint 3D program which suggests interest in such 3D isn't actually on the rise but perhaps on just the latest cyclic decline.

Had to use @agep's rendered image to do a flyby of the incredible detail: stiansbismarck_s3_s.mp4