Rodney

We made an initial attempt to collect Hair materials to put in the A:M Libary but it didn't go anywhere. Perhaps particle hair was too new and everyone too shy to post their efforts. (The forum didn't accept .mat files back then as uploads either... and it does now) If there is interest we have a dedicated forum for Materials (The Materials Laboratory) so we could shake off the dust and start posting our hair materials there. It goes without saying of course that there are quite a few gems to be found searching through The Materials Lab Hair section.

Manuel, Most Definitely! If the rig is set up right we can move controllers around in real time to layer in any animated movement. The one thing that isn't evident on the video is some sort of menu that the animator is looking at to recall what motions and screen locations control what aspect of animation. Most of these type of controllers in A:M use Nulls as the means to move around an area of the screen to manipulate the character. Also, to facilitate realtime playback most of the menus are created using splines rather than images. For the film 'Tin Woodman of Oz' and 'Scarecrow of Oz' the characters were rigged with a facial rig that allowed such movement but mouse motion wasn't used as far as I know. The animators just worked the controls over time. If you haven't picked it up much of these techniques are based on Jason Osipa's facial animation techniques which he developed while using A:M. He later went on to adapt those techniques to other software. IMO Jason's book "Stop Staring: The Art of Facial Animation" is a must have for character animators. Here's a review of (I believe) the second edition: http://www.parkablogs.com/content/book-rev...tion-done-right There are several Face Rigs featured in the Rigging and Constraints forum. Well worth investigating!

Very impressive Steve.

Now that is entirely too cool. You always amaze Mark. Are you planning to drive it via a force? I could see how a force might push it initially but not sure how it'd reset unless the direction of the force's direction and/or intesity was animated as well. Too bad we didn't have that idea for TWO. That contraption would have been great for Ku Klip's workshop.

If you save a few basic shag materials in the Libary you don't have to mess with the Shift/Creation of Shag Hair. I think all of the default 'Hair' materials in the library are still Shag materials.

Thanks Gerald, I'll keep looking. I have a vague recollection that the values are stored a file within the installation folder that isn't directly accessible. There'd only be one or two files that could be. Over the years I've moved toward using my own system of color swatches but would like to use the Surface properties if I can. The difficulty in maintaining custom colors was one of the reasons I moved away from that.

Thanks everyone. I had a very nice birthday. I think we've started a new tradition this year... on my birthday I buy things for everyone in the family... It's rather amazing how that works.

Does anyone know where A:M stores the Custom Colors from a Model's Surface Properties? Thanks!

Thanks guys, I'm having a great day thus far.

If the hair doesn't add something specific to the final product it may be best to use something else. Specifically what I'm talking about here is that if you look at the thumbnails of both images in the first post there isn't much difference. Would there be much difference if the bear were animated? I don't think so. It may be worth the effort to add hair for close up/hero shots but in this case an alternative might work just as well. My first thought would be to investigate a material such as that used on Keekat. There also use to be a Velvet (or Felt?) material that creates a nice furry look. One version of Keekat had that as well. And... with Keekat the sense of hair (at all resolutions) is further enhanced by the judicious use of geometry (chest hair, facial hair, etc.). Of course since you are experimenting... experiment on! Hair can be used for many things that will be useful.

Nicely executed Simon! Happy New Year!

Happy Birthday to the following people: (Zeeesh. Some of you are REALLY old!) itsjustme(101), NancyGormezano(101), hashlister(11), ptiversen(57), steveb(7), robertalove(76), cfree68f(7), bubba(68), Mechadelphia(100), Sonic84(30), Bruce Del Porte(59), noah brewer(36), kuep(105), Moden(6), Epoch(106), stinkyu111(44), Kusakabe.Q(104), mouseman(100), DanCBradbury(106), PlinyTheElder(57), alano(106), Pygmy(106), asphalt maker(104), freecandyman(28), TheSpleen(54), headofrealestate(48), Code D(104), TD3D(6), Beach Bum Larry(101) Note: I assume these appear because no birthday is set in your forum profile. Happy 2014!

Mark, Thanks for the reminder of those resources. They are outstanding!

Gah... I got it to partially work but as a transparency. I'm headed out the door so can't finish it up at the moment. I'll be back later tonight.

Steve, I'm going to go back to your original post because you said some things that help to understand your goals: One of the best approaches to learning A:M is to work through the manual "The Art of Animation:Master (TaoA:M)". It has short exercises designed to get you up to speed quickly and comfortable with with the interface, modeling, rigging and animation workflow. In my experience those who have worked through the manual (even those who don't do every exercise) are the most successful. Then their hardest challenge becomes what to do with what they've learned. TaoA:M consists of video tutorials and the manual (hardcover or PDF) if you don't have the book readily available you should! There is also the Technical Reference to refer to: ToaA:M Video Tutorials The Art of Animation:Master and The Technical Reference Some folks find the manual too easy and some find it too hard. Most find it supplies a nice way to quickly digest otherwise complicated subjects. You mentioned an interest in modeling and the most useful method I can suggest to learn modeling is to open up some models and explore them. Tweak them. Modify them. Break them. You'll gain valuable insight into how other folks model.

You should be able to just turn the background off in Flash and draw over a transparent background. Any rotoscope you'd use would then be another layer on top of the background but under your drawing layer. Note that a roto can be on top of your drawing layer if it is set to not being pickable or editable. As I recall, converting to .MOV will remove transparency as that format does not store Alpha Channels. AVI does but that probably won't help you here. Trying to save time often wastes time. If you are in a pinch and there is a sequence of images you need converted to have a transparent background perhaps you can post a link to the files and someone (like me) can remove the background for you. If you go this route zip up any sequential files so they can be downloaded in one file. Added: To troubleshoot the setup you have in A:M perhaps you could share the project. It may be something simple such as the key color not being key'd correctly so it only works on the first frame of the animation.

Nice test! A problem with using key color is that any shift to another color will cause the transparency not to work. A question though... Are you using a .MOV file or sequence of images? I believe you'll have more success with an image sequence. Added: If keying out a background that you are creating yourself it can be useful to create the background as a solid color such as pink... or some other color that isn't close to anything else in the image. Even better though... You should be able to create a transparency (Alpha Channel) background via Flash. Again, you might have to save out as a sequence of images. I can't think of a time where it would be better to create a false background that will be removed when you can remove it from the very beginning.

One of the reasons we don't see a lot of A:M specific information for lighting is that lighting and rendering concepts largely apply across the board. If for instance you know how to light a scene in the real world it's easier to adapt those approaches to the digital world. Concepts of lighting in other software can be adapted as well. As there is an internet full of information available on rendering and lighting those areas tend to be set aside in favor of those areas that are not the same accross platforms and software; primary spline technology and how that can be best put to use. While there are endless resources in the lighting and rendering arena, the go to book on lighting and rendering is still Jeremy Brin's 'Digital Lighting and Rendering'. Keep an eye out for it and you can find some copies on the cheap, especially the earlier editions. Jeremy has some short and sweet articles on lighting and rendering that are must reads: http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2165641 Here are most of the articles your find via that link: Top Ten Tips for More Convincing Lighting and Rendering *Hot off the presses! (13 Dec 2013) Lighting Environments and Architecture in Animation (26 Nov 2013) How to Create Realistic 3D Shadows (18 Aug 2006) Lighting Your Imagery (Aug 2001) These articles are short... which makes them even more useful. Note that this last one has a tip that transformed my understanding of lighting and rendering and that is to... 'Start in Darkness'. While it may be useful to setup and test with default lighting in any given program you really want to get rid of the defaults and create your own for your final rendering. Having said that, A:M does provide a nice starting place with a three light setup. My advise however would be when going for the final image delete those default lights and start in darkness. Then start to consider where the 'real' light and heat and emotion is coming from in your scene's specific environment. Another tip worth noting when adjusting lights is, "When you begin adjusting a light, the first step is to solo the light." Turn off all the lights except the one you are adjusting and see how it is effecting your scene. In some cases you may find the light you are adjusting isn't contributing as you thought and in some cases can even be deleted. A third tip which I don't recall seeing from Jeremy Brin is to consider shading all models in neutral grey while testing to avoid having the surfaces of objects trick you into thinking you are seeing effects from the lighting when it is the effect of the surface (often not yet optimized for rendering) instead.

...and with v18 Snapshot we've gained a nice new layout and analytic tool.

Discovering more... I'm finding I need to deliberately click in the window prior to taking a snapshot or else I will (more often than not) get a snapshot of the previous settings. In other news: I love that the snapshot captures the guidelines too. Tres... cool!

But... this isn't to say that the Snapshot Tool is controlled only by the settings in Tools/Options. Adjusting the view via A:M's interface also drives changes to the Snapshot tool. For instance, toggling through Muscle Mode and Skeletal Mode produces predictable results. Todo: Go back and test the disconnect I saw in the earlier attempt to snap shots of the shaded view.

Okay... immediately after posting I've been discovering things anew. The snapshot appears to follow the settings in the Tools/Options Panel rather than the real time/right clicking Render selected (shortcut key) view. The settings maintained in Tools/Options, such as turning off Grid and selecting the view on the Modeling or Action tab, are what drives the results of the snapshot tool.

For those of you with some experience with this feature perhaps you can elaborate on the snapshot feature a little more so I can better incorporate it into my workflow. First, let me say that I am fascinated by how this snapshot feature can do more than a standard Print Screen of the current screen. I do wonder however if I am missing something so let me postulate the following and see if it matches with what you know: - Snapping a Shot will grab a wireframe or shaded wireframe image of the current window (what you get will depend on what View settings currently being used (Wireframe/Shaded Wireframe) - Control Snapping a Shot will pull up the dialogue to allow higher image resolution and specify location for the file to be saved. - If we want an actual shaded view then we should use the keyboard Print Screen or Alt Print Screen function (This seems to work at odds with the first so I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong on my end) - The snapshot feature saves a snapshot with Alpha Channel intact. (Now that is very impressive and I need to leverage that soon!) I guess what throws me off a little is that I'm not getting snap shot images that match what I'm seeing in my working window. What I seem to be missing is how to get a shaded snapshot without wireframe. What say you all? Edit: Hmmm, I changed models and now am getting a shaded view. More experimentation...

And what's amazing there is that Brian created most of his highly acclaimed works long before any modern day rendering came into existence.

That would only be one part of the solution. Faster rendering is mostly a hardware issue. In my view, the goal at this point is primarily to make the process 'artist friendly' and I should add 'director friendly' too. Hair to this point has largely been a technical dance that only a few highly trained and knowledgeable folks could wrangle. Where the money for research is currently, is where they are pushing hair toward physical animation that behaves as real hair would. At that point it just gets directed and tweaked by the artist and director. If the style itself is wrong then alter the physical environment to suit. In A:M's case this isn't as big a deal because the artist is usually the director too. But the big companies with corporate looks cannot have hair behaving in one way for a two second shot and another way for the next two seconds, and another for a third, etc. So this is largely an issue of control. The director says, "The hair needs to be more curly and flop to the side like this(motions back and forth)." The animator then sets up the scene and it works. The physical part of the equation is to create space (reality) for diverse voices to communicate. The part without the solution still seems to be that of controlling hair in a predictable way (in this case apparently with inverse kinematics). As always my view is considerably naive. If I could read the math I might have a clue.