Rodney

Here's a simple case to illustrate... How to reproduce: - Create a two CP spline - Lathe with 4 sections (other cross sections can also be used but 4 illustrates this error well) - Extract the top half out of the cylinder and rotate (for readying the shape to lathe a sphere) - Rotate by typing in 90 degree rotation on X axis - Note error introduced to Alpha and Gamma at top of "C" shape - Also note that this takes place prior to lathing the sphere

Late to the party here. Very interesting. I guess I haven't used that particular way to rotate a sphere although I do type in numbers to rotate things quite frequently. Like Rusty I prefer to type numbers in wherever I can. For some reason that rotation adjusts the Gamma/Alpha of those few splines at the one (bottom) pole. Adjusting those Gammas and Alphas back to 0 gets us back to a smooth sphere again. What is strange is that I can't reproduce the same effect with any other shape than a sphere. Further, if we simply create the spline to be lathed from scratch, lathe the sphere and then rotate the sphere after it is created the error isn't produced. Pressing further it appears that this error is setup prior to lathing. For example, if we invert the spline that will be lathed the error will be at the same location (now at the top of the sphere) Update: When lathing a 12 section cyclinder to extract the half circle for lathing our sphere we can more easily see the error at the end of the spline. (note that I'm working in v18 here)

Part 2 has been posted: The Cinematography of The Incredibles (Part 2) In Part 2 the author pulls in quite a few external reference from blogs he has visited to include Rad Segchrist, Matt Williams, Eric Goldberg, Mark Kennedy and more. There are also a dozen pages or so from 'Storyboard Tips by Giancarlo Volpe' (storyboard artist for Warner Bros Studio).

Update: My browser still won't play the second movie but it did let me Right Click, Download and Save. (Strange) At any rate: I'm set to view "Rigging Ian with the Poker Rig". Thanks!

While it's possible the camera is playing tricks on us I'd say this is more related to fluid motion and movement forward of the man/appendages. Suggestion: Add a Camera into the Character/Model and in Bones Mode place it to the side of the character so you can view (and render) then entire squence from the view of that Camera. Note that when created, Cameras inside Models will appear at the 0,0,0 coordinate and one of the best ways to get them where you want might be to type in the coordinates into the Properties Panel versus move it around. Then in the Chor or Action select that Camera as your view and you'll be better able to analyze the character's run as it'll appear as if he's running in place . You can place additional spline markers within the Character Model as well to establish registration points/marks as additional visual aids (similar to how we can work with stride length in cyclic Actions). To take the analysis to the next level you could then create slightly horizontal markers with the distance to give you a reference of the distance traveled. Ultimately with techiques like this we can replicate setups like Muybridge did at the dawn of animation by compositing all those frames together. Another useful method might be to move to a Right Side View... back out a little and then turn Onion Skin on and play with the frame/keyframe settings. This would let you see the how well your current movement is being inbetweened manually by you and as automatically interpolated by A:M.

Good Taste Makes 'Bad Taste' is a documentary on Peter Jackson's earliest work before his rise to fame with 'Lord of the Rings' and 'Hobbit'. It's easy to image that big time film directors appear fully formed but the truth is much more educational. Several videos chronicling Peter Jackson's early effort to learn filmmaking and special effects are available online and should encourage everyone that they can be creative filmmakers and animators too. Of particular interest to many here will be Peter's innovation and work in stopmotion and innovation when trying to produce quality results on little to no budget. QcxMUZjaT4s cK-q6IJ-qo0 buiEiFCHu98

I'm always impressed by the folks that understand the rigging process. Especially when they understand it to the extent where they can create and adapt their own. I viewed the "“Drop-In” Rigging method for Animation Master" video and there are some nice insights into rigging and workflow I hadn't noted before. One aspect I have struggled with is that of examining a rig to determine how it is working. (i.e. what is that control doing there and why do I need to use it) Another is to better understand how a model needs to be built to take advantage of a rig that is installed. (i.e. when is it ideal to modify a model's mesh because it isn't going to be able to take advantage of the rig that will be installed) Could 2014 be the year where finally I break through into rigging? I'd like to think so as I plan to devote time to learning more. I couldn't watch your second video "Rigging Ian with the Poker Rig". The video controls appear but for me don't work. Thanks for helping us delve further into the world of rigging Mack.

Fxguide is a great resource for the deeper aspects of math and animation. Here is a discussion on linear workflow and color space: http://media.fxguide.com/fxpodcast/fxg-090...linearlight.mp3 Several things I picked up: 2 + 2 = 10 (I didn't quite get this reference) Apple's gamma settings moved to 2.2 which aligns it with PCs. (Has this changed already?) When halfway across the values of a RGB channel we are only about 20 percent in value of intensity (don't hold me to this... I'm going from memory) Edit: With regard to the halfway point between 0 and 255 not being 127 I found this article that explains the difference as resulting from gamma: http://filmicgames.com/archives/299

I actually followed you there... which kind of scares me. I was intentionally vague there because I don't know the correct terminology to use to describe the line that can be drawn from a starting point to a finishing point within color space. In the case of a line drawn through color space I'm not sure anything except the start point and end point would need to be defined as the remainder could be determined based on those two locations. With any non-linear calculations some additional information must be present to at least define the color space. Could we at least conclude that the values between light and dark can be linear even if not all values are known or represented? For instance when proceeding from white to black we can predict what we will find in between. I guess what I find interesting is that when taken in isolation each of the channels operates quite linearly. For instance if considering Red we move from the darkest red (perceptually black) at 0 to a bright red at 255 on the RGB scale. Of course this scale is an artificial measurement designed to make sense of something considerably complicated. Where things get considerably more interesting is where we mix in Green or Blue as that immediately takes us off that linear path into another dimension (that of a plane cut through our initially theoretical color space). I say theoretical because until we know what initial colors we are dealing with we don't have enough information to formulate that space. A third channel then pushes us into a volume of space with additional colors as constrained by our three channels. A linear path could be plotted but we are more likely to see a curvature of color through this volumetric space. (this is rather delightfully demonstrated by rainbows and similar effects) If the value of one relative color changes, our color (the one we are sampling) is very likely going to change. I assume any color sampled along a line or a curve drawn through space created by those colors will be affected by these changes as well. Color is relative and therefore its origin (or origins) traced. I sense that one of the things driving current interest in linear workflow with regard to color space/gamma etc. is that every time we introduce variation we lose information and when we lose information it makes recreating the original (color space) more difficult if not impossible to replicate.

Here's an random example of a sphere in SculptGL that was quickly pulled at from various points and brought into A:M for additional texturing and lighting. Tools like this can be useful for creating things that would take considerable more time to create in A:M... especially if they will never be overly articulated.

Targa and EXR formats store color space in linear fashion. Other formats such as PNG, JPG and TIFF store color space as sRGB (non linear). There are exceptions with some formats but I'm not well enough into this to even speculate. Yes, this is what I believe it refers to. REF: http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini13.0/render/linear

Much like Scultpris but this sculpting application is WebGL and Javascript based. If you need to make some quick topology for use with the Snap to Surface tool in A:M this might do the trick for you as it exports to OBJ etc. Very interesting. http://stephaneginier.com/sculptgl/ Source code is hosted on github: https://github.com/stephomi/sculptgl Added: A quick paint job on Thom...

Yup. Accidentally left off a character at the end of the youtube code. Thanks Nancy! Fixed now.

A site I like to keep an eye on is 'floobynooby' which collects a lot of animation related content similarly to sites such as onanimation.com Quite often the links that appear on one site will appear on the other. Every now and then however the content differs and I'm reminded again why I visit both onanimation.com and floobynooby.com regularly. In this case the posting of the first part of a three part analysis of the cinematics of PIXAR's 'Incredibles': http://floobynooby.blogspot.com/2013/12/th...les-part-1.html For anyone interested in filmmaking and animation, the article is well worth taking the time to purview. Folks pay good money for this kind of information.

Aaron has several more Art Tips online which I'll add to the list above eventually if there is interest. His latest is Art Tip 12: The Secret to Creating Clear Expressions S94VIlQyFWo Some key concepts include roughing in expressions and then tying them down with better detail. This translates well into computer animation when we establish the extreme poses first and then go back through the process of breaking down a shot, inbetweening and layering in additional information and detail. For those interested in digital animation techniques Aaron shows a brief but very powerful technique for rapid digital animation at the very end of the video by leveraging the power of compositing/layers. Perhaps the real news with this latest art tip is that Aaron and a few friends will be revamping his site and (like many other artists and animators these days) delve into the instructional realm by offering instruction. As it is often best to get involved early rather than later in such efforts keep an eye open for the initial offerings via the website.

Looking good John!

Nice one. That's a great test. I really like that. This is a hard one to critique without drawing over frames. Two immediate things come to mind... perhaps three... but I need to study what I think I'm seeing. I'll mention them and see what you think. 1. Full extension of the legs. This guy is really running fast and yet we don't much full extension of the legs (the knees remain bent throughout most of the sequence) Note that upon reviewing again I do see at least one section where his legs fully extend so you do have it in there. It would be good to see how much full extension there was in the original reference. 2. The guy seems to move backward at several points. This may be more of an effect created by the camera and relates to number 3 below. It's not so much that it looks off... it looks pretty good from here... but it may be stealing some smoothness of motion from the totality of the frames as they play together. To test this we might look for and track a specific shape on the guy and note how it changes shape and position from frame to frame throughout the entire sequence. For the sake of animation a little reality might need to be sacrificed for the greater good of visual clarity. This is one reason why fast moving shots in cinema are often presented in slow motion... to allow the viewer time to read the imagery. 3. Visual cues (references) that orient the viewer to where the character is in the scene. If this is a 50 yard dash then it might be good to have some lines and/or numbers on the track to clue us in to the runners location and speed. The start and finish is apparent enough but there is potential for loss of orientation as the camera tracks around. Something I really like about this sequence is how you've got that 'banana' shape that allows the perspective to change. I'm not entirely sure you planned it that way but you've got it going on in this scene! If you are curious it's similar to what Bobby was doing in these sequences. All in all I'm very impressed with this test. If it doesn't defeat the purpose of your test you should render it with motion blur on to see how that plays. Nicely done!

I'm not sure what normal is but it is safe to say that I've moved on to many different and more enduring crises. But to answer your question; from the lighting of myself on fire I am fully recovered.

Ooops. I typo'd the RBG thing. Heh... what a doofus I am. Thanks for setting me straight as that order will make a huge difference or result in many a mistake! Regarding the linear aspects of color: Perhaps I'm thinking of Linear Color Space? I'm still trying to make sense of that for better use of the EXR format, which I hope to exploit some day. Thanks Nancy, I've much to learn on the subject. Added: I should note that while I'm interested in all aspects of color and lighting my primary concern is what we can currently manipulate and control in A:M. It's interesting to note that in the color picker we have a means to convert values between RBG and HSL (Hue, Saturation and Luminosity). Unless otherwise advised I will now assume Luminosity is another term (or at least fairly equivalent term) for Lightness/Saturation.

What actually adds the noise to the sky is roughness... heck nobody uses roughness do they... so I sometimes use it where surfaces look too perfect. I think it was set to 5% or so with the roughness scale set to 0%. The default ground plane is set to Off so that the ground in this scene is actually the bottom of the six sided box... again with a little roughness which interacts with the light to give it a sense of turf or grass. The 'trick' is similar to using sky domes as such. In this case the entire scene is contained inside a six sided box with the back side of the box mostly transparent (77% as I recall). This allows the default camera blue (or whatever color or surface or image desired) to show through to the camera. I believe what makes the noise really kick in is Reflectivity turned up on the back wall of the box. Why put a scene into a box? I'm testing that as an approach to controlling every pixel rendered and to more easily replicate stylistic shots.

Here for no particular reason is a lighting test that came out of the v18 renderer. I like the general look of the noisy sky and ground and might use that as a starting place to delve further. The ground is actually gray in color but is lit to the present colors.

Over in the 'Buying a Cafe' topic Steve was kind enough to share his settings for Sub Surface Scattering. I know there are several topics on settings but this is something I've longed to understand versus just occasionally reference. His settings were: SSS with diffuse color of 253, 227, 185 SSS half distances 3,2,1 SSS extend group to avoid SSS borders General if not naive assumption: The SSS diffuse color settings operate as R,B,G settings in that the first number represents how much Red, the second how much Blue and the third how much Green. True/False? No where close to reality? If true then I would assume Steve's settings have a majority of Red (253) mixed with a good dose of Blue (227) with a mid level Green (185) applied to create his character's skin. I'll note that it's reportedly a good practice never to use extreme values/full colors (0 or 255) when setting RBG values and further assume the same will be a good practice with SSS. Added: Unless I'm mistaken these values equate to roughly 99% Red 89% Blue and 73% Green. Thoughts? Favorite Links? Recipes? One of my favorite links of old was Matt Bradbury's exploration of SSS here. That was at the very early era of SSS in A:M so some things might have changed. From that exploration it seems a key concept for SSS is to let the diffuse color of the Group feed into the SSS half distance settings to achieve the desired color/effect. This is what Steve appears to be doing via his settings. For those new to the topic of Sub Surface Scattering please visit the forum dedicated to that subject: Sub Surface Scattering Forum

Thanks for that! It's been a while since I've used SSS and I really should be using it for my skin texturing. I'll say it is. Looking very good from here! You may hate it but you've done a great job with them. I would have guessed you had borrowed them from another model. Good on you for modeling them from scratch!

I don't know what the status of those is. They've been mentioned before, but I'm not sure who has them or if they are uploaded or what. ----------- I may be misrecalling but I believe Jason Hampton had the Anzovin videos hosted online at one point. Hosting of the files might have been problematic for him. Note to Jason or whomever obtained the files: If they can be made available they could be individually uploaded here in the forum. I'm the one who's supposed to be farther along on making them than i am. I'm glad you find them useful. Until they are all done I'll note that there are quite a few very informative, if not quite so slick, tutorials by many knowledgeable A:M users in the Tutorials section of the forum. If you are looking for somethign specific, ask, and someone will probably know if there is one already. Count me among the users that have thoroughly enjoyed these new videos. There are several supreme problems with implementing 'a complete course' primarily that of every completing the course. There is also the matter that even if available some folks just don't view the tutorials until they have exhausted their wits and patience going it alone. Robert's suggestion is not only correct but is the supreme solution for this problem. Even better... those that take the time to personally ask questions here in the forum not only get there questions answered they often get tailored responses and tutorials created for them. Asking here in the forum also serves several other purposes such as informing those with the talent for creating tutorials that there is a need for some information in that area to be published. There is also the matter of ever creating a complete course that covers all features --- nigh impossible because there are too many features to cover and the fact that things do change and improve over time which forces the more highly detailed tutorials to have a shelf life. This results in an interesting case where less information equates to more relevancy over all. Here is the crux of the matter: Most of us do not know what we need to know until we stumble over what we do not already know. This makes creating a complete course with all features in A:M impossible. But note... we won't let that stop us! Can we do better? Heck, yes! And if given the time this community will do that and more. The good news is that those that are in the process of creating the very same 'complete course with all features' will take the information gleaned from even the most insignificant question, example or tutorial and distill those elements into their own high quality tutorials. Thanks for your feedback and validation that as a community we are properly moving forward. Those that have spent the time creating content for the community will appreciate that. We all learn from each other and none of us goes it alone. Added: There is room in the over all picture for paid tutorials but it's got to be tough nowadays to make that profitable.

Seven minutes of animation is a considerable achievement. The majority never take a project all the way to completion and here you've got this success under your belt. Congratulations! It was fun watching you post progress on this short. There is a lot of work represented in the number of models and sets alone. Add in the music, voices and such and its easy to see this was big production. Not that I counted but I'd wager you approached having 100 models if we including those adapted directly such as the robot? As far as critical feedback... boy I can't wait to see your future projects because you had to learn a ton on this one. First time productions often suffer a little not in what is present in the production but what could be edited out and left on the cutting room floor. I'll head off on a tangent for a moment to see if I can put my thoughts in this arena into words... When I was in high school a very long time ago my art teacher critiqued drawings from my sketchbook with something akin to these words: "You draw very well but your drawings are seldom finished." I must admit that I was a bit too high minded to consider what she meant by that and certainly too wrapped up in myself to consider asking her to explain in detail. Specifically she was referring to elements of light and dark that allowed things in view to recede into the distance or to pop forward and further control the imagery's focus. Note that I thought I had put these elements into the drawings but was not listening attentively to grasp that I was not. So how might the lesson I learn translate into observation related to your short? Hmmm... bear with me here as I attempt to move forward. The music track was well done. It very impressively carried the story forward. The dialogue wasn't as clear and could have been 'bolder'. What do I mean by that? I'm not entirely sure but for what it's worth I'd say the dialogue came through as someone reading a script versus word emanating from a 'real' character. This is no great sin in an early effort but an area to watch to up the game for future endeavors. As I'm not experienced in this myself I'll just suggest the reading should be read in a more exaggerated way several times over and then (only if necessary) scaled back if overly enthusiastic. Several characters seemed to mumble a bit and this exaggerated vocal quality can help to differentiate between characters without any visuals at all. My memory recalls that the voices were largely interchangeable and I would guess that this is primarily because they were read by the same person. That's fine but if one person is going to read more than one part there will be even more need for exaggerated characterization in voice recording. Note that I thought the quality of audio itself was very good. Regardless... impressive work and you should be very proud of this effort. Back to the imagery... As I've mentioned the audio really carried the story forward and this is in great and grand tradition of every piece of quality animation I've seen before. Could it have been edited more tightly to push the imagery more? I think so. Now, I don't recall if there is a specific reason for the length of your short (such as a class project with specific requirements). The length of that audio alone will dictate what imagery you have to put forth. I suppose what I am saying is that with tighter editing there were a few composition/continuity gaps that could have been smoothed over. ***SPOILER*** A random example from memory which few folks might notice: As the robot approaches the ninja's that surround the captured elves the characters are arranged in such a way that no matter which way the robot approaches one of the ninja's are likely to see him. As the story proceeds however the robot moves all the way around to the other side (camera continuity-wise) and makes his presence known by tapping one of the ninja's on the shoulder. The scene works but could have been more direct and clear if the editing kept the sequences objective in focus. Note that I assume the objective to be that of the robot sneaking up and suddenly making his presence known. This is a case where perhaps 'less is more' because similar to an earlier sequence where the robot disappears and reappears and the audience gets that he has not disappeared but simply has moved forward that sequence could work similarly and echo that by letting the story progress in the mind of the viewer. Example: Establish scene by showing elves surrounded by ninjas... Show robot moving forward toward them... cut away so that robot disappears.... show close up of hand moving forward to tap ninja on the shoulder... show startled reaction of the ninja. About four or five story beats and then off they go to escape and the pace quickens even more. Note the change in pace that you seem to have attempted... slow... slow... slow.. BOOM! Reaction time and the chase is on. Not only does this motivate the characters (very imporant!) it clarifies the story points while further informing the viewer. Anything beyond what is essential is either wasted effort or opportunuty for character performance. I drifted a bit there. Sorry. With regard to my teacher's advise "finish the work"... think of each shot as having a sole single purpose. Once that purpose is accomplished attack a new purpose. Minor example: When you show the elves at work near the beginning you might have shown them at a distance as a group (nice establishing shot) but then move the camera in closer to show what they are doing. If staying at the same camera distance too long the audience will begins to say, "okay, we've seen this before... am I missing something?" and they will begin to look for it. Anticipate what you can do with audience motivation by moving to (or purposefully hiding) another story point. Note that when I say 'purposefully hiding' this is to say that they will see something related to this later in the story but it's too early to reveal it now. For your story it might be a close up of a teddy bear or doll being put together by an elf but then later a dozen or more already completed with the elf still making more. That element of repetition but with some progression helps to tell a bigger picture than any shot or sequence can alone. Okay, I've droned on enough. In a big way you have done exactly what my teacher suggested to me in finishing the work. And you have added experience to your current skillset that can come only with actually doing the work. Revel in the moment and be justifiably proud of your work. Take a break if necessary because you've certainly earned it. With the promise of what I see in this short I'm already eagerly anticipating your next project!