Rodney

One of my favorite animated movies from my youth was the Rankin and Bass adaption of "The Hobbit". When I saw that movie many years later I was astounded to see that it didn't have hardly any animation. It did use a lot of camera moves and limited animation techniques to make up for it. My memory was so vivid of the animated action in those scenes. The designers/director had done their job to convince me.

To the guy who has more showcase topics than is probably legal in most countries... Have a happy one Stian!

Nice! What may be coolest about it is that it has a Saturday Morning Cartoon vibe to it. Or those after school shows that kids just had to watch... of a 'Gilligan's Island'... 'Beverly Hillbillies' quality. I really like that idea. It'd be a great way to reuse some of your still imagery too!

Manuel can handle the truth. A friend is someone who will tell it to you straight and that is what I hope to continue to do. I surely do wish that others would too. There are enough illegit users of A:M already. I'm simply trying to steer Manuel toward being a legit user which I assume is what he wants to do. What should we tell him? Buy the illegit copy and have fun with it? He doesn't need our advice to do that.

Very interesting. It's been awhile since I looked in on the Squetch Rig and I must say this is looking more and more like the ideal rig for cartoony animation.

Manuel, The short answer to your question is that if you bought your copy of A:M second hand it isn't a valid license. The longer answer tends to get people stressed more than reasonably required. There are no longer upgrades in the old sense of the term. The scenario you describe is one of the reasons the old upgrade went the way of the dodo. Too many people misunderstood the terms of the agree upon license. There is a topic that recently visited this issue that goes into the legalities in considerably more detail and includes the perspective of those that don't like it. Bottom line: It's hard to beat a new $79 license. If you purchase second hand (i.e. not from a licensed reseller) you aren't getting the license but you are effectively fully and completely cancelling the previous owner's license as they agreed to destroy all copies when they no longer wished to abide by the terms of said license. The only way to legally transfer a license is through Hash Inc. Hope that answers your question.

I enjoyed 3D Painter while I was using it. After moving to my current laptop I didn't contact Filip to reactivate because I thought I might prefer to reactivate it on a new desktop. In assisting Lloyd with 'Woke Up Dead' it would be a good idea for me to reactivate it again. I'm all about purchasing anew if Filip puts out a new version! What I was working out just before getting disconnected with 3D Painter before was a workflow that allowed me to paint displacement maps in 3D Painter (as regular painted layers not displacement) and see the displaced results almost immediately in A:M. Sadly, that was probably two years ago.

I like the sound of that. I hope you'll keep your presence in those other locations. Those will be necessary to keep folks navigating to your new site. Keep good notes on the process. I expect there will be others who will want a similar treatment for their stories and characters. To hear the sound of new ideas rattling around, I take it you are almost done with the "Wobbling Dead"?

Being able to paint directly onto models in layers (and use the PSD format) is no small thing. I'm not suggesting Mari isn't worth the price. I'm quite sure it is.

A W E S O M E ! (Coolest banner image image I've seen in quite awhile. Excellent use of space and perspective.) That tome would certainly be a testament to your creativity.

And rather unfortunately for us starts at $1995.

Interesting. It seems to me that the primary user variable would be one of scale. The user would know and opt for the desired increase in the fidelity/scale which would take longer to compute out to greater decimals. In other words, the (fast) default might be .3 but the user could crank that up to .333333... (or whatever percentage desired) to obtain greater subdivision/resolution of detail.

Hear! Hear! Congratulations!

Nice. Another scene with a viewmaster feel to it. From initial idea to storytelling animation in two days... that's an impressive workflow you've got going there.

Nice refinements Paul! Looking good.

You should be able to edit all of your posts but posting a new collection in a new post should work too. Jason has indicated that storage isn't an issue and IMO this goes double/triple for the special topics. There is a reason they are special topics after all.

Wow. What a difference AO makes! Nicely done.

Very nice John!

Kat, I think it's great that you are embracing compositing in your workflow. That will be tremendously useful in the long run. Is there someplace we can find more imagery and scenes from earlier in your production? In going back through your topic I see that most of the movies and images you posted are missing. I hope the missing files aren't something I did on my end. If nothing else from time to time I use what imagery I can find to update your banner.

Looking very good! How much more feedback are you looking for? Are you striving to go all the way to a perfect likeness here or just good enough to call your own? At this point my main suggestion is a minor one which would be to extend the belly's color all the way up to the neck. If you want to add a tuft of hair I refer you to Keekat's chest splinage for an ideal approach. In the classic 'Be Largento' tradition it would be appropriate for me to recommend adjusting the splineage so that the belly follows the spline path (and vice versa if you prefer). This is one of the primary benefits to patched based modeling over polygonal approaches because these patch regions/groups greatly aid us later should we want to add/perfect decals/textures/fur etc. Approaching the various shapes of the character without adding any decals at the initial modeling stage really seals the deal on optimization of spline continuity as well and having the characters primary shapes defined by the patches themselves will also help to make the character much easier to animate. One of the secrets to animation is changing shapes from frame to frame so it will really help to define... to absolutely know... what those shapes are. If looking to push ol' Humphrey even closer to perfection I refer you to my last draw over (and post) which suggests tapering the fingers and toes. Oh, and what the heck... a darker/blacker nose. The nose should echo the color of the eyebrows to create a triangle of interest that draws attention to the face where the character's expressions are. Rock on Paul!

(Didn't see Robert's post... I'm sure he's provided a proper solution) Attached is my attempt to reconcile your trouble. Replaced my model with a project file that has a new model in it. I've added Robert's model (locked) beside mine as a general reference. It appears we were following the same approach. My greater concern at this point would be how the Makerbot/STL conversion deals with internal and 5 point patches. hingeV2_11d.prj

The primary problem I see is that the center object has parts that are only one patch thick. The secondary problem is that parts of the object aren't closed. It's easy enough to close the ends but we'd need to know what your target is in order to finish the piece. Are the two rectangles off to the side suppose to be part of (attached to) the hinge?

Added my 2 cents... Of course you should! I suppose the underlying question is, "Do you have a story you are itching to tell?"

Well, I'm not talking about being unrealistic. Unrealistic is being an artist in the first place. There is a big difference between being artistic and being commercial. The first will always tend toward exploitation by the second. Why? Because money is involved in the equation and people will want the product without acceding the proper credit or compensation. So what to do about it? Be timely and be bold but be realistic in your expectations. Expect to be exploited because you will be exploited if successful. But again... and you aren't required to believe this... you define what success is.

You are on a roll here! I wish I had your talent in the modeling department. Keep it up Dan!