Rodney

I just read through this topic again and enjoyed it immensely. Thanks for linking to it again David! For those that like to read ahead... check this out: EHBsn1fzUog This video covers a lot of territory but also discusses some common errors in animating arcs. Note: This and many other resources have been made available by Alejandro Garcia who is something of the defacto Physics Professor of the Bouncing Ball and various other animation physics. (REF: http://animationphysics.org/)

Nicely plussed Up Mark! I opened your model and saw a missing spline on a rear leg/hip which I must have missed in my earlier attempt. I added that back in and then checked the position of the bones and was a bit surprised to see it perfectly aligned. So... I Right Clicked and did the 'ol Auto Assign. While there are obvious places where work needs to be done I was impressed by how the Auto Assign did a pretty good job. Back at you (or the next contender in this battle)! Edit: As I was posting I saw what still seems to be some odd spline continuity at the back of the thighs (it can be seen in the attached image): Update: I replaced the goat with one that has an updated Library icon image. Goat_WIP002a.mdl

Outstanding!

Thanks for posting this... I hadn't seen it before! (I hope Sean will drop in and tell us more about this film!) I might nitpick at a few aspects of the short but over all this was very impressive. I say this as someone who rarely enjoys 'scary movies' and cares for Halloween tales even less. This story held my attention all the way through from start to finish. The two areas I think would have really polished the film and taken it to the next level would be pacing and a color check to maintain the lighting/style continuity throughout the tale. What impresses me most? That Sean has demonstrated his multifaceted talent (modeling, animation, special effects, lighting, cinematography, voice work, music... everything needed to pull this film together makes any piddly criticisms of the short pale in comparison. Now, having said that if I were Sean I would go back into this short and attack it with an eye for improving the over all style and pacing. For instance, one could go into the imagery and convert it to black and white... one pass with high contrast. Use this pass to spot out the focal area where the audiences attention should be directed. Then, go back into the original imagery again and extract a color sequence similar to the black and white pass. Run through this sequence with an eye for continuity of colors from scene to scene. Check to make sure colors aren't just randomly popping in and out of the scenes but (just as in cinematography) are motivated and have a continuity by matching the cuts from scene to scene. This was done rather well in the final credits*. An additional pass should probably be ran for general style and texture. By this I mean to say that skin should be consistently like skin (or at least a style for skin throughout the film) and other surfaces should maintain that level of continuity as well. The key here is to consider the element of depth in detail. Things that are closer to the viewer/audience generally are perceived as having more detail. This consideration and consistency will pay off big dividends. An audio pass should be ran to make sure all dialogue is crisp, clear and understandable. If purposefully obscured (as was the voice of the demon in this story) then the audience should be able to understand it more fully on subsequent viewings. Dialogue that isn't specifically intelligible and which will never be for artistic reasons should be clarified/augmented through imagery. In this way even if the dialogue is audibly undecipherable the audience can still make a full determination on what has been said. Finally, a terminal editing pass should be made to tighten up the pacing and in this case to fully sync with the music of the film (which was pretty spot on throughout this short film) One could argue that a separate pass/check should be carried out for each important element of the film and since there are so many important elements... there'd be a lot of them! Why bother to run through these suggestions? Because I think this short film is that impressive already. I can only imagine what it would be if it were taken to the next level. Perhaps best of all... this film doesn't have to be revisited... but it can be plussed up in effect via the next story told with this character. And this is perhaps the most important advice I can give Shaun. You've got the bait in the water and we are hungrily circling around it. We can almost taste the next adventure. Tell us more stories with this character! *There is a thought I would like to explore with regard to short films created by one (or very few people) with regard to credits and that involves the use of the same persons name over and over again. While Sean's effort in the credits is one of the better executed with regard to this repetition I've seen to date, in general this should be avoided. So what to do in a situation where one person has performed all duties on a film? I would suggest that it might be better to revisit scenes from the story and then have one screen where all the credits are attributed to the creator. Multiple repetitions of the same name tend to serve an approach that suggests multiple people have worked on a project and if going to the effort of listing these credits separately, in my estimation, it would be better to find someone which would critique that area of interest and then credit them as a consultant in the credits (one approach for instance might be to begin by stating "with special thanks to" and then start listing those names, "music" then list the name of the important person(s) instrumental in formulating the success of the creators effort (it could be a highschool teacher for instance... if it was Mom... then perhaps consider using only first names in all the credits). Then similarly run through the other credits for other elements of the film. Impressive piece of work Sean. Keep up the good work.

I agree with Sebastian... The difference between the hunchback look and what might be ideal will be Franky's spine. What I think you might be going for more is a giant character who is leaning forward which from the front might make him/her look hunchbacked but from the sides you'll be able to see a smooth flow from the head to the hips via the spine. The difference being that the spine will be noticeably more curved than an average human. This is different than the hunchback look in that the look you have appears to have a growth going out and up -in addition- to the spine. I'm getting set to come out of my workweekend shedule so I should have some time to devote to drawing a possible side view. It probably should be noted that... spoilers on...

Awesomely awesome. Any time we can break the typical CG look the better I say.

I started animating a walk and then... the trouble began... I noticed some Normals were flipped inward (actually, the majority of them were inverted) Going in to flip the Normals I noticed some awkward splineage in the tail but tried to ignore them. Decided to see what I could do to fix them. Connected the tail splines together while trying to ignore the other odd splineage near the legs... Decided to fix the rear legs. Decided to fix the front legs. Am currently trying to ignore the odd splineage in the head/face. I wish I would have recorded this as that would have been useful to new modelers... Still to do: Repair the splines in the head. I know you can get away with animating the Goat 'as is' but my recommendation would be to download the attached, take the time to fix the head and then re-rig. I know it's important to keep the production going but it'll be worth the effort to fix this stubborn Goat in my opinion. I've attached a copy of where I've left off with a rather 5 point heavy approach to splineage but one that maximizes continuity of splines while decreasing the over all number of splines throughout the character. I don't claim it's the best spline layout but I think it's moving in the right direction. I also moved the center spline (and therefore the entire character) over to the center line as well so it can be assumed that the bones are now too far over to the side. I'd press on further but have to get ready for work. However you want to proceed... have fun with it! Added: While it's a bit hard to see I've attached an image to show some of the main problems with the model as it was (flipped normals, disconnected splines, bad spline continuity/terminations). Goat_WIP001.mdl

Very nice Mark! It's probably too early to make suggestions but you know me... I'm torn between suggesting whether or not to put a bend in her knees. I can envision both bend and straight working at different times of the action. I'd say for a still image having her knees bend with her foot back against the lower part of the horses ribcage will suggest a very solid connection/weight/balance between the horse and rider. It'd also push the supporting elements of the line of action forward in the direction of travel. Impressive scenery too! Dare I ask... how much of that is photograph? Love the over all composition.

You should be able to use the shortcut key Control S (and then hit Enter key) to save as well. (I assume here that you want to save your goldfish before resetting)

Happy Birthday Jeff! Hope you had a great one!

Oooo.... this is going to be good. Looking forward to the next update Ben!

After reading that you were studying the 40 Acres sets I googled that and spend some time wondering around the various resources (mostly on the early 40 Acres that no longer exists). I particularly like the site I went to that had markers for where various movies were shot. There is gold in that arena.

Very nice Mark. The time spent on this should pay off well for you. I'm taking notes because Lloyd is going to be needing a similar approach for 'Woke Up Dead'. The task there is going to be made a bit more difficult because the structures will need to have more of a 'cobbled together' feel to them. The jury is still out on what approaches will work best but modular structures such as you've got here are definitely the way to go for the 'hero' buildings.

I was wondering when Sintel might make the transition over this way. Looking very good!

Very nice! I'm enjoying every image you post. There is a 3D Viewmaster feel to this last one.

The second is a generic body type with minimal detail. I was thinking of using a basic character like this as a stand in for background characters... (superhero types) but that's as far as my thinker got in moving that direction. Note: No bones with this guy. Quick exercises in spline modeling like this are highly recommended to loosen up and get the head back into the modeling game. If nothing else they keep the splines flowing and who knows if someday they might not turn into something. TheGuyMesh.mdl

I'm posting a few spline doodles here because I don't think I'll do anything else with them at this point. The first is the start of a female body that didn't really go anywhere... BasicBodyFemale_v0_00__start_only_.mdl

For comparison... here's a basic color profile for PIXAR's 'Bugs Life': (Turned verticle for no particular reason)

I love the sketchy look! (although I'm inclined to call it 'painterly') Nice. The benefits of avoiding too much realism in animation are many aren't they?

That is rather unlike any animation style I've seen in A:M. (A good thing in my opinion) It might be good to slow down the audio/foley of the board hitting the railing a little to keep it feeling in sync with the slow down of the imagery. There was/is something about the imagery proceeding normally and then going into slo-mo that could use an echo of sorts in the audio. (Note: I'm not talking about slowing down the music... that's fine... just the sound effect of the board/rollers)

Nice one Matt. Reminds me of some video games that could be seen in almost every kids arcade in Japan a few years ago.

Where it comes to comic books... well, books in general... I prefer the physical product. I'm a fan of digital but there is something about having that book/magazine in your hand flipping back and forth between pages that is hard to beat. I regret that old bookstores are pretty much gone from the scene and comic book stores... are pale in comparison to what I wish they could be. It's a great time to be in the comic biz but interestingly enough its perhaps the worst time as well. I miss those old comic books on cheap newsprint paper that folks were more likely to throw away than keep.

Off the charts Marcos. Awesome work.

Yes, an example of the first two might be the basic lighting, furniture and or walls in Latimer's house... If this were the case then the sky outside might be a dull or light blue to offset the warm color. This combined with the lighting of the characters themselves then would push toward the emotional state of the sequence... which you've previously stated as isolation for Latimer. I'm extrapolating a little in thinking that fall colors might be nice because usually when someone is in the depth of depression the world around them is not dreery but in fact is the opposite. Latimer has the whole world ahead of him (from the vantage point of his Father and Mother)... but he can't see this. or... if set in the fall the leaves outside might be turning and warm... the season of harvest and opportunity just before the onset of a prolonged winter where nothing prospers and everything dies off... beckoning Latimer to go out into the world where there is more excitment but on the inside of the house it might be cooler shades of color that suggest his life isn't like that outside his window. Similarly, the last two images on the lower right indicate a brightness of light as the characters depart from the Land of the Dead into something better beyond. Of note: the third rectangle to the lower left should be probably be entirely black but that's easy enough to modify. The next stage in colorscripting would be to actually use these general color to depict the actual scenes of the movie. One method is to draw/render out a scene in black and white or grayscale and then paint/color over the top of it. Not looking for detail but for emotion. Right now these images aren't fully set (because they are only in your head) That's why they are (for me) still blurry.

Terry, There are several approaches to decaling but from what I can tell in your case... I would select the item you want to decal and then hit the H key to hide everything else. Then it will be a lot easier to decal any specific area or shape. When finished hit the H key again to unhide everything. Also, immediately after Decaling you can go into the Decal/UV Editor ( on the Decal or Decal Image header in the Project Workspace) and move the Control points around over the decal image to get them into their ideal (or more precise) locations. It can help here to have both a Modeling Window or Action window open along with the Decal window in order to quickly review the results of any changes. Edit: I think you could apply the initial decal with everything in place. Then add additional decals separately as necessary. My thought here is that in the real world these parts would be manufactured separately. So you might want to do the same as well. That is one fine looking plane.