Rodney

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.

Adjusted for bluer (Land of the Dead) hues... and then adjusted yet again with (Land of Dead) gray and for some known story points...

Because I haven't had much time to do anything else I've been thinking of color again. Here are some random color cards to evoke lighting/mood/focus: The reds in the upper left made me think that setting the 'real world' scenes at the beginning of the movie in the fall might be appropriate.* This would also provide a counter to the end of the movie which is more of a springtime/renewal. The majority of the movie itself taking place in a very long season of (snowless) winter. *I haven't compared this thought to the actual script... it's more of an emotional exploration.

Some good news and some so so news here regarding a workflow for quickly moving resources from SVN directories into A:M. Uploading to SVN is an easy process... Just Commit (A:M will ask if you want to save)... so Save, and A:M will update SVN. (Note: You don't have to save for the Commit to work but you might as well.) Long ago I attempted to get a workflow of dragging and dropping Models from SVN directories into A:M but A:M generally wants to open the Model or other resource rather than drop it into the Chor, Action or whatever. I did find a workaround and I have confirmed that it still works in current release. 1. Using the A:M Community window I set up a html page (using frames) that opens the SVN directory. 2. Navigating to the resource (the html windows can have multiple directors open simultaneously) you grab simply grab the resourcet and Drag and Drop -first- into a transitory folder set up in a Library 3. Immediately drag and drop that resource from Library into the Chor or Action. For lack of better terminology I'm calling this process Ping/Pong because you ping the resource into the Library and then immediately pong it into the target area. It takes a few seconds whereas before the process could take minutes using File Open or Importing depending on where the resource is. This process has the added benefit of documenting everything you've added from SVN by its presence in the Library (and that info can be useful and leveraged as well) Of course you can then organize the Libraries any way you wish. An alternate way to do this would be to drag and drop from the SVN folder itself (in the operating system) but then you'd have to have that window open along with A:M. By having the SVN directory open in the Community window the workflow is entirely accomplished within A:M. In other news... the use of SVN is awesome! We really should set up an A:M Extras to collect and distribute community resources via SVN.

Thanks, Jason. I'll investigate.

Gah! Wannabe Pirates issues #1, 2 and 3 are sold out on http://paunk.storenvy.com/!!! What's up with that?!?!? I missed issue #3.

I would dearly love to see the A:M Community spitting out comic books regularly. And if it was some kind of anthology with a nice variety of different styles and characters... so much the better. Somebody write that down as a future project for the A:M Community to tackle!

I agree with Robert here. Unless you are going for one of those 'Wiley Coyote' acts of defying gravity just before plummeting down... in which case you really need to show a close up of his facial reaction. The recognition of the character of what is happening is so necessary to complete that type of delayed effect. It also helps establish that in this environment the laws of physics don't always work as expected.

I hear ya. It'll sound like procrastination but I've got a bit too many irons in the fire these days. I've been toying with the idea of printing-on-demand a personal sketchbook of previous doodles just to smell the ink on paper and turn the pages of the document in my hands. Then when I ran into someone with like interests I could hand them out like candy. In the meantime I'll live vicariously through you. If that's okay.

Living the dream Mark. Living the dream. What I wouldn't do to have some of my own comic books sitting on the table in front of me. Some day...

I thought this was an interesting breakdown of Lord of the Rings characters and their movement through time: http://xkcd.com/657/ Starwars, Jurassic Park, etc. included too. There are a lot of other visual breakdowns of time/space on the site. The reason this appealed to me was that I have at various times roughed out stories in a similar way via A:M splines.

Looks pretty straightforward to me. If you are looking for suggestions I would say that you could have a little progression in the character's fall; three primary poses: 1: Initialing falling 2: Fully falling 3: Anticipating the next scene (the result of which I assume to be 'landing') I would not make those poses overly obvious but you might have to exaggerate them somewhat in order for them to properly read. In looking again I see an opportunity to do the ol' 'go one way before you go the other' anticipation. And you wouldn't have to do much to convey this. The character could simply open his arms more fully outward before bringing them back in again. So: - Arms slightly out as you have them at the top of the fall - Arms fully extended (mid fall) - Arms brought back in as he nears the bottom of the screen You might be able to do something similar with the legs but I would hold back on this so as not to make the whole character look floaty. Perhaps you could linearly extend one leg out straight as his decent progresses. This would suggest some weight and drag. Think in terms of... squashing and stretching. Added: Note on the previous shot: If you don't follow the suggestion to increase the red/hot/foot-moving color to provide motivation for the dancing perhaps you could add a slight bit of smoke effect to suggest his feet are effected by the heat. Right now it's not reading as he is dancing because his feet are hot although I can see where that can be interpolated. Also, it seems a bit strange to have him so far over to the side near the beginning of the dance. I'd love to see him move that way -while- dancing. Hope that make sense. Edit: Okay, I've seen a shot where he does dance over to the edge of the cliff and another where he is already there. Perhaps this is more due to the camera angle than anything. It seems to me that he is consciously moving closer to the edge of the cliff which is an odd thing for him to do. Perhaps if he lifted his head upward as if to scream 'ouch. ouch. ouch.' then he wouldn't see where he was perilously dancing. As with most anticipatory moves he would likely look down at his feet just before lifting his head fully. This would provide a normal reaction to the delay of signals from feet to brain. i.e. "I feel somethings not right at my feet." "No wonder... my shoes are smoking!" "Yikes! It's really hot down there!"

Did these videos ever get placed somewhere where everyone can access them?

Nice set Dan! I almost hate to suggest this but... If you pushed the camera and aimed it further down so that it rendered a slightly more downward shot that logo would be a lot more readable. I know you have the logo elsewhere so I'm sure that won't be a huge deal. I'd guess the final scene will be animated anyway... so... press on.... press on.

If you haven't tried to reinstall do that. If the recovery simply put everything back in place as it was then the activation code should work by typing the code in. If your recovery is deeper (which reinstallation suggests it may be) you might have to request a new code from Jason at Hash Inc (Jason at symbol hash dot inc). As for what to install... just install the latest release.

Happy Birthday Elm! May all the best be headed your way and may all the best be yet to come.

You know... I think it did! You are very good at this. (I need to have those play side by side to see the differences... hang on a sec) Added: Yup! Yup! That is definitely reading 'steam' to me. Smoke_and_Steam.mov

Without having made the attempt to distill them all I'd say the core expressions for those should boil down to approx. five (5) expressions. I don't think it's accidental that on the outer extremities that's pretty much all there is. If all the characters can do these six expressions then the remainder are mostly just those blended together and exaggerated: ANGER FEAR SURPRISE SADNESS JOY DISGUST Reference: http://www.cs.unc.edu/~andrei/expressions/

I'm still a big fan of your 'Epic Gamin' Dan. In fact your show was the only way I kept up with what was going on in the gaming scene. For some reason (and it wasn't just because it was partially created with A:M!) yours was entertaining whereas others I've seen... blah... nothing of particular interest to me. In trying to understand what it is that I like about 'Epic Gamin' I'd have to say it was you... your enthusiasm... and the way you approached the show as if to say, "Look, some of this might look a bit silly... talking to imaginary characters and such... but we are allowed to have fun here so come along for the ride with me". It's too bad there isn't yet a good way fund programs such as yours (adequate distro channels, etc.) so that you can receive compensation for the effort you put into your unique brand of entertainment. From my perspective, it's almost 'gaming for non-gamers' as much as it is for gamers.

Whoa... very nice smoke Marcos! Edit: I think I mistakenly typed 'smoke' instead of 'steam because it does look a bit more like smoke than steam. Like there is something on fire inside the kettle and not just boiling liquid. It's a silly thing for me to say but that was the impression I felt. Sorry to say, I have absolutely no advice to give to push it more toward steam. More please!