Rodney

Here's an example of using Patch Images to composite images (using only a single heart image applied to a grid in this instance). I didn't work out any holding matte to keep the heart pattern from overprinting Amy but it should serve as a proof of concept. Compositing like this only takes a few seconds in A:M. The beauty of this being that animating of the various elements is also only a few keyframes away.

Here's a (failed) proof of concept using hearts instead of dots. The heart images are applied to a clinder as Patch Images and then the Repeat settings are increased and decreased over time. Animated speed lines and the like would be pretty straightforward in A:M. Basic dot patterns are easy... just create a grid, grab an image and apply. heartthromb.mov

It's a Japanese thing. (or at least mostly... it seems to be spreading) It's like they wake up in the morning and pick up a random set of clothes and adapt things that otherwise wouldn't fit. My oldest daughter can get away with it without looking too weird. I think it's a way of ensuring that no one else will be wearing the exact same thing you are that day. Nicely done Dan! You are capturing that anime look perfectly with a trendy new element to it too! (I think that may be mostly the hair) Now you've got me wondering once again how to incorporate zip-a-tone (stylistic dot pattern shading and texturing) effectively into motion comics. The last image is a quickly created proof of concept in A:M.

I wonder what David is up to these days. Must be keeping busy. He seems to drop in about once a year or so. Happy Birthday Mr. Dagooos!

Yes, very cool tests Nancy. Matcaps... I hadn't even thought of trying that! Awesome.

When I thought of a birthday image to draw for you I couldn't escape the idea of 'heavy machinery... with lots of detail'. Trust me... all of the candles are there. Happy Birthday Jody!

Hired a lady to model some hairstyles... Her hair consists of two splines. GoldEyeLocks.prj

Same setup without being kinky...

Old Hair Renders pretty quick too. Note: I've (obviously) added a lot of kinkiness... I was going for a Merida/Brave direction.

It's that first part of the scenario that escaped me because right as I was 'seeing' that it was a girl sitting in the lotus position... the guy was doing something (jumping) that distracted me. So I didn't really know it was a girl sitting in a lotus position. (Hope my thoughts make as much sense to you as they do to me) If you plan to open with a shot of her sitting in the lotus position then you may achieve a higher degree of clarity. IMO it's the establishing shot that needs a bit more clarity. You can get away with delaying that establishing shot but it still needs to be there. Again... just my thoughts on this... confusion is not always a bad thing. Mysteries are made of these. I like to understand (and analyze) what I'm seeing.

You are off to a great start Dan. Post one is only minutes old... and you've already got a fan! Keep track of your processes... some anime fans are going to want to follow your lead. P.S. If that is particle hair... I am very impressed. If it's not, I'm just as happy. That's a very cool look either way.

Yup.... Old Locks still work. If folks are struggling with this I'll wip up a video that shows the basic setup. Because no one has used this in years... it's a new feature all over again.

(Split this off another topic so as not to hijack that thread) The trick... to old style Locks of Hair... is to apply the Material to a single spline that drives the hair. Note: I am only assuming this still works in current versions of A:M. Will have to test to be sure. Still works! Here's a basic write up on the process: Locks_of_Hair_Project.pdf

Yes, indeed. IMO it's the primary thing that makes the old hair worth keeping. There are rotate manipulators that appear to allow you to twist the the hair around the main axis of the hair. Edit: Exploration of Old Style Hair Lock now in new topic: HERE.

My feel is that the sequence is too confusing to follow 'as is'. It's possible that sound might remedy some of this but here what I would suggest. Here's a breakdown of what I see thus far with suggestions: Establishing shot Right now your establishing shot is of the character who is walking, rounds a corner and sees the girl sitting on the floor. At this point that character knows something the audience doesn't and in this case... it's not yet a bad thing. Note: An alternative establishing shot (which I am NOT recommending but would allow complete clarity) is that you first show both characters on screen). I think you can successfully sell this without resorting to this. Cut to (what the first character sees (which is the girl sitting on the floor) What seems to be lacking to me is a short glimpse of the guy, perhaps poking his head around the corner behind her in the background. This would connect the second shot with the first and we would understand that this girl is what he is seeing. Now we would have an idea of what is going to happen in the next shot... the sneaking... As it is, even with a general idea of what was suppose to be happening from seeing your previous WIPs, I wasn't sure what I was seeing. The Sneaking I think Robert or someone else mentioned that the light should probably not follow the guy... I'm not sure but the light seems a bit odd to me. it's following him here but then lights up the girl's face in the next shot. Not sure what the purpose of the light is here except to vignette and force a focus toward the character we are suppose to be seeing. As there are no other elements in the shot that draw our eyes someplace else there is less of a need for the light as it is in the sequence. If you are going to add a lot of detail to the background (texturing etc.) then the light might work okay for you. The Jumping and Ducking. Some of the animated action needs to be refined or trimmed here. As it is it seems to me that the jumping guy is levitating (too long a delay in the air) while the girl is taking a bit long to duck out of the way. My suggestion: Animate two balls moving instead of the characters to establish the timing. Then replace the balls with the people. Timing-wise, as an aid to smooth animation, you might want to animate the two balls instead of the people throughout the whole sequence. Recovery and Finale Nothing really to add here especially as you suggest you are already going to work on this part of the sequence (i.e for lipsync). If your were to quickly animate this with two balls here is what we might expect to see: Boy ball moves around corner... Boy ball reacts to seeing something... (we begin to anticipate what he might be seeing) Boy ball (in background) is seen peering around the corner at the girl ball (in foreground) who is sitting motionless... Boy ball begins sneaking up toward girl (who is now once again unseen) Girl ball is seen as Boy ball leaps toward her Girl ball moves out of the way Boy ball flies past Boy ball lands on the ground Girl ball seen smiling (Says 'Boo' as a means to deliver the punchline/final beat) Something like that anyway. I was tempted to dive in and edit a few frames out of the ducking/jumping shot because I thought speeding that up might salvage that part of the sequence but hopefully by what I've written you can tell what I'm after here. Tighten it up. Make it clearer. Get that movement fluid. You've got a great sequence in the making if you can really nail it. At any rate... thaz my suggestion.

I can see where the two different types of hair can be confusing. Truth to tell... we haven't ran into this problem that I can recall so... it's good that we've stumbled upon this issue. The older type hair isn't used as much but still can be used in current releases of A:M. Creating the old type hair requires either grabbing it from a model or library or using the Shift key when creating the Hair material. Of course the new type hair is also great for feathers, grass and a variety of other effects.

Very cool looking toon hair! As a guess I'd say that is the ground plane clipping the toon render. Try either removing the ground plane or putting some geometry/model/grid behind her head.

Happy Birthday Marcos. Thanks for being such a talented guy.

We probably need to rule out that you are using the old type of Hair as well. That type cannot be groomed (at least not in the sense that we are talking about here).

My first impression is that it looks like a lot of work. How long do you expect to have the film in production?

Nice one John! I prefer the second one but not sure why. The first seems to have a more classic feel to it.

The late great Paul Forwood did exactly that: South Park style (although he bypassed the drawings and used 2D objects in A:M) He then went on to add more of the characters and test some animation with them: South Park style animated

You must have saved over the top of A:M's default Choreography. There are a few different approaches to setting things right but the easiest would be: Create a New Chor and delete the 9mm from it. Save the Chor in the A:M Installation Folder (Usually similar to: C:\Program Files\Hash Inc\v17) over the file default.cho I believe if you simply delete or rename the default.cho file A:M will still generate an empty Chor for you as well. If it sees the default.cho file in the directory it will use that.

Mystery solved. Thanks David!