Rodney

Thanks. I'll wait for it. I'm a bit surprised (but pleased) it didn't get reserved for v18.

At the risk of... whatever.... I'll add the following suggestion. While I know this is for a still I think you'll want to make the slide a separate piece of the weapon in order to: 1. Make it look more realistic. (Having it as a separate piece would also make it easier to bevel) 2. Make it functional in the primary place the weapon would be seen to function (the other would be be the trigger and the hammer) I recall my drawings of weapons before I became a firearms instructor looked like solid chunks of metal that had no internal working parts. While I don't tend to make my weaponry completely functional and real I do try to hint at something underneath the exterior that would be able to send a bullet down range. Having the slide appear to be a separate part, even if it isn't can achieve that sense of realism. Looking good thus far! Edit: It occurs to me that you may be heading in the direction of a separate slide already because of the 'dangling splines' that David (itsjustme) Simmons was talking about... Here's an image of a glock with the slide locked back to the rear:

Thanks ya'll, you make birthdays worth having.

How does one get access to this new plugin. Is it pending release of v17e? I'm curious to compare it with the Midi plugin (which BTW is quite an excellent tool). I've been using the freeware program Aria Maestosa to create the midi instructions/music to drive the animation in A:M. There are quite a few places we can right click and use a Midi file to drive animation that I'm curious if Wav files are treated simularly. No rush... just curious if I missed an announcement or link to the plugin. Added: For those that want to create Midi files to drive animation check out Aria Maestosa: http://ariamaestosa.sourceforge.net/ If desired you can use other utilities to convert the Midi files to WAV. The program will run on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux/Unix.

Knowzing Robert'z exzacting standardz mez knowz itz gotz tooz beez perfectz.

RE: This image would work pretty well as an intermediately difficult example of SSS excepting there are three areas that seem to be lacking: - The evidence of bones underneath skin (this can be seen primarily in the jaw and forearm areas) - The hand (while perhaps in the right position) doesn't look correctly positioned - The spine/back appears to be deformed Adding bones would probably push this well into the 'too complicated' arena. All for what it is worth here...

Thanks guys! This last year was quite the experience. Here's hoping 2013 passes with a bit less drama, pain and unnecessary expense. Thus far... so good!

I don't think you'll see much motion blur in the sneak but you should in the final movement out of frame. In relooking at your sequence I'd say you'll need a keyframe of the character all the way off screen to get the blur to fully effect that final movement (the leap off screen). There isn't enough to blur at present in the current frames IMO. You should see some from the one position to the last frame but that won't look like he's leaping off screen. Note: It's not clear to me what he is doing in that action between the sneak and the jumping off frame. I don't know your intention but I'd think a look toward the spotlight would work as a nice anticipation before leaping off screen.

Two things I can think of that I forgot to mention: Ease (Slow In and Slow Out) and Rerendering frames that you've already rendered without any motion blur. In the first case adjusting the Ease of any motion can substantially change the motion blur of any movement. Try a three keyframe sequence with different Ease (Slow In, Slow Out and Linear) and you'll see the the difference that can make. When rendering frames this give you the ability to retime (and blur) sequences that you've already rendered. I've noted that we can get some really nice motion blur from images and I suspect it's because A:M is limited in what it can change. It can only blur what is there already.

I'm not aware of any specific tutorial regardng motion blur outside of Marcos's MUFOOF method to blur objects on the subframe level. The primary considerations in motion blur are Keyframes and Multipass which equate to Timing and Spacing with respect to what will be burred due to motion. In general, the more passes you render with Multipass the smoother the resulting blur will be. The real trick I have found is make sure you leave enough inactive objects/frames with little or no movement as needed to complement the frames that will be blurred. Otherwise everything will appear blurred. I would say that its generally a good idea to have a few anticipatory frames moving in the opposite direction as well so that the viewer will be able to more easily 'read' the blurred motion. Control is really what we are after in Motion Blur so it helps to keep an eye on what is changing (and what we don't want to have blurred). If you know that there are some frames that you don't want to have any blur occuring you might want to render those separately without any blur. These nonblurred frames can give a nice contrast to the sudden/blurred movement. To augment the motion blur consider squash and stretch also.

I know the Tinkering Gnome has examples of rain hitting the ground. I'm guessing you need more close up effects than that? Ben de Leeuw has a nice example of a fairly large splashing effect (w/ project file): HERE I believe that is the Surface Flocking version... the spriticle version is: HERE

RE: Lloyd's reference video It might just be me but... I find that jump to look really cool in reverse. Pretty impressive jump too (especially without the use of your arms).

One of Matt Campbell's recent renderings combines SSS with... just about everything else: I believe Matt donated that project to the A:M Community.

Yet another 'fake SSS' work in progress: One is real... one is fake... This one by Anders Averö.

Another 'fake SSS', this time by J Griffin: Ref: Link

Similar to Nancy's chart, Matt Bradbury posted his analysis of SSS. Here is one of the results: Here's the whole topic (with useful information): LINK

Nancy posted a chart of some SSS settings:

This one kind of goes against the primary purpose of demoing SSS but it does illustrate that there is more than one way to achieve an effect in A:M. Remember this result after Elm (from Soulcage Dept) posted about 'faking SSS' in a render? (You rendered it) Here's the link to that discussion.

Plastic look? This one is by Tai Shan. Paul Daley render Anuld:

This isn't a great SSS image so much as it is an odd one. It's the first (well... second) attempt I made at SSS. I was trying to see how thick and thin areas with SSS were effecting models.

In the early days of SSS Frank Hegemann posted this one: Here's the one Fuchur was referring to by Jeffrey Bolle: There may be several different version of Jeff's alien out there...

Very nice Dan! Congrats and may 2013 be ten times as much fun for you as 2012.

Jason has been working this issue for awhile but it seems reasonable to me that sites designed specifically for the bandwidth/throughput of a Youtube or Vimeo will always be prime candidates for larger files. I suspect this will be even more true as folks begin to post entire movies! A very easy way to show a film here in the forum is to link it in via BB Code: For Youtube: [youtube]videocode[/youtube] For Vimeo: [vimeo]videocode[/vimeo] Note that this videocode is the shortform code assigned to the video and not the full URL/address to the video. The A:M Films forum is an ideal place to post those films/short movies.

A solution is always possible. It's good to plan for the future and a forum that can accept files larger than 100MB is certainly possible. (Not often needed but very possible) Right now the forum is not set for routinely uploading files larger than 100MB. A workaround would be to divide larger files into smaller files of less than 100MB each. Jason has previously stated file storage is not an issue for the forums so there is no issue there. My gut feel however is that we don't want to work at cross purposes with areas that are designed specifically with the purpose you have in mind (i.e. A:M Films and the A:M Channel over at Youtube). Regarding collaborative projects such as 'Rear Window'.... The Hash FTP site is often used for sharing files associated with collaborative projects. See also the offer from fae_alba for the 'official' FTP they are using for 'Rear Window'. Jason is the server guy so plans for the future naturally gravitate toward him. I just stare at what is here in front of me until it starts to make sense.

Impressive look!