Rodney

Fuchur hit on some of what I'd like to comment on. It is unfortuante when someone with the desire to use A:M finds themselves in such a dilemma. Let me start with some bottom line stuff and move forward from there. We all want to see you succeed as you move forward. When we move the CD from one computer to another and launch them all simultaneously we are in violation of the license. Although it seems reasonable to me that Hash Inc knew we were doing this in the past they didn't make a big deal of it because we were in a relationship of mutual support. As long as we were updating regularly (read: annually) we were in a mutual beneficial relationship where our petty crime of ignorance in how licenses work could be overlooked. The conflict arises at the point where we are enjoying the benefits of having (certainly not owning) the program to such an extent to where we feel we can stop supporting the program and yet somehow... also... begin to see our normal breaking of the license as not a violation of the license but rather a right and privilege expressly granted and authorized by Hash Inc. We were in error but we transfer this error to Hash Inc unfairly and then decide to hold them accountable for it. The sad thing in this situation is how we begin to point the finger at Hash Inc and paint them as the badguy as if they've somehow taken something away from us that we had a inalienable right to before. After all, didn't they take away something that was ours before? This is point where wise men recalibrate their understanding of support and that will lead to a better understanding the options we have before us. The bottom line: The old way which allowed us to violate the license was a flaw in the method of security used by the CD. Apparently it was problematic enough that the company that produced it went out of business. It sucks but only in the sense that now we have to actually adhere to the license. A lot of people love A:M. Fewer support it. I believe Hash Inc's actually made a mistake back in the day in not being stricter keepers of the one computer license. But they weren't trying to hammer their users for minor infractions... they wanted to support them! I do think that if they had been stricter perhaps we wouldn't have as many users feeling alienated by the current subscription model and feeling as if they have been left out in the cold. In short, we as users have imagined a slight that was never there in the first place and we are really pissed off about it. I know because I'm one of those who has made the transition from being pissed to being supportive. For some folks that process takes longer. This is a grand paradox but fortunately it's also one that each user has the ability to break through. (It's never good from me to comment on these topics)

Yes! I liked that too. In fact, I liked it enough to share with someone else via email.

We haven't seen him in ages but... Happy Birthday Rich Jackson (aka Entity)! What a talented guy. I really love that Sci Fi!

Very nice example of compositing.

If you are trying to keep a short schedule I'll recommend going with modeled hair. A few strategic images applied to the hair would be sufficient for the job. If you are really up to delving into particle hair just prepare yourself for the adventure. It'll be well worth the trip but it takes time and patience to get there. I believe a really good starting point for hair would be Holmes Bryant's tutorial: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=29738 I would work through that in conjunction with watching the Hash Inc Tech Talk on the same subject: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=26614 My thought is that you might start working through the tutorial until you get bored or frustrated then take a break and review the Tech Talk and other resources. Then start Holmes' tutorial over again from scratch. This (in my opinion) will accelerate your learning and help you better retain what you've learned. We've been a little slow at getting a forum area dedicated specifically to Hair (particle and otherwise) but we'll get there eventually. Added: There are other resources available to... as others join in the discussion we'll be able to explore those too!

Thanks Steve, I recall a similar learning curve with TWO that made working on the film difficult at first because not only was everyone learning how to animate a feature film... tough enough(!)... now they had to get in sync with this revisioning system that did not seem to be easy to understand or use. Just diving in and using it would have been advantageous but I think several were distracted by this to the point of thinking, "I don't care about this stuff, I just want to animate." Learning at least the basics of how files will move through the pipeline is one of those necessary evils in collaborative works. It's different than a one man production where none of the resources have to be shared. I do think SVN is pretty forgiving and as you've seen, the difficulty can be overcome. I've stared at other revisioning programs such as Git and Mercurial in an effort to see if they work better for more straightforward file sharing, which is what is important to the end user/animator. The versioning aspect is more important to the person who has a big picture perspective on all of the assets and where they are in relationship to the final product. I think the current versioning software is primarily text based and in time we'll see a more graphical approach. I think this graphical element is the essential part of the process as it aides in the communication of the state of each resource and what changes are required to get where the project needs to go. Having this understood at a mere glance or during a quick review is the difficult part. Programs such as SVN are more concerned with the process itself than with the communication that is gained or frustrated by the user interface. At any rate, I'm impressed that you've used SVN for this project. Bravo!

The webinar interview with David Wolter has now been placed online for those who were unable to attend: In some ways this will be more optimal than watching live because images have been added that were not in the original webinar.

Interesting thought. I haven't downloaded John's project yet but if the fog is inside a sphere are somesuch then the face might be able to be formed via specified booleans. Two shapes for the eyes and one shape for the mouth. This makes me wonder about the possibilities... I don't think I've ever tried boolean cutters combined with transparency... would that even work?

9k8nDOM7LZ4 . Direct Link: What I really like about this review is how JP Sans covers the following: Lean (Setting a character off balance in order to motivate a movement) The Contact Pose (This pose is so important and JP Sans knows what to look for) Exaggeration (It is always best to exaggerate in cartoony animation. It is rare that you'll need to dial it back but will more than like need to push the pose more) Missing Poses (JP Sans's ability to quickly spot the missing poses is something is a point I'd like to get to myself and I know that is primarily the task of constant and continuous observation) Opposing Directions (He doesn't specifically cover this in the video but he still gets it in various way in the process of correcting Jorge poses. The most obvious place being at the very end when he add some stretch to the character motivated by the characters desire to look at something) Text in brackets is my general observations. What is particularly nice about the animation itself is that the character isn't just walking for the sake of walking but is motivated to be doing something. What isn't clear is what he is looking at which is something not discussed in the video.

Now THAT is an awesome Lessons Learned write up. Thanks for that. A couple questions: Is it possible that an effective workaround might be to avoid naming actions with a number at the end? Or perhaps spelling that number out (i.e. FacialAnimThree)? I'm curious if A:M (or SVN) sees that number as an increment and gets confused in the saving process. Avoiding the number on the end might resolve this. Of course, It'd be good to know more about this problem so that it can be reported to A:M Reports and squashed entirely. I'd like to know more about why you believe this is the case. Besides people's general aversion to using versioning systems I thought SVN was pretty good for maintaining collections of assets. I do understand that SVN is a centralized and not a distributed model like Git and Mercurial and that is a little problematic. But it shouldn't be too difficult to use SVN for file sharing with small teams. If one of the issues is that it's hard to keep track of what is new/old/updated at a glance by just looking at the directory structure then I think I know what you mean. Thanks Chris! I'm glad to see successful collaborations like this.

I suppose this might fall into the category I call, "sweat the details... the big stuff will that care of itself." My primary thought here was that there are two main approaches to closing the curtains and an alternate that would be entirely verbal: 1. She has a remote in her hand and points the remote at the window. 2. A little box on the wall is blinking green.. slowly... as she moves away it turns red just prior to the curtains closing. 3. She says the words 'curtains. close." just before the curtains close. In all three cases this is an anticipatory moment that clearly demonstrates what motivates the curtains to close. The audience won't know unless you tell them. I'm slow. I'm sorry. I just don't get the joke. Perhaps I am too far away and perhaps you are too close. If you are trying to suggest that things don't always work out like we plan them... there is great opportunity for that kind of thing in what you've got set up. Perhaps the guy driving would be stopped at a red stoplight.... then a stop sign... then a car wreck in the road... (I dunno... it's your story!) Perhaps the curtains wouldn't close all the way and she would have to manually close them. Perhaps the sun lamp would flicker too much and she'd have to adjust it. (I think you actually had that in there a few WIPs ago) Whereas the principles I was considering the most in my previous was one of clarity and appeal I seem to be more focused in this post on the principle of anticipation and how it leads to clarity. What is it that you want the audience to anticipate? What are these events building up to? What is the punchline of the joke? An additional thing I would suggest would be to work to clarify that the driver of the car is a guy and the character in front of the window is a girl. You can do this is many ways and in hindsight the onlything that suggests to me that the character at the window is a girl is the red lipstick. You've got to admit that isn't a lot to go on... This may be an opportune time to update your characters. I know the ultra skinny characters are something of a trademark look for you but IMO there needs to be some more differentiation. I was honestly trying to figure out why this guy had suddenly transformed into a girl. Always remember: You know the story but those in the audience do not. If you don't tell us what you want us to know, we won't know. Added: I realize you aren't done with the short so much of this may not be fully applicable given that you are already working on these things from another approach. These are just things that come to mind while considering what is there currently.

Shaun has been busy... last seen working on the movie "ted", with that guy... what's his name.... Mark Wahlberg. Happy Birthday Shaun! Added: I see Shaun has some work he did from the movie online: http://shaunfreeman.com/ (Disclaimer: Adult Language)

If you are planning to render all in one rendering then yes, I mean to place them at different distances. When compositing shots together it doesn't matter as much because the compositing will be (largely) faking the actual distances*. If compositing you could simply render the exact same emitter emitting snow but from a close up, mid and far away camera distance. Then you'd just place those into your composite appropriately and retime them to taste. I am specifically talking about turning everything off except your emitters and then rendering those separately and then compositing them back in later. This gives you the ability to retime the snow falling as you see fit. My point is that using a composite layer of snow falling allows you to time their falling (and even their placement) separately from the main animation. It's treating them as an effects pass which is then composited in with the main animation. *The main difference here is if you are using a multiplane effect which is optional and generally not necessary if not panning or tracking the camera into or out of the scene.

Well, I just spent about 30 minutes writing a post only to fat finger and lose the whole thing... it's just as well I guess. To summarize what I typed: - The Trees look too perfectly aligned (I made some suggestions here) - It's not clear how the drapes are closing (I make some suggestions here) - Is this bikini clad character the same guy/gal or a new character? (I was/am confused here) Added: I have no idea what the connection is between the car driving and the house shots are. It appears to me that someone has driven 5 miles closer to the house where we are watching the girl. It seems to me that in order for this to really sink in... assuming that is the intention... there needs to be a minimum of three beats. That is to say that we should be seeing the driver driving between every cut during the house scenes. Not all would have to have signs in them. The driver might be passing a bridge or turning off from a highway or moving from highway to asphalt to rock strewn roadway... All three of these areas have a lot to do with clarity and appeal and I'd love to discuss these areas in light of your current sequence at length. If confusion is the goal then I'll suggest abstracting the look of the short even further and perhaps even going with a toon-like rendering.

For at least the foreground this might be an opportune time for compositing because you could retime the falling snow to fit whatever speed you need based on how you want to retime/animate it. If you were to render out three levels of snow falling and place those between three levels within your scene then it'd have all the more depth to it. Example: Background (only a background element, that can easily be adjust to enhance the other elements in the scene. Generally this will be in opposition to the color of the primary elements for the purpose of contrast and clarity) - Third level of falling snow (slowly falling, small, opaque and extensively covering backround) Middle Ground (focus area that includes the primary tragets of attention) - Second level of falling snow (drifting toward, through and perhaps even around the area of interest) Foreground (Framing device to bring more focus toward the most important middleground element) - First level of snow falling ( faster falling, larger, blurred, mostly transparent and otherwise minimalistic. Remove anything that interferes with focus of primary elements) This is, in it's own way, a way of inbetweening animation in three dimensions... four if you count the actual timing but that is something of a given and works as the extremes that set the stage for the rest of the animation. As the computer doesn't know how to do this we have to step in and tell it what to inbetween. )

Very nice Gerry. I really love the smooth animation.

Odds and Ends/Unclassified Some hybrid Grid Type Point Cloud Scanning thingy ™:

Now that you ask I can't find one. Figures. I do see a $29 one for users of Final Cut Pro and Avid... My memory may just be faulty but I'm pretty sure I saw an introductory offer for $39. I'll keep a look out for it because I'm considering a subscription myself. In order to justify the cost however I need to be prepared to actually use the programs and to do that every day (well.. six days a week at least) at least $1-$2 worth each day. That seems to be a reasonable goal for me and especially for the first year. After that perhaps the subscription would at least pay for itself. The real bugabear (and this relates to Lightworks as well) is that in order to take full advantage of these tools I'd need to add a new laptop. So there we have yet another expense added into the mix. That is the thing that I cannot quite justify at this point in time and the Adobe cloud falls in line after that. Given that Adobe states the student 'deal' is to expire mid November I'm considering the ramifications of that as well. All it would take for me to qualify as a student would be to sign up for a class locally... and I need to do that as well. Ultimately at this point I see investigating the suite more as an investment in my future than anything else but I've already invested in similar tools and enjoy them... like the CorelDraw suite. Adding multiple apps of the same general function set approaches overkill. Not without good value... but how much time do I actually have to spend? I'll keep an eye out for deals on the Adobe suite... especially things below the $1 a day mark. For someone like you who will actually use the programs (very important!) I think it's a great deal.

For about the same money you can get a cloud subscription to the whole set of Adobe tools but that'd be the educational license. (Maybe that is what you are talking about here) It'd run at around $39 a month for the full cloud license and access to all the various programs; Premiere, AE, etc. etc. etc. I think that entails a commitment of a full year so that'd be over $500... and understand that at that years end you'll have to pony up that cash again. All in all it is still a good deal and Adobe is working smart here. They stand to make a lot of money and they are doing it by lowering their price and granting access to more people. When using the student and educator licensing be careful because it's a non-commercial license For many that will be more than adequate but others would like to be able to make a little money to help pay the rent.

Additional Background: Snap to Surface is the underlying feature Steffen brought to life from the initial request for a tologology tool from Fuchur: Ref: Report: 5999 I want to also add this from yet another request/report that Steffen coded into A:M. That is the ability to set the Snap to Surface distance in Tools/Options/Modeling tab. He also says (and I paraphrase): A:M uses the normal direction from the underlying object, so the distance is the same at every added cp. To activate the offset, hold the Shift key down while adding the CP. In this way you can work in 'mixed' mode. Offsetting or Not Offsetting as you feel the need. Ref: Report: 6107

Several areas I haven't yet fully explored: Templates to aid in modeling with Snap to Surface (Some will be more optimal than others) Mixing Props and A:M Models to further enhance workflow (What isn't caught by the Prop might be caught by the Model) -- The example of this would be a flat plane that is placed at a point of intersection with the Prop. Should a CP be placed off the Prop then it would be caught by the Model. Animated Snap to Surface (I need to learn to screen capture my tests because I've forgotten my earlier exploration into this area. The idea is to model on top of (or to track) a moving Snap to Surface object.) Further investigation into what Snap to Surface sees and what it allows through/ignores. (This relates to Templates in that a mesh could be built that would allow something akin to Snap to Intersection. Further exploration of the use of Snap to Surface in conjunction with other tools such as Snap to Grid, Magnet Mode etc. Theoretically, Snap to Surface in conjunction with Snap to Grid should result in a semblance of Snap to Intersection.

DJ added this to his report: Requested Tools: 1. Snap to intersection. (with a button instead of a key so you can turn it on and off) 2. Set "Y" key to snap to midpoint of line as in the model window. 3. Mouse right click and drag to select is not available and would be handy. 4. Distortions Box as in model window. My initial thought is to consider if these features already exist for Snap to Surface workflow within a Modeling window. This provides a framework from which to study and better understand the workflow with Props in the Chor window. The image DJ provided isn't exactly clear with regard to what he is after: Image Link But Fuchur helped determine what he was after: Fuchur asked: DJ responded: This appears to be a new feature request and not just an enhancement.

Reference: [bug]6102[/bug] I'm wanting to explore a few of the reports filed away in A:M Reports in order to better understand what the user was/is looking for and so that in v18 they will be more likely to see what they are looking for. Obviously my exploration will stop short of any coding or programming... but in the exploration who knows what might be found! Report 6102 looks like one worth exploring because it is likely the reporter hasn't yet fully explored the Snap to Feature tools in light of other tools currently available in A:M. General Data: 6102 DJBREIT moderate beta0 Modeling 3/26/2012 Windows 7 64-bit Sevice Pack 1 i7 960 3.20GHz Description: Some extra tool to round out the Snap to Surface This is a new and unassigned report. In the exploration I hope to learn more about what the current implementation of Snap to Surface can do. My focus has been within the Modeling window and with use of models/structures created in A:M but I am not averse to using imported Props. I am just more personally interested in a purely A:M-centric workflow.

I haven't explored Lightworks enough to settle on it either (my laptop can't handle it) but as free applications go I'm trying to move toward something the average A:M user can take advantage of. As Lightworks grants an Avid level of video editing and is about to have it's code open sourced I think it's worth sacrificing some ease of use in the short term for the longer term benefits it'll bring. I am embarking on a multi-tiered approach to support with a goal to satisfy everyone and as that is a tall order in and of itself I initially see a four tier strategy: 1 - Full standardization (This is validated and updated on a project by project basis) 2 - Secondary standardization (Using tools that can produce the same results as the standard but aren't optimal for budgeting and workflow through an optimal production pipeline) 3 - Tertiary alternatives (These will work but the overhead is highly restrictive and not generally recommended) 4 - The Whatabout Mes (Research and Development) For Full support, the project itself is expected to pay for use of the standard so open source is a key to access, extensibility and longevity. For Secondary support, some cost is expected to be shoulder personally (an example of this might be taking out a subscription to the Abobe Creative Suite which at the current rate would run approx $1K per anum. This unfortunately and automatically excludes some from participating but through teamwork this deficit can be worked more easily. All that is actually needed to realize success is one person with access and the rest benefit by proxy) Tertiary support is primarily focused on case by case and is fully personal. As such it is high in variation and very costly. The remainder are outside the scope of support but are encouraged to the greatest extent possible to seek a solution within one of the top three tiers. It is important to note that the fourth tier defines the future needs/trajectory of the top three at least as much as do the projects produced at the top teir. Lightworks may not be the best solution but it is the best that I see currently.