Rodney

The greatest successes often seem insignificant at the beginning and usually start small. I have high hopes for User Groups but logistics (distance and scheduling especially) is a problem. My 'core' thought, if I can even call it that, would be to set up a virtual User Group that caters to the primary members/leaders of the global User Groups. But there are some potential problems with this sort of scheme that we'd want to avoid. We want to be inclusive and not exclusive. We want to include all A:M Users not segregate them in private affairs and cliques. Having said that I think the cliques form themselves based on interest so there is that. Some User Groups may be based on location but surely not all... For instance, why could there not be a v13 User Group*? The core interest for them would be to maximize usage of v13 to the benefit of all. (Yes, there would always be a little pressure to upgrade/subscribe and support the current release of A:M from any officially sanctioned User Group but that's a given... upgrade when you can... until you can, use what you've already bought.) There is not much of a difference between a User Group and a Community Project. Each has a reason for existing be that having fun, working hard, maximizing usage and/or sharing knowledge. Ultimately it's up to each User Group (independently) to decide what to focus on. Can you have a User Group of one? No. Not really. But if that User Group is virtually connected to the Leaders of other User Groups and maintains a local chapter that won't be a problem. When the word gets out, people will find them. And whenever and wherever interests diverge new leaders arise to charter new hubs. *This may seem to be a bad example but I want to illustrate the full potential that A:M User Groups have. An A:M user subscribing to v17 can also use v13 without any problem.

Oustanding! Unless you say otherwise we'll call this one resolved.

If by 'strong shadows' you mean a crisper outline if you lower the width setting of the Light the shadow should appear harder. Klieg lights are often used for softer shadows (especially for raytracing) so you might change the Light type to Bulb or Sun. A lighting expert will be along shortly to shine the light on us.

There are a whole lot of things folks can do in person. (Because we sit behind a computer we may not do that as often as we should) My own thought about User Groups is that its a place to specialize or focus on things at a higher level than can be accomplished online over a broader spectrum of time. It's amazing what can be learned just by looking over the shoulder of someone. It's a place to share exclusive things that one cannot generally share online. It's a place to share with a small group what cannot be shared with larger groups online (Here I'm thinking fair use copyrighted works) It's a place where people can review and critique and provide feedback in person prior to a release out into the wild. It's a place to view early drafts of tutorials and projects before they are perfected and other exclusive stuff that can't be released to the public. The lists goes on and on... But mostly its a place to meet people of the same interests and to share and broaden experiences that cannot be accomplished online.

The Dopesheet definitely can be used to create basic movement; drum beats would be a great one. But anything we can get into a pose will also work. There are a few tricks in getting non dictionary phonemes/poses working in a Dopesheet however. The key is to trick A:M into bypassing the dictionary (where it will define single phonemes for you). One way to do this is to just quickly add numbers instead of letters in the creation of a new sentence. Then go back and redefine those numbers as whatever you need them to be. After that it's mostly just a matter of selecting poses from the dropdown menu.

Rather than add to the other topic that focuses on Phonemes I'll start a new topic where I hope others will feel free to explore A:M's Dopesheet. The Dopesheet has gained a bad name over the years and that is unfortunate because it can be used to do a lot of laborious work quickly. It can be used to block out stories, set up scenes and pose characters rapidly and without much effort. Folks see A:M's Dopesheet as only being good for Lipsync but perhaps it can do more than that...

A picture is worth a thousand words. Thanks Nancy! Added: Heres a follow up on the Magpie export to A:M: From Magpie documentation regarding export of animation: I'm learning lots today... I didn't know that Victor Navone used Magpie Pro for lipsync in 'Alien Song'. Shows what I know!

I can't recall what if any changes there were since v15 but if nothing is showing (after you dig down deep) consider going to the Menu and unders Tools on the Global Tab select "Show more than Drivers". You might not need that but it won't hurt if you are digging deeply into the depths of the PWS. Someone correct me where I am wrong.

I think the issue you are having is that you are looking for keyframes where there are no keyframes, only Poses in the Timeline. The Poses store the default Pose Slider setting and will only show keyframes if you create them otherwise. I'm trying to figure out the best way to demo this but if you want to edit the actual phoneme/pose you want to edit the original relationship in the Model. If you are using a dopesheet you can just replace the phoneme with a different phoneme (Selected from the drop down menu as I recall). For more extensive use of poses/phonemes with the added benefit of keyframing you just have to create those keyframes yourself by adjusting the Pose in the Timeline. You'll think it's easy once you get into it... so try it!

When you say the Timeline goes crazy on you... that's were you lose me. As I said, Poses don't automatically set keyframes in the same way moving Bones or Control Points do. There are there but you have to find them. I could probably tell you from memory but I confess that I haven't used the Dopesheet for awhile myself. Yes, people have used it with A:M and because it is specifically designed for Lipsync it has some nice bells and whistles. But it won't do the job for you. (I started to go by memory... best not to do that!) I can't help but think the cost is going to be prohibitive for you. The primary thing you'll gain is the speech recognition. Edit: I see it still supports exporting animation to A:M! Note that I am assuming you are using the Dopesheet here. That may not be the case. Also know that you can just manipulate the phonemes directly in the Timeline. I would first like to know what you mean by 'the timeline goes crazy'. We should address that first before moving on. It seems to me that you just can't see channel curves.

Don't be silly. Of course there is an easier way to do that. Robert has hit on the full functioning answer but here's more to the phoneme aspect... When using the Dopesheet to automate the animation of phonemes its good to understand that what you are doing is simply animating Pose Sliders. The phoneme's are just Poses that have stored up an action. Aside: You don't have to automate lipsync... you can control any automate any Pose driven action via the Dopesheet but... the dictionary will control the interpretation of that. So whatever you assign to "Ah" will produce that action. Whatever you assign to "Oo" will provide that action etc. etc. So how do you edit a curve on the Timeline from a Pose? You edit the same way on the Timeline as you would for a Dopesheet'd phoneme action. I'll see if I can grab a screen shot to demo some of that. Sometimes we need to trick a Pose into revealing its (channel) spline curves.

Hang in there Mark. You've got what it takes to break into the big time. Added: Just how does one deal with people that want the experience but don't want to buy-in? That is the question of the century.

I'm going to try to meet with Den Dotson one of these days. He hasn't been actively pursuing 3D of late... he's been preoccupied with getting his Masters degree! He's in the local area and I hope to meet up with him soon. If you read this Den... Salute!

Oh yeah. Looking good!

Thanks. I've messed around with it a little, primarily before it was fully operational. I stepped away from it after it was temporarily broken during an update and haven't returned to it. At the time I was interested in the Frame properties for animating images but knew I'd have to also deal with the audio.

Thanks. I've messed around with it a little, primarily before it was fully operational. I stepped away from it after it was temporarily broken during an update and haven't returned to it. At the time I was interested in the Frame properties for animating images but knew I'd have to also deal with the audio.

This is the process that I believe I will have to pursue. There is a video out there that briefly covers cropping of audio. (I so need to organize my tutorials... I can't find anything these days!) Perhaps that was something you produced?

This is just a placemarker and a reminder for me to investigate the TaoA:M exercise(s) that deal with Lipsync. At the core of my exploration is a desire to determine what effect having the complete dialogue as one audio file might have on the experience. The dialogue is: "I've got a secret. Can you keep a secret? Didn't think so." The problem: The dialogue length is set. There is no way (in A:M) to adjust the timing/pacing or to adjust the delivery of the performance for the character in the sequence due to the audio file's fixed length. Questions: Could separating the one audio file into three separate audio files resolve the issue? Is there anything in A:M already that can address the issue? (i.e. referencing the same audio file three times and/or cropping the audio) If so, how user-friendly? Can the exercise be updated to focus enhance understanding of timing/pacing/phrasing in animation (but still using the example of lipsync)?

This should not effect your imagery in any significant way. The Alpha Channel is simply a mask that specifies transparent areas. JPG is RedGreenBlue(RGB) and the others RedGreenBlueAlpha(RGBA). A RGBA image rendered with no masking in the alpha channel should render the same as RGB. Of course if you aren't wanting anything to be transparent you should turn the setting for Alpha Channels Off in your Camera/Rendering settings. The main reason to turn it off is that you don't need it. If there is a problem with regard to Alpha Channels rendering geometry and lighting differently you might have identified a bug in rendering RGBA. P.S. Other than the issues you are having... very nice rendering!

I've written a few responses to posts in this topic that upon reading again weren't worth posting. Obviously, I still have a long way to go in my writing. Rather than try to repair what I was trying to write I'll move on and hope to get back to them. One of the books I picked up at the Libary is 'The Hidden Art of Hollywood: In defense of the studio era film' by John Fawell. It's concentration is on the era of silent film and a basic premise is that silent film was not silent and where it was silent that silence was carefully crafted and intentional. That is my over simplification of his theme but I'm framing it for myself in order to set up further exploration. The concluding paragraph from Chapter 5 states: Several take-away points I draw from this paragraph: - Creating a good story with characters the audience worries about is a difficult goal to achieve (It'll take a conscious effort to get there) - For the audience to care, a good story must engage the viewers feelings - Showy technique is (in fact) the quickest way to get oohs and aahs from people - Some things (such as showy technique) are, in the end, detrimental to leaving a lasting impression on the audience and in offering a rich and rewarding experience In the previous paragraph we find:

I'll add a methodology to the mix that I think should be kept secret. Its a rapid animation technique that can give you the edge in animating a sequence. It is an approach that to my knowledge is not taught in computer animation (therefore it is probably not the best thing to add to a tutorial as it is not a commonly preferred technique). It outlines a more strictly Pose to Pose methodology with the goal to move from Poses to Breakdowns to Inbetweens in a manner more consistent with traditional hand drawn animation technique. It is also a method that would allow teams of animators to work together on the same sequence... something considerably harder with other approaches to computer animation because everyone down the line must interpret what is going on in the keyframes. The idea is to follow Nancy and Robert's example of creating keyframes but create the Poses on consecutive frames (thereby eliminiating the frames in between). Once we have perfected those Poses* we then expand the sequence to allow one new keyframe space inbetween those keyframes. Now we use that space inbetween those two Poses to create our Breakdown key. With the Breakdown key in place we then expand the sequence again to add a new (empty) keyframe space. *Perfecting the Poses first before moving on to the Breakdown is essential as there will always be a tendency to move on to the Breakdown and Inbetweening too early. In my estimation this defeats the purpose of Pose to Pose animation and the animator is now working Straight Ahead whether or not they wish to work that way (not necessarily a bad thing, but it's just not Pose to Pose animation). Those Golden Poses are a requirement in order to achieve full Clarity in Pose to Pose animation. The goal of strict Pose to Pose animation would be to keep working on subsequent Poses until those Poses can be (mathematically) Inbetweened. This is where people get lost... the animation is complete through the Poses alone. Once the animation is complete the Poses are then simply (often automatically) Inbetweened. (Note that I'll be using a three keyframe animation to illustrate the Pose to Pose methodology here but an animated sequence will contain many more than that. The most basic animated movement however is simply 1,2,3) Let's start again and run through the process beginning with... Key Poses - Create and perfect the Extreme Poses on sequential frames and lock them down by making keyframes. Do not place additional frames in between these Keys... we'll add those later. Note: We are not working on Timing here but rather on Spacing... but... to do that we do not want to have any spaces between our keyframes... if we do... the computer has created Timing for us and we want to control the Timing... and the Spacing ourselves. This is where 'pairs' comes into play but not in the manner described in Robert's video. In Roberts approach the keyframe pairs are the same Pose. In Pose to Pose we are trying to go from one Extreme to the next Extreme via the path of.... Breakdowns - Grab the sequence (in ideal cases this is only two keyframes) and expand it so that there is one new (empty) frame in between those two keyframes. (Your keyframes were on 1 and 2 and now you have moved them to 1 and 3 leaving frame 2 empty inbetween) Note: The Breakdown Pose is the one that will supply the personality to the animation. In a Breakdown Pose we often will want to go the opposing direction of where we will go in our animation. This will give the sequence a sense of anticipation. It will maximize usage of screen space. It will set up Secondary Action and Follow Through. It will identify primary Arcs of Movement. It will help set in pace (and place) an ideal Timing for the movement of objects in time-space. Once perfected, lock down this Breakdown key. You now have three keyframes set on frames 1, 2 and 3. The basic animation is done at this point and you can pass off this animation to an assistant for them to Inbetween. In my estimation this is the end of 'Blocking' at its most basic definition with one important exception... locking down the over all Timing of the sequence*. An animator does not want to leave this timing up to the Assistant (whether a human being or A:M). So, simply move your three keyframes out to their required Timing. The over all Timing for the sequence is generally dictated by music, dialogue or a set time that has been allotted for the action in that sequence to occur. Timing is not set arbitrarily but is performance based. In cases where the timing of an action is unknown, consider acting the performance out yourself in front of a mirror or on video, or time it with a stopwatch and metronome. The Inbetweener (either the same animator or another animator) will use the same basic approach to setting the Inbetweens as in creating the Key Poses and Breakdown but an important distinction is that they now let the computer assist them in creating the Inbetweens. If the Poses are sufficient to their purpose the computer will precisely place the inbetweens half way in between the established keyframes and the animation may work 'as is'. Lock down that position as an 'official' Inbetween by forcing a Keyframe and move on to the next Inbetween. If an Inbetween is not locked down it's still an inbetween but is subject to unintentional and intentional changes... the adjustment of Timing and Spacing. In computer animation we control Timing and Spacing by the placement of keyframes. Hope I didn't lose anyone. If I did let me know and I'll clarify. *In a three frame sequence the Timing is already locked down which is worth noting because of how it removes that time-factor from arbitrary change or speculation.

I see today's Google logo is celebrating Star Trek by changing the Google letters to Trek characters. Clicking on the hotspots takes you through a short (but humorous) adventure. It make me think of Stalled Trek and our own famous Mark Largento. https://www.google.com/ (Looked for the link to the permanent logo area but couldn't find it)

These are the kind of tutorials I really wish I had access to when I was first starting out with computer animation. Of course, video tutorials were a lot harder to come by back then.

I see a marked improvement over the last render. The movement is considerably smoother. I'll save any nitipicking for a shaded render... gah... okay... no I won't. This is just an impression so take it for what it's worth. Take a moment to view the timeline/channel for the character's right foot and see if it doesn't look like it's slipping outward to you. I wouldn't even comment on it but it seems important that when the characters weight is put on that foot at the very end of this sequence it stays put. It'd be okay to move thereafter but not before the character has a chance to shift weight a little. Now if in shaded/rendered view that foot is just squishing down (which would indicate more weight being place on that foot) that'll be okay, but that's not what appears to be happening in this wireframe view.

Very Nice Nancy! (I was about to grab some popcorn in anticipation of your animation... but it was over too fast!) More please. This is the part that I don't quite understand. If you can define what those issues are that might help us understand.