Rodney

Ah, I thought you had recreated that Chor to get this shot. Sorry to hear that. I was playing with your sequence in A:M to 'rezoom' the shot and met with a little success so if you aren't wanting to spend the time recreating the Chor it might be worth the effort to work the continuing zoom in post (it might be a real quick edit if you've got After Effects). I'd hate to see you rebuild the Chor just for that zoom so I'll also offer this: If you do rebuild... something that would add a nice touch at the very end would be to push the dragon a little lower to the platform and then pull her/him back up again. this and just a little anticipation of the landing displayed in the legs/feet would give the landing (which is the main point of the shot) a sense of completeness. Follow Through and settling in of that main action should really give the landing a nice sense of weight. My gut feel is that you're going to want to have that Chor at some point in the future (additional renderings etc etc) so as painful as it might be I'll suggest recreating it.

I see some really great tests going on here. This effect (as you've currently got it) reminds me a lot of Rapunzel's 'painting the camera' effect in the recent Disney movie. In that respect it does have an extra thickness to it that seems to imply more than just water. If compositing/overlaying that thickness could be reduced considerably via transparency and/or blur. Keep up the great work!

Sorry to hear of your computer troubles Kat. Looks like you are right back on track though! Nice shot. The design of the house is very cool. I'd like to recommend that the camera continue to Zoom in throughout this shot so that there isn't an abrupt stopping just prior to the dragon entering view. It looks like this is all one continuous shot and if so that would make the continuation of the zoom easier. If you've got these set up as two chors (one for zooming in and across the witch's house to the window/landing and one for the dragon landing) then you might just be able to just hook up the shots by having a very slow zooming in as the dragon lands. I would suggest that the zooming slow down considerably at the end of course in comparison to how fast the camera is moving over the house. Looking very good!

You packed a lot of material into this one. I love how you weave astory into the song and the rendering hit a new level of quality. Nicely done Gene!

Nicely done. Between the motion blur and the particles it really sells the drilling effect.

Straight to the point. I like!

Here's a couple digital doodles I did last night. (I must still be on U.S. time because I keep waking up in the middle of the night)

Thanks for the well-wishes. To answer the question of what/how? (Not for the squeamish or those with vivid imagination) For the past three months I've been cutting down trees and burning brush to clean up my sisters place in Illinois. It's the place that I lived in before I joined the military and it's been a great little place to return. With one week left before heading back to Japan to collect my family and move them back to Illinois my sister and I dug into final work around the house; throwing away shingles left over from a replaced roof and cutting limbs back from nearby trees so they wouldn't fall on the new roof. With a fire set to the brush I was off to get rid of the last couple of loads of shingles and that's when I got stupid. I thought a little gasoline added to the back of the brush would (eventually) get the fire really going. It did. The fire had burned through further underneath the brush than I thought. At this point I can only guess what happened but... somehow the majority of fuel in the little bottle ended up on my shirt. (Interesting Note: To look at the shirt is one of life's ponderables because with the exception of one tiny dot, there is no evidence that it was ever burned. So my conjecture is that most of my injuries are from the fuel itself burning and not from me burning.) Fastforward to today and I'm well into my third week of recovery and my face now looks severely sunburned. I'll spare you further details and just say I'm thankful it wasn't worse. The Doc said no skin grafts required and the prognosis is for a full recovery. Notes to self: Learn not to burn. Stop/Drop/Roll works (Don't stay in the Stop faze too long though... in my case I really needed to get to the drop and roll stuff. Do not do stupid things with gasoline and fire especially near the very end of a days work. Do not ruin the evening wiener roast. Do not needlessly worry a lot of family and such. Etc. So, onward! Daisy Lou is blushing. She'll pass on the compliments to her younger sisters at the earliest opportunity. She assumes you weren't talking about Eda. Daisy Lou is the short grey haired um... lady. Her sisters: Cindy Lou is the brunette and Betty Lou is the blonde (I think). I was reworking Betty's body yesterday and frankenstein'd some quickly modeled hands onto her. I guess that'll do for now. In order to get the style I'm going for in Cindy and Betty's faces I'm playing with the idea of having several default faces that get swapped out. Here's a shot of Betty's reworked body (I expect the face to change a lot):

Sorry I've been off of the radar of late. A few weeks ago I decided to light myself aflame with gasoline. Note: I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS. The burns are not nearly as painful as the process of treating the burns. I have a new found respect for those burn center doctors/nurses/assistants and my sympathy for burn victims is tremendous. I am now well on the way to recovery... and the good news (for me)... I've found time to sketch with splines again and have been really enjoying that. I need to find my mouse because splining with a finger on a laptop is a royal pain. Tuckertown is a project (of sorts) meant to be a drawn comic strip set in the late 1800s. The characters seemed to translate fairly well into CG so I may press further with modeling them. If nothing else it'd be good to build sets, props and characters for reference. The (partial) models here are proof of concepts to see how difficult it will be to actually model them with the goal of proper articulation. Not all of the characters are fully designed yet so I've been splining and experimenting all along the way. Characters attempted thus far: -Fudley -Eda -Daisy Lou -Betty Lou -Cindy Lou Main Characters to go: -P.T. Boombottom -Louis -the animals And of course, the complete set/stage for Tuckertown! Will I continue to explore Tuckertown... I dunno. Probably. But I've been sidetracked modeling robots and Kirby-krackle lately. One of the real challenges is to deal with tall and short characters within the same shot/camera viewing area. I may have to rethink that aspect. Having all characters look like they belong to the same universe is an important consideration as well.

Um... Wow. This one alone should be awesomelyawesome. If this means what I think it does then we should be able to collect few prime SSS settings for use/reuse. Thanks Steffen for digging deeper into SSS! One question regarding the SSS memory notification: If the computer doesn't have enough memory does A:M's render just skip SSS? I assume A:M won't render until the requirement is lowered?

(What Robert said!) Happy Birthday Willi!

Nice one Serg!

You had me at Gi-Normous. (Heck, if the powers that be can't do these characters right someone has to)

Quoted from another post: Josh, Your dad's personal Work In Progress (WIP) topic was considered the best in that category. Some forum members enjoyed having separate forum areas of their own that highlight their creativity but Paul always seemed to enjoy collecting and updating that WIP (Paul's Playground). We sure enjoyed catching up with him and his projects each time he updated that WIP. I don't know if you've had time to read his topic but if memory serves me correctly, he often spoke fondly of you (his family). We may not have known you personally but we did get brief glimpses of your accomplishments through your dad. Your family was very obviously important to him. If there is anything we can do to help collect Paul's resources posted here in the Animation:Master forum let us know and we'll do our best to assist your family.

Josh, My heart goes out to your family at this time. Paul was an important part of this community and words fail to express how much he will be missed. I'm saddened to think we won't be seeing his creativity here in the forum. He was not only extremely talented guy, he was a friend. He'll be greatly missed. Note: I'm moving this to the main Animation:Master forum as some may not see the notice otherwise.

Happy Birthday Stian!

That was quick! I got my DVD in the mail yesterday. I've been on the road and as soon as I can stay put for awhile I'll give it a view. Looking forward to it!

Everyone that passed by earlier and didn't purchase wanted to go back to your table and buy a DVD but because of the crowd/confusion they got lost and couldn't find their way back! Obviously. Congrats on the gig Mark. (I like your online store. Very simple and straightforward)

Ordered!

Very cool. Congratulations!

No. That is the beauty of the subscription. It's great to have you here sinking your teeth into A:M with us again.

Now... if you can just get those DVDs into Walmart. Congratulations on this (first) print run and best of luck!

That is a really cool aspect of your movie.You'll be forever glad that they voiced the characters and especially in later years... they will too!

As Jason (Hampton) might say... top dollar! It's a really short clip so this may not apply but... it'd be nice to see the intensity of the lighting on the wall diminish and intensify a little with the movement of the flames. That may be more than you care to mess with and not in your budget but if you have time to kill that would further plus it up. If further perfecting... getting the fingers to fall a bit unevenly (tap... taptap or something like that) would give us the idea that there is a brain behind the hand and avoid any perception of floatiness in the fingers. It's a beautiful piece of work.

I'm glad you commented on this one. I was hoping to get a little more info on that.