Rodney

I'm going to say he would. There is something about the fact that you've got all these characters from different 'worlds' that really appeals to me. I suppose keeping him mostly a puppet wouldn't prevent an episode or two where he transforms into another persona. If you make a reasonable story that explains the change I'd say people will follow along. I fully expect Gwen to get some transformer like armor and sword one of these days so why not Tech also? If you keep having fun with it I think others will too. You are doing a great job of leveraging the resources you have available to you. Just keep plussing it up a little each episode and that'll keep me hooked.

Happy Birthday Will! Here's to another year of quality splining! Added: Thought I'd draw Tar as a child... then ended up drawing an old friend of his... then fast forwarded to a fateful moment when that old friend drops in to visit Tar again...

'Perk' by Dusan Kastelic is now playing at the top of the forum. http://amfilms.hash.com/video/55/Perk

That worked out really well Dan!

Nice! I'm betting most people will think you've only faked the tapir.

Pretty slick John. If I'd have seen that out in the wild I would have guessed it was created with Flash or similar program. It makes me think of some of the opening sequences seen for cartoon shows these days. Nicely done.

In another topic we were talking about Pose Sliders and modifying models... Here's a animated sequence originally shared by Bill Alger through Google+ that demonstrates an equivalent process via Stop Motion. Just replace the Guy animating Coraline with the Pose Sliders. Either way the 'trick' isn't seen in the end product. (Click on the image to begin the GIF animation) Source: http://animationanomaly.com/page/3/

Here's a fun extract from an old Popular Mechanics write up on Hanna Barbera animation. You can read the whole article via Google Books. Link found via Jerry Beck over at Cartoon Brew. At the end of the article you can read the following from 51 years ago: The article discusses some of the cost saving methods Hanna Barbera was using at that time. Of course all these years later they can still apply to CG too.

It would help considerably if you could collect your project (Embed or Consolidate all important parts) and share it with us. Then we can see exactly what you are seeing and optimally resolve the problem. Without knowing more specifically, I see two approaches immediately available to you: 1. Pursue Surface Constraints 2. Use the Surface as the Path Constraint There are topics here in the forum on both of these but I'm not sure how easy they'll be to find. If someone doesn't have a reference handy I'll try to ferret it out. (Edit: Here someone else was pursuing info about Surface Constraints and the Tech Ref has some good info on it at page 88) The easiest in my opinion is number 2 but... for that to work ideally a part of your surface needs to be the intended path. Applying a Path Constraint to a grid line will have the Object/Character only moving up and down over the surface while following that straight line... not the ideal in most situations.

It may surprise you to hear this but... a lot of folks don't even save their Project files. They use the Choreographies instead. When you open a Choreography in any new project it'll bring all the assets in with it. Of course when we work in A:M we always work in a Project. There is no getting around that.

Very innovative use of A:M too I might add.

You have a great 'illustrated' look in that first screencap (all of the screen renders actually). Are you using Matcap shaders? Regardless. I like it!

JimD's 'Midnight Run' is now playing at the top of the forum. See it larger at: http://amfilms.hash.com/video/83/Midnight-Run

Wow David. That is some seriously optimal splinage. I've been looking at your layout with an eye to trim something but haven't found anything yet. In my own personal wanderings I'm long tried to get rid of that center spline but as it's so necessarily for CFA procedures I haven't found a way to (effectively) get rid of it yet. In your (final... final.... final) model would you be able to get rid of it?

Looking very good will. The effect of stability at the top and drag at the bottom really conveys the sense of weight of the skin. Some post effect/overlaid wind effects coming across the desert at the appropriate time that the cloak moves would really sell the effect. Sound will seal the deal as well. If there is suppose to be no wind then as Robert suggests the cloak may be flapping too much. Very nice.

I haven't had the chance to view them all but I'd say from the sampling I just saw you've delivered them just in time for Halloween.

He looks great Mark!

Very nice! ...and it's a game too?

Everything except image files. Most of A:M's files are text files and strictly speaking, text files cannot store image files. They must be maintained and referenced externally.

BUMP. (Because learning A:M and reading comic books at the same time is really cool)

It looks like an effect of internal patches.

The A:M Composite we are working with is a first generation implementation so some problems can be expected. I have found however that following an optimized workflow produce highly favorable results. As A:M is not a compositing application like Nuke, After Effects etc. I'm pleasantly surprised when I see it keeping up with these apps. As Robert mentioned, the compositor was primarily designed for use with EXR and should be expected to perform better with that file format. I've mostly been using other file formats in an effort to learn more about how Post Effects work with web-friendly image formats. Our setup of A:M is likely to have something to do with our results as well. For instance, yesterday I wasn't using OpenMP and so I thought I should enable that. The next time I worked in A:M Composite I experienced some screen redraw issues and a noticeable slow down (odd because the rest of A:M sped up dramatically!). Of course this might not even be related to OpenMP... but I immediately thought it was. As I find some useful combinations in A:M Composite I'll share them.

I think you've got the right idea here. While learning for the sake of learning is fun it'll pay dividends to you to work with a plan of action. Because there is so much to learn (we'll never learn everything there is to learn) it can help to define a project or series of projects that eventually will lead to a specific outcome. For instance, in learning how to model you might have a goal in mind to create the props needed for a set for use in a 30 second animation about... . In this case the target is primarily just a means of getting you through the learning process with a goal in mind. Keeping that target simply will ensure you arrive near your intended destination. Even if you change your goal along the way you'll have learned a great deal and produced a whole lot and that may be particularly useful as you move toward your next project where you will learn even more. Concerning Lipsyc: If you are interested in lipsync I would encourage you to listen to a whole lot of dialogue before you even take hold of your mouse. Exhaust the resources of The 11 Second Club (but don't get distracted by full character animation... only focus on the lipsync part!). Study movies. (Lipsync and Body Language go hand in hand) Learn to love the Muppets! (studying puppet dialogue will do wonders) Watch people talk. (Note how the same dialogue can be performed with different accents) Flood your senses with ideas and definitions of what lipsync is all about. Then take a break and do something else. When you return to work with lipsync in A:M you'll be amazed at what you'll be able to figure out. Lipsync isn't about how you manipulate stuff in A:M. Take what you learn from the real world and then apply that in A:M.

Fuchur has ID'd what I thought was at the root of the issue. I'm not sure how images would get the wrong setting on them unless you were experimenting with that setting. That is the only place I know in A:M where the real time image resolution setting can be changed.

I want to return to the main issues that keep people from using A:M composite. I'm going to write this toward the complete newbie... hopefully we'll get some more folks to use A:M Composite this way. As near as I can tell the required components of a Composite are: - Composite container - Image(s) - Post Effect(s) Steps to an effective composite Note: There are other ways to composite images in A:M. We are discussing A:M Composite here. One of the benefits to using A:M Composite over other methods is that you can bypass the rendering process and save a lot of time re-rendering images. To save time: Render once. Convert and Composite. 1. Right Click in PWS and create a new Composite container 2. Create a Post Effect (any effect will do but I often use Mix) 3. Open/Add your imagery in A:M (If you've just rendered a sequence it may show up as available but it's better to use images your brought into A:M) * Once you get a setup you like... save your Project. If something goes wrong you can then return to that saved state again. Note that at this point we haven't actually created a composite. We are just set up for success. Composite container. Post Effect. Images. Saved Project. We are set. - Drag and Drop the Post Effect onto the Composite - Because this is a Mix Effect it'll have two image buffers which await files to be dragged/dropped onto them. - Underneath the Image container should be a subimage container. These are the nodes you drag and drop into the image buffers. Note: If the subimage containers do not show up something has to trigger them. Saving the Project might work but often just clicking around in the PWS will as well. This may be a screen refresh issue but I think A:M is just being resourceful in what it is drawing to the screen and only wants to show this container when you need it. Once A:M knows you need it... it will appear. - Once the images are in the buffer containers I tend to click up at each stage of the hierarchy to refresh the thumbnail image at that level. This clues me into the fact that the settings at that level have properly effected the imagery. It can also clue us in when something is amiss... for instance, if no tiny image shows up at all then a setting may have been missed. Double clicking on the Composite container will of course open the final result for viewing in the main window. * Here I like to open the Properties panel and Time Line. This will be needed if you are animating effects over time even if dealing with only one still frame it can help to see how the effect is being set. For animation it shows you where your effects have been keyframed. * If you want to add another image into the composite there are several ways to do it but I like to add a second Mix Effect. This use of the same effect more than once is key to really diving deeply into compositing. It's also useful for effects like Blur which by themselves will only produce a limited blur effect but when nested under additional blur nodes can increase a blur to the nth degree. Okay... we've played enough for the moment. Time to save our Composite (name the files something useful and number them incrementally... MyFirstComposite001.cmp... for instance). Save the Project file too if you feel the need. But saving isn't the most important thing. The results of the composite was what we were after and even if we lose everything we need that! So, Right Click on the Composite container and select 'Save As Animation' and save your newly composited image, movie or sequence of images. Note: If currently using 64bit A:M the .MOV option will not be available. For compositing/converting to .MOV format you'll want to launch 32bit A:M. Run both at the same time if that helps. Note: When saving to .MOV format the default compression (codec) will be 'Animation'. This is no compression and will produce large files. You may want to choose a compression such as H.264. When you click on 'Compression' in the Save As Animation dialog it may take a little while for the settings to appear. More later?