Rodney

If that doesn't perfectly describe what a fart is then I don't know what else could ... Ah but you left out quoting the most important part! Pay attention now! The fart joke is a cop out... but in a pinch it'll always get the job done. Example: Nancy (err.... I mean... Nancy's take on Mrs. Yoop!) The joke works in the Mrs. Yoop sequence on two levels: 1. When unexpected... fart jokes always work (They usually work when expected too) 2. Physical humor... the physical movement of the character naturally could account for the joke. (i.e. it was a logical moment that Mrs. Yoop could squeezed one out.) I thought for quite awhile about the whys and wherefores of what did and didn't make Nancy's scene work. In the end I found that the addition (while side-splittingly funny) didn't work. Proof 1: A very long time ago I didn't know my youngest daughter was watching as I viewed Mrs. Yoop's dance and her response to seeing the sequence wasn't laughter but rather repulsion. At first she thought the sequence was interesting if not a bit odd. The look on her face after the finale however was worthy of taking note. I was curious to understand why (for her) the joke that never fails didn't work. Upon posting my response here about toilet humor I started asking asking myself what other options there were. I'm sure there are other solutions but my thoughts fell upon another ending that would also have an attachment to physical humor; instead of the fart Mrs. Yoop's weight would have her crash through the floor. Proof 2: This would provoke the same degree of laughter without the toilet humor. Now, lest anyone think I'm suggesting this solution as a better gag or proper laughter provoking cue it's not. But it is a potential Proof 3 to my point. When a fart joke will work... reset the scene for a different (i.e. better) joke.

In the past when I experience the problem I got in the habit of typing out the extension .tga (example: image000.tga) I'd still set the image format to TGA but typing it in with the filename made it stick. Not sure if that will help in your case.

It's possible Jason may have initiated a cue for the A:M Films uploads that delays them showing up over there. I had to do that on the forum side to keep the spam out of the way. So far it's working... (take that you spammers!) Please consider me as one who is interested in your tutorials Ernest! Love the shattering effect.

Hehe. Nice one! Lots of cool effects in there too. The bouncing of the raindrops... now that was a really nice yet subtle effect.

Thanks for the clarification Steffen. I originally had '64 bit' mentioned in my response but removed it because I wasn't sure how accurate that part of the statement was. I should have gone with my instinct. Hopefully Apple/Quicktime can help to get that fixed.

John mentioned potential problems with rendering out to the .MOV format and I see you are (or were) trying to render to .MOV file by one of your posted images. As of the moment there isn't a current Software Development Kit for Quicktime (.MOV) available so A:Mv16 Beta cannot render out to the .MOV format. There is also a problem rendering out to .AVI format but I haven't seen that confirmed yet. In time these problems will be remedied but for now I'd suggest rendering out to image sequences. Try .TGA, .PNG or .JPG.

As the article indicates, Robert Talyor is an amazingly talented artist. His quick-sketch storyboards and character refinement were certainly inspirational. I was so looking forward to learning more from him when he decided it best to move on from TWO. My recommendation: Mr. Taylor should teach a few courses on Directing and Storyboarding.

Very cool news Mark! I should point out that your link didn't work for me. But this one did: http://starbucklers.thewannabepirates.com/ I like the look of the new site! Edit: Okay... that was weird. The link updates now. Must have been a slow connection or cache problem on my end.

'Tis done. I think the reason it was buried in the Newbies Forum is because folks working through TaoA:M tend to ask the question.

By 'original post' I believe Robert refers to here: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=32426

You are out of control. I love it. Cool... and opportunity to express my opinion on fart jokes. Gotta mark this day on my calendar. My one true test in the 'I've given up and don't know how to make this thing work' category is the use of toilet humor. A fart joke almost never fails to get a laugh (if nothing else the shock value alone tends to work) but it's rarely the kind of laugh you want associated with your work in the long term. Side splitting laughter may ensue but it will still devalue the work. Better to understand how the anticipatory build up of the sequence led to an expected outcome but the presentation of a different result caught the audience off guard, then reset the scene for a different joke.

Top shelf! You obviously haven't lost your talent for modeling. Beautifully splined. If I didn't know better I'd say you were going after winning the next A:M Mascot contest!

If you are having a problem moving/reordering Poses in the Properties Window you can create a temporary Folder, drag and drop the Poses into that Folder... then drag and drop the Poses out in the order you wish to have them. Finally, delete the temporary folder. ...this is the same thing mentioned above but with more words.

Well... I did confirm it was Shaun's tutorial and that it is no longer in the same place on the FTP site. I believe it was placed on the Extra DVD if you got one of those. I know it wasn't put on the original Extra CD as files of that size would have filled up the CD too quickly.

Impressive work thus far! Very nice.

Edit... sorry. Not the right link. There was a reason I suggested you wait.

I was thinking that tutorial was by Colin Freeman but I may have my Freeman bros mixed up. I'll keep looking... (there are a lot of type of smoke and a whole lot of related topics in the forum... search on 'smoke') If it was by Colin he's taken that tutorial down from his website. While waiting for the tutorial you are after you may find success with some of the other resources available. Will Sutton for instance has fire and smoke on his Balrog model if you have access to that. Holmes Byrant's sprite tutorials provide a good undestanding of the underlying settings and options used for creating smoke effects. If you understand variables you can adapt a lot of methods used with other programs. The various topics on cigarette smoke demonstrate potential for lofting smoke. Volumetrics will do wonders for that hazy room filled with thick smoke look. There is a really cool project file posted by Javier Poot here: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=35939

Wow. You guys really nailed it! I'm impressed. An underlying theme for those looking in on the topic: Not all splines need to be unibody in shape to appear as if they belong to the same model.

Here is a simple cube shaped proof of concept using spheres and cylinders. (Following Robert's basic idea) Adding materials would hide breaks/creases in the surface. In my example I've just ramped up the ambiance setting. There are no Bones used in this animation. The Control Points were animated. wiredshape000.mov

I'm a little slow making the rounds these days so I just now read this.... This is such a cool thing for you to do for us. Thanks so much!

One of the secrets to hair is apparently placing a texture of some kind on the surface underneath the hair. This will then cover the bald spots from those angles. You may also want to investigate whether a material (such as Keekat's fur recolored white) might work for your purposes.

I'll donate to the tip jar regardless of whether or not it gets me a coloring book. If you can find and please new fans with your coloring books please do that! Hopefully you'll sell out and need to launch a few more print runs. Coloring books or not... I'm a fan. Hopefully I'll snag one.

Thanks Mark! Nice covers.

Very impressive Jost! You have quite a talent for translating your drawings into computer models.