Rodney

I'm sure this is unrelated but why are some of your patches colored and some not? Is there a reason those patches aren't part of the same group and therefore receiving the same color? Perhaps that is just for your testing purpose?

I resisted the urge to ask about that hand. After reading that the character was already rigged I couldn't help but wonder about that hand. I knew you'd have an explanation. Its fascinating how the introduction of one new character can suggest so many things. You've obviously put a lot of thought into these characters and their design is compelling. Your style has a feeling of familiarity as if we've always known these characters. And yet with each character's uniqueness a curious sense of the unknown remains.

In the off chance that this is graphics card related and you are on a PC... Go to Tools/Options and on the Global Tab change your driver setting from OpenGL to Direct3D. If its set to Direct3D change it to OpenGL. See if that doesn't make a difference. Make sure you are in a Modeling window when you test.

Perry, I edited my earlier post to indicate my results. It most definitely works in v15e. Now we just need to figure out why it doesn't work for you. Until you supply more information we must assume user error. (User error here also encompassing installation and maintenance of your computer system) That's the nature of the beast. We all can sympathize with things not working. Now we just need to get to the root of the thing. Some things that will help us understand better would be a screenshot, information on what operating system you are using, steps that you take in the procedure, etc. "It don't work" doesn't help us with determining much of anything. Especially when we see it working on our end. Please help... so we can help you.

I can confirm this works as intended in v15e. Have you ever used the process before? If not here are the general steps: Select Patch Group Mode (Shift P) Click on a valid patch If you don't click on a valid patch nothing will be selected.

Gene. Gene! Um... GENE!!! That last link says the video was removed. Oh. Nevermind. Its back again. Yee Haa!

It'll be fun coming up with names for these guys. Do you have a name of the rock band?

Wow. He looks awesome!

Your way of having fun is certainly contagious. I used your imagery as an excuse to explore A:M's Post Effects. Here is an example of your previously posted color image with the following Post Effects applied: - Film Grain - Denoise (I backed off the settings on this considerably but this produces some interesting effects) - Bloom (I tried to blow out the background a little more but it took the characters with it) - Tint Adding some artifacts and cutting up the edges might finish the old film effect. The benefit to doing this post effecting in A:M is that what we can use with still imagery we can also use with animation. Gonna need more popcorn!

This is almost better than going to the movies Mark. Someone pass the popcorn!

Sure does. I'm curious. Is there anything in particular that lead you in that direction? I ask primarily as your color choices may depend more on the story you are telling and the scenes the characters move through than anything. Like you, I immediately thought of white for the girl. I wonder why that is. After that initial thought I wondered if it might not be worth testing further. It wasn't long before I felt a lot more comfortable with black for the girl. I'm not trying to sway you here one way or another... just delving into the thought process a little more. Depending on your interest I'd be glad to delve some more. Needless to say I'm interested in your characters and their stories.

Looking really good! I'll offer the following You'll be able to differentiate them even further in the colors that you use. As a starting place I'll suggest some earthy tones as a baseline; gray, brown, black, tan and white. You could then add the more character oriented color as necessary (via lighting, tinting, etc) to enhance and nail down the individuality of the characters. The general idea would be to pick two colors representative of each character. One very conservative and one that will stand out from it. The combination of these two color themes alone will give you a lot of room to play with when setting up scenes with your characters. Then a third set of colors are used to set mood and give insight into what the character is thinking. These colors will tend to change depending on the scene. At a guess I'd say they are the primary colors; blue, red, yellow, green, etc. Apologies if this gets a little too much into your creative biznez. Looking at your characters made me think of this.

Tim, If you do adjust the current character... Make sure you save this one! He's a keeper.

I like this character a lot. The mustache will save you a lot of work on lipsync too so that alone may be a good reason to keep it! My only crit: The legs look a little long in proportion to the rest of body. Especially as you've stated you are trying to accentuate his stomach girth. Rather than making his legs shorter though you could consider scaling up the rest of his body from waist height. I guess it depends on how tall you want the character to be.

Graduated TaoA:M and already you are onto something great. You've built some impressive character into that character! I agree that he does look a little older. If you are going for 'goat' you got him! If you are going for 'kid' you'll want to work on him a bit. What others have suggested is right on the money but the long horns seem to be the defining feature that makes him look aged to me. If you are going for a really young kid then you might remove the horns altogether. Give the kid tiny horns and you'll immediately suggest he's growing into them. I didn't find anything that really jumped out as perfect but here are some pics of goats and kids: http://www.fotosearch.com/photos-images/goat-kids.html

So far so very good! I was just getting settled in when the projector broke. Better hurry up and fix that thing or the audience is going to form a lynchin' mob. I like the pace you've got going thus far. There is one suggestion I'd like to forward. You've got a lot on your plate with this so I don't expect you to actually do it. But I offer it up by way of feedback. When the character is launched over the bar I'm not sure if you have time for it but I'd suggest stopping him short of the fall and holding him there for a moment. Then as soon as we can see him... let him fall. It would be especially effective if we see the character's face before the fall.

Very colorful! Go Nancy!

All of the former observerations were made in real time while the ideas were fresh in my mind. In retrospect all of the observations have to do with movement and in particular keeping the eye interested and moving through the frame. At the point were things stop moving the eye gets lost and confused just a little. Just a little movement to direct the viewer's attention and keep things going would be all it would take to make this sequence flow even better. Hope that makes sense Stian.

Yes. I was able to get through this time. Another great animation Stian. This one isn't quite as dynamic as the first one no? That one was all out action. A few assumptions here before I go on: - You aren't likely to change anything? - There is some voice over missing? My observations: - Odin=cool character - When we first see the character he and everything around him seems frozen in place for too long. (The idea of having Odin in a strong frozen pose is good but it'd be nice if the birds moved just a little. If not the birds... something moving or changing color to keep the eye interested. Maybe evidence of wind?) Edit: I know! A glint of light off of Odin's eye just after a slight energizing power up via the yellow circle on his chest! - Nice sweep pan over to the well. I like the speed of it. I'm not sure about the intention of the scene at the well so I'll just tell you how it reads to me. - It seems to me that the birds have a clear intent in going to the well. But when they get there the intent seems to disappear. Its the lights that find them rather than the opposite. The lights seek them. Not sure here. I think zooming in just a little, perhaps starting the zoom as soon as the sweep pan ended would help with showing the detail. (Those birds are small and its hard to see them standing on the well. If there is no narrative we are missing I think the lingering shot on both the intro to Odin and the well could be shortened to pick up the pace a little. In particular after the sweep pan over to the well the shot could being with the birds in frame desending to the well. After typing the above I went back and looked again. Thats great stuff Stian. My observations really don't mean anything do they?

Mark, That is looking sweeeet! I'm curious. Did you use the Post Effect 'Bloom' on either of the last two images? It definitely has that look. (Which looks great) Edit: Earlier I was going to suggest there was something a little flat about the face. I couldn't decide what was giving me that impression. In looking now I think it might be the front four top/middle teeth. If its not just the camera angle perhaps they may be just a little too straight? Adjusting the outter teeth just a very tiny bit would suggest depth in the jaw. If this is just camera angle please disregard.

Gene, I hope everyone takes note of your response. If someone were to suggest I dent a hat on my character I'd probably think... "Yeah right... I'll get right on that." What I've taken to doing here in the forum, especially of late, is adding at least one observation where I see potential for improvement in each response. I don't just pick something at random though, I tend to think about it a lot. If I can't think of some constructive feedback I may delay my response. Perhaps someone can provide a little more more constructive feedback than what I've got. The question of course might be what constitutes constuctive response. Do dents in hats and stretched decal meet the proper criteria for such? Isn't it good when we can toss a few suggestions back and forth and not take it personally when those ideas are discarded? As you are the one doing the work they are all your ideas to toss. Suggestions of adding detail to hats and unstretching decals are indications of just how well things are coming along.

Stian, At present I can't seem to connect to your site. I tried with both Internet Explorer and Firefox. Hope we didn't crash your server or use up all your bandwidth.

It looks like Paul has answered this already. Right Click on the Decal and select Edit to go into the UV Editor and adjust where the decal is on the mesh. Where possible you could take objects like this star and isolate them in a separate decal of their own. Hide all other geometry that you don't need and Apply the decal in a view that will minimize distortion.

Done!