Rodney

David, So far so good! I read too quickly and hadn't realized this was an extraction/extension from Satyajit's kit. Its cool to see some results from the kit being posted. A slight pan left (tracking the bird) followed by a pan right would add a lot to the initial shot. I can't think of the general rule but the idea would be to pick a point in the frame and treat it as if the bird is pushing that point around the screen. The effect then is that of a moving camera following the bird. As I recall the camera typically moves at the point the bird exceeds the halfway point in the frame. (forcing the camera to follow the bird) This adds to the sense of movement and leads the viewer to step into the space the bird is flying through and percieve it as much larger than it is with regard to the actual background available. As you are likely using the whole background image already you'd have to sacrifice a little of it to allow for the pan by scaling it out a little (i.e. zooming in). Edit: To add to the effect of a tired bird I think giving the bird a lot of nose room in the camera frame will help sell that even more. If he's got a lot of area to fly into that might add to the effect of hopelessness and searching. That he is flying from the left seems to be a nice addition to this as well.

(Silly question here but its important to me!) Is there going to be more than one ship?

I was hoping to get started tomorrow.

My initial take on the lighting was that it looked a lot like scenes lit by some of the more seasoned/experienced people here in the forum. So you've done really good there. (Sometimes those longer render times really pay off!) For the most part I liked your camera angles too but as Caroline suggests the cameras may be on the move a little too much. The movement isn't bad. It seemed to move with a general purpose which is a good thing. It looks like you put a lot of thought into it. One thing to consider there is whose Point Of View the camera represents. Is the camera view from someone walking down the street? Is the camera stationary? Or 'a fly on the wall'? Does the camera stay at eye level? Why does it move to the specific places it does? Some additional questions to ask: If you had to confine the camera to only 3 positions where would they be? If you were allowed to use 4 positions which would be the most important? Would it be useful to Zoom in closer to any of the characters during dialogue? Or to demostrate their actions? Just a few random questions thrown out to consider and use to generate ideas. I'm not suggesting you necessarily need to follow any particular one.

Well sure... you could even have him react to getting shot multiple times FIRST, THEN crash through a couple walls, THEN plummet toward the ground where he narrowly escapes certain doom but landing on a car and rolling off BUT then getting ran over by another car. Seriously though. You are making it look easy. I don't use Poser but I know other people that do. They are sure to be interested in such things as this as they are always looking for new ways to use Poser and A:M together. For me its mostly just an enjoyable look into the process of animating things dynamically. You are making good progress. The only thing that really stands out as being particularly off to me is the extended time delayed (balancing back and forth?) before the fall. Again... looks pretty slick to me!

You are quite a talent. If this wasn't already obvious from your character modeling your ship would illustrate that fact just as well. That is one very beautiful ship. Its always a joy to open your topic and see what you've got waiting for us to see.

Hey, that's pretty slick. Just so I understand correctly here... You animated the fall dynamically in Poser... Exported the resulting BVH motion from that... Imported the BVH into A:M... Rendered. I know that is an oversimplification in any case but I'm curious. P.S. That fall looks quite painful!

Kyle, I don't hear sound here either but I must say thats a pretty impressive piece of work. Especially for how long you've been working at this. My favorite part is the truck... I love how it jumps into the scene. Its not really clear how it fits into the overall story but I suppose its a prime place for traffic to be passing by. The exaggerated action of the truck drew my attention to it immediately as it entered the scene. I thought it was pretty cool though. The shooting wasn't entirely clear (as Caroline mentions) as we might expect to see a flash from the gun, the shattering of glass from the telephone booth or blood splatter from the bullet wounds (okay... a bit too graphic for a birthday party!!). I'm sure the sound would have clued us in too. I really like the render, the setup, the general lighting. Very nice. Keep it up!

Kyle, Congrats on your success in making a cube. From such simple beginnings masterpieces are made. Your garbage can I'll need to see more of to really say. I hope you will join in with me as we embark on our mission to work through the manual (TaoA:M). We'll be covering some of the things Caroline talks about (rendering to JPG, coverting images, etc.) there. One of the things you definitely want to do is present your work in a way that people can view it easily. The .BMP format doesn't work well for that.

There is no better time than right now. (a little birdie told me!) Looking forward to seeing you here in the forum.

Not sure about the Orangutan release. When you install the 2005.exe/update there should be an option to copy all of your support files (models, libraries etc.) from the CD to your harddrive. Its fairly easy to miss if you are trying to install quickly so take your time and read the menus. Check the option to install all of the support files and the next time you start A:M the files should be there. If you still cannot see your Libraries there are several topics here in the Newbies forum that walk you through the process of connecting. Just read the topics and you are sure to find several.

Welcome to the A:M Forum. I hope your basement is comfortable as you are sure to spend a lot of time there with A:M.

You have several options. You can reduce the resolution or you can reduce the size. Or... you can do both. With the resolution I'm mainly talking about the dimensions of the movie on the screen. In another post I mentioned your options in rendering out to 'Low', 'TGA', 'VGA' etc. You can use A:M or another program to do this. By size I'm mainly talking about the size of the file itself. To reduce the size generally you have to experiment to find the right compression. I recommend using Sorensen 3 but there are others that reduce the file size even more. Using Sorensen 3 means that the majority of people trying to access your file will be able to do just that. Consider the fact that you don't need to have your file huge for someone to see and enjoy it.

I'm not sure about your particular problem. We'll have to investigate. Try this and see if it works as a workaround. Create another Group containing exactly the same geometry as the Group you already have. Place the Cloth Deflector in it. See if that works. Keep in mind that if you assign Cloth and the Deflector to the same group they -should- conflict so... makes sure you assign them to different Groups. (Not saying you have this in your situation)

The models shouldn't be that much of a problem. Your render settings though... There are a lot of factors that go into render times. For my part I'll start with suggesting rendering to a low resolution. What do you have your resolution set for? (see attachment for what to look for) If you just want a quick test to see how everything is looking (we all like to see our work animated!) keep it set to 'Low', 'TGA' or 'VGA'. "Mini" is probably going to be too small. For tests I usually keep the framerate down to about 30 frames. When rendering consider how many frames you really need to see. You can tell A:M which frames to render. If you have Multipass on (see other attachment) you will probably want to turn it down (or off). I suspect that you have it turned off but... I can't see from here. As others have suggested... If you want faster rendertimes... Turn all that extra stuff off!!!

I thought this problem was nailed down in the most recent version. It appeared quite often in the Ku Klip sequence Stian was working on. Outside of the rendering artifacts that is very outstanding work you've got there.

Here's a related discussion with some of Robert' movies. Robert's Exercise 6 Keyframing Tutorial/Project File

I think I have a copy of Robert's Keyframing tutorial around here somewhere. Until then perhaps this will be a good introductory (The interface is a bit different but its a classic. Courtesy of Ed Lynch): http://www.hash.com/users/ed/tutorials/animtut.htm

Robert, I think your tutorial got archived a little too far back in the fileroom. The ABC forum apparently is no more.

Kyle, This is a graphic version of what John typed in his post: http://www.hash.com/am2003/RAM%20Player/index.htm Until I can track down another example perhaps this will do? Instead of importing a sequence of files you are importing your AVI movie. - Then from the File Menu - Make sure you have your Project Workspace open (VIEW/Project Workspace on the Menu) - RIGHT CLICK on the shortcut to your AVI file - Select 'Save As Animation' - Locate the File type and compression you want (I suggest .MOV with Sorensen 3 compression) - Done.

Kyle, You really should work your way through the manual here in the forum. The feedback you get will be well worth the time you invest. Others have been exactly where you have been and they've posted their experiences to help you. Working through TaoA:M gives everyone a reference point from which to work with. As you post there in the TaoA:M exercises people will help you get through the rough spots. Also, you may not know of the video tutorials that go with the manual. Have you went through all of the video tutorials here: http://www.hash.com/2007web/vm.htm Of particular interest to you with regard to your question about setting keyframes you may find the very last video tutorial on that page of interest. Its called 'Path Ease (walk, then wave)' and it isn't included in the manual. There use to be some additional Keyframing suggestions in the ABC forum but I think that disappeared with the recent forum archiving. If anyone has links to those perhaps they can post them. To answer your question though: From the Technical Reference (page 251) and 'Exercise 6: The Door's Stuck':

This is what I was referring to in my post above. He needs to react... be a little suprised... at least until the realization kicks in. I don't know anyone that would react as calmly as this guy. Go ahead... practice it on your significant other... I'll wait here.

Looking really nice thus far. Everyone can thank William Sutton for the Dodos. They were his contribution.

I'm going to assume you want to create Text here for use in animating. If I'm wrong please correct me. Animating text is a lot different than creating it. (But good news! Both are easy in A:M!) While we are waiting to find out more here is a link to a really old topic on the subject. There are newer topics and tutorials as well but it helps to know what you are looking for. Let us know. Creating Text and Objects with the Font and AI Wizards

Very nice! (I don't see the neck/head problem )