Rodney

Gazz, The effort you've put into improvements is apparent already but don't let that stop you from continuing. I think you've got the right priority... character first! Your's is an interesting approach and I think unique enough to be of interest commercially. In order to be successful commercially however you'll need that quality! You hit a new level in quality with your Gazz in the tunnel scenes. Atmosphere, animation... the whole thing was beautiful stuff. Take this for what its worth... then keep doing your own thing. I think you should consider a redesign of your characters. Keep the essence... but refine them a bit. Lighting and textures can alway be added to up quality in production but its harder to change design in later stages. Don't lose the unique charm of your characters though! Your characters and the simplicity in story elements is what is currently making them successful in my mind. No matter what you do... keep on doing what you do! I look forward to more "Bella Bear". You really should consider working on TWO as well. Its a great place to play with other peoples ideas while refining your own. Sometimes taking a break from your own project can help take it to the next level. Added: Something that I've always thought Bella Bear seemed perfect for would be adding some elements of Live Action to the CG. If I saw Bella Bear on a kids channel with real actors (probably 1 adult and a couple kids but there could always be recurring guests) acting as if they lived in the world of Bella Bear... it'd just fit. The live actors would introduce the adventures of the animated characters and the characters would 'interact' by talking to them (Note: Not necessarily on screen at the same time). Your castle seems a perfect for this interaction as I'm sure it has lots of places to explore. I wanna visit the Library! Just typing out loud because I happen to like the world of 'Bella Bear'. I could easily see this work on kids channels today.

Very very nice. I would say this even if I wasn't a big Superhero fan. Being a Superhero fan I can say... VERY VERY NICE!

I think Mike is suggesting that placing this in another forum area (like WIP) would be more appropriate. User Groups is for... well... User Groups. I like the first one better.

Model and Project files you'll have to place in a zipped file for uploading. Winzip is a good compression utility for the PC. Is it possible your contraints are turned off? These can be turned on/off in 'User Properties'. This sounds like a model you've created but not sure.

There are several things that you might check. Is the keyframe on frame 0? Is Animate Mode toggled on? This second variable is throwing off my calculations and is a bit too vague as we really don't know the manner in which you are animating. Can you clarify further or post a screen shot or file?

Wow. Fast reply. Thanks Bruce! A very nice, simple, yet effective approach.

Bruce, Its been too long since I checked in on your Blog. Some really nice additions! I especially like your subtle yet effective use of sound... particles and lighting. I'd love to see a Bird's Eye view of sequence 8* to demonstrate how you set up the scene. Its hard to tell how much is 3D and how much 2D. However you did it... it looks great! Sequence 9 already... looks like I need to go back and see what I've missed. Christmas will be here soon. Edit: *Sequence 9 reveals you have quite a few 3D buildings in there.

Frank Silas has a nice tutorial on 2D hair. http://www.franksilas.com/Hair.htm

Jabari, Michael, Caroline and Steve! Great to have you all here in the A:M Forum! Make yourselves comfortable... no need to 'put up or shut up' here! You've taken the plunge... now enjoy the journey. There'll be rapids ahead before and after the calm waters but after the ride the sense of accomplishement and some facinating environs await. Be bold. Make new friends. Model, animate and explore. You've definitely come to the right place for all that and more.

Mike, Nice character drawings. While I assume you have animation in mind your comic book talent is definitely showing through. Looking forward to seeing more of Crazy Water and your WIP evolution.

David, I've made a note to visit this topic and download whatever the latest and greatest just prior to sending the Extra DVD out to Hash Inc. In its own little way the Squetch Rig *is* the Extra DVD. Thanks again for all your hard work with it. I expect the next Extra DVD will be full of actors with this outstanding rig.

Jody, I think you can set the model up so that the detail can be added by dropping a second model onto the first. Not sure how well that would work on such a large scales BUT if the second model could be made to turn off its various parts then only those parts of the model needed for close detail would need to be turned on. I've long been interested in developing some poses based on proximity. Poses that turn on/off based on their proximity to the camera for instance. There are some possibilities in such a solution. At any rate... please consider making the extra detail in a second model. Then you can post that somewhere for everyone to add to the basic model... and keep the Golden Gate Bridge for a long time to come. I sense that modular modeling is going to be a big deal in the future. If hooked into HAMR... even better. With such a thing resources, details, information etc. arrive just in time to meet the audience.

I did a racing tutorial??? No... that would be my job. I had completely forgot about that tutorial. Thanks for bringing that memory back. SIGGRAPH was extremely fun. As I recall I had not planned to demonstrate anything in particular so the night before SIGGRAPH I started thinking about cars. The basic race was the result of my desperation. I've always meant to go back and refine that tutorial. There are so many things you can do with just basic animation (paths, deformation, modification, etc) alone. Good luck on your project Duke!

Duke, While its hard to tell as the image doesn't zoom in close enough it looks like you've got some illegal patches in there. That the areas where this appears to be the case also seems to be where the artifacts are present seems to indicate the problem. Can you post an extreme close up (in shaded wireframe) of the areas in question? If you can post the model (or part of it) even better yet.

David, Your link to the InstallRig Plugin goes to the password protected TWO page. I do this all the time when linking to TWO wiki pages. (Quite the pain but I'm slowly learning) This wouldn't be a big problem as everyone could just click on the 'published site' and find the Plugin... right? Um... wrong. It looks like there wasn't a link on the front page to the Squetch Rig. So I've added a link on the front page; look for 'Rigging' right after 'Modeling'. The link to the the published 'Squetchy Rig' page is: http://wiki.hash.com/two/published/Squetchy+Rig I'll change the page from 'Squetchy Rig' to 'Squetch Rig' later but don't want to break any links. This is assuming the official name of the rig is Squetch of course.

You know Ken... I'd say that was a very successful implemenation of Victors lesson. Great shot.

Mike, I'm thinking there are more than a few people that are glad you waited until *after* the Sci Fi contest was finished to return! Great to see you back in action. Outstanding Predator.

Lori, There certainly is a whole lot more to A:M than what the manual covers. You can find some of the information on your A:M CD. Look for the Technical Reference. You can find these online too: http://www.hash.com/htmlHelp/ Then there are the undocumented features. Some of these features have some documentation. (but they are 'mostly' undocumented) Many of the newest features have a Tech Talk devoted to them. You can find some of these pinned here in the Tutorials Forum. The *best* place to find Tech Talks is in the 'Latest Info' forum area but they are also listed here in the Tutorials forum: Tech Talk Links Matthew Bradbury's A:M Features wiki is a great resource. Then there are the website pages devoted to Sweeper, Treeez and Newton Physics. You can find links to these here: A:M Features. Some other 'features' are discovered by the user and only they know how to implement them. They are usually discovered through experimentation. Is there any particular area you are interested in?

You have some intriguing things there but the access is a killer. Your enthusiasm is apparent and there are even hints at genius. But did I mention... access is a killer? The first thing I would do would make the link a bit more obvious and... accessible. It'll get more people to your site. www.againsttheauthor.com Looking forward to seeing more. Keep it up!

That is outstanding work. Not to downplay the time and talent that went into the one currently on the A:M CD but it is quite lacking in detail. Yours really pluses that one up by at least 80%. Yours may not have all the detail of the M4s I get to play with but in my estimation it is more than 'close enough'. (I spent most of today inspecting M4s and then later firing M16s at the firing range... long day.). The decal really goes a long way toward adding the detail that was missing from your first image posted. It'd be good to model the Bolt Catch and Forward Assist though as they stick out quite a bit. If you donate your M4 to the Extra DVD I'll make it a goal to model the internal parts to go with it*. *Not for the Extra DVD but for later.

Everyone is different but I can agree with this. No music is best. Music can do wonders to set the mood of a work but its a distraction I generally can't afford. If music is playing when drawing/modeling/etc I find it best to use music without lyrics. To each his own. Note: This is not the same as listening to music... then stopping it and going to work. Also when animating to a voice/music track its hard not to listen to the audio. Thats not quite the same thing.

I do this from time to time myself... pick up TaoA:M and just start reading. I eventually tire of it and put it down... usually thinking I've surpassed the lessons. As I reread though I always find some new discovery... some new aspect or point of interest to get me excited about animation all over again. Anyway... It's great to have you back Mike!

'semi realistic' is a rather subjective term. Not sure what that really means. Neither did anybody when we put together the Extra CD apparently as not many characters made their way into that category. Have you ruled the models on the Extra CD (and the A:M CD) out? Extra CD Vol I Models/Actors

Thanks Stuart!

Lori, Please post any information you have from the Mac perspective. We want to cover all the angles.