Rodney

Woah... thought I had already seen and commented on this one. I hadn't! Very very... good. Good isn't the word but I can't think of an adequate one. Very solid and moody/scary storytelling. Bravo! Over 500 downloads of this movie... come on people... this one deserves some feedback. Definitely need to get this one on A:M Films.

Those red eyes really make your 'new' character look sinister. I like!

KenH built one. He's on the current CD. Shhhh... I didn't tell you that. I'm enjoying seeing your changes with your current character.

I think he mean 'lighting'instead of 'lightning'.

Reminds me of some of the Sesame Street shorts. Very cute.

This is a simple and effective tutorial covering the basics of modeling, rigging and animating in Animation:Master with good coverage of navigation in the A:M interface along the way. If you are new to Animation:Master watch this.

Joe, Very impressive! There are parts of your script that are down right inspired. Animating it will be quite a task! Personally the imagery I had in my head as I read alternated between the panels of comic books (both Bone* and Japanese anime) as well as sweeping scenes of moody forest and other environs. Your characters are compeling and have very interesting personalities. If I may... there were two areas I thought could use some changes. For the scene where Bob rescues Bunny and Bear... It might be better to bring the scene up to a cresendo and then just cut away... the viewer would then discover their fate at the same time Hadi and The Child do. Milly's final return. It is growing on me but something seems missing. It works as you have it but the great resolutions you've built up to throughout the story fall away at the end and there is a sense of returning full circle rather than completion. I won't insult you with my idea just now but there might be other ways to wrap up the story that also tie up all the various threads and end with all plotlines concluded. As I say... sorry to even suggest that I know your story better than you. I guess I started to empathise with the characters and the end didn't quite fit for me. Please tell us more about your project and your plans for it! Please! Rodney *If you aren't familiar with the comic book "Bone" you really should look into it. Your script has a good feel of environment just like Jeff Smith's world. I must like that as Fone Bone (the main character) is currently my avatar image. www.boneville.com

General tutorial information for consideration follows: I've been working with Seven (and others) offline to further explore the world of tutorials. I think many of us share a need for tutorials in various forms and distibuted by a variety of means. When I think of tutorials it depends on the day what type I like best. Publishing Video tutorials are an excellent means of showing detailed step-by-step click here... click there instruction. The downside is the large file sizes especially when sound is included. Other benefits... caputure and share. A demonstrator's talent is readily apparent. Edited Video tutorials are an improvement on the raw video tutorials. Editing takes time and this format is often seen mostly via paid tutorials. The Anzovin CDs are a good example of these. Wink, Camstudio, Camtasia etc. Camtasia is the preferred format of Hash Inc but the drawback is that of cost. As I recall it runs about $200 and people that use Animation:Master as primarily a hobby aren't likely to invest the money. The quality of these tutorials is high and make for excellent instruction. Camstudio is hard to find as the company no longer supports the free distribution of the program. For those that can find it tutorials can be produced with quality close to Camtasia. Wink is the current preferred program for 'user created' tutorials in the Tutorials Forum. It is free which is it's greatest but by no means only advantage. It doesn't have native sound support but innovative minds in the forum have supplied a means to add sound to Wink tutorials via a secondary swf interface. They require the Flash Player to view and allow easy editing of text and basic navigation within a tutorial. File size may be it's greatest advantage over other formats. It can also produce PDF and HTML (webpage) tutorials from the same project files. Webpages are the legacy tutorial format that still enjoys popularity. The wide variety of formats allow for personalization but also make standardization difficult. Web-based tutorials primary disadvantage is one of availability. If the tutorial is no longer supported by the author or distributor links to the tutorial are broke and less than useful. PDF (Acrobat Reader) files provide print ready formatting withcross platform compatibility. It allows the author to control the look of the printed product in ways that other text based formats cannot. There are other formats as well but those are the primary ones currently being explored. Distribution There are probably three primary means of distributing tutorials Online, print and digital CD/DVD. Online tutorials are immediately accessible and easy to distribute. A connection with the interet must be maintained unless the tutorials are downloaded and maintained in digital format locally. Search, indexing and editing functions are usually easy to implement. Print tutorials can be found in magazines, books and self published/printed from their original digital form. The tutorials are highly portable but lack automated search and indexing capabilities. While they can be annotated they cannot be edited without being tranferred to digital format or reconstructed/recreated. Digital CD/DVD can store large quantities of data in a portable form but require an interpreter in the form of a viewer in order to access information. All media forms and distribution methods have their advantages and disadvantages. In order to maximize availability of information a mixture of media and distribution should be explored. One of goals in the Tutorials Forum is to get information to those who need it in a timely manner, with accurate and current information in formats that will remain accessible and available for as long as possible. We solicit all who are interested to help us in this effort. Thanks!

Thanks Charlie, Knowing people will put these tutorials to good use makes this process even more enjoyable.

Don't stop Paul! Even if your Woot were adapted or replaced it's talent like yours that really shows us what we should be striving for here. You have created a most excellent Woot.

John, For some reason the tutorial doesn't show. Perhaps there is a problem with the HTML file as I can view the SWF file directly. This link works for me: http://johnl.inform.net/pages/animatemat.swf

Nice addition. You are starting to get some nice detail now.

There are some nice particle emitter tutorials out by the likes of Colin Freeman/Shaun Freeman and others but this one I don't recall seeing. It's from 2000 but appears to have current informaton. For those that cannot view larger video tutorials it may be just the thing to get a good flame effect in your scene. Flame Tutorial It has a project file that I haven't tested. Thanks Sine NG!

He means Paul Daley... Forum member #16 and CD Project Manager extraordinaire! He is collecting the sets (and other resources) for the Extra CD. Profile: Paul Daley Those interested can find out more about the Extra CD Project HERE.

Very nice. The world needs more toon heroes!

The Animation:Master Resource Matrix If you can't find the tutorial you are looking for you probably haven't checked the A.R.M. The Software Tutorials Forum is designed to integrate fully with the A.R.M. in an effort to provide the most useful and timely information available. If you aren't sure whether something should be listed in the A.R.M. post it here in the Software Tutorials Forum. Once others have had a chance to check it for accuracy and give you feedback to make it the absolute best it can be, we can link it in the A.R.M. where everyone can easily find it. Thanks to Vernon Zehr for creating and maintaining the Animation:Master Resource Matrix. Thanks Vern!

Thanks John! Great contributors are behind the scenes in this effort. We've got your space reserved for your laboratory too! Not sure what to call it yet... A special thanks to the following for really getting us going. Hash Inc! (Couldn't do it without you and your excellent software and server space) Seven (For getting the Software Tutorials Forum moving) Vern (For creating and maintaining the A.R.M.) ..and to everyone for their continued patience. We have a long way to go! Your ideas and innovation help create ever better ways of learning 3D with Animation:Master.

Okay John, I admit I got a little lost. That is only because I'm trying to follow in my head though. Always better to download your project files and explore. Thanks for the step-by-step walk through an animated material.

Darrin Mossor has some really excellent tutorials on his website. There are several subject that I thought I would like to do a tutorial on but Darrin says it better than I ever could. Some of the information might seem a little outdated (most created in 2002) but they are must read tutorials. For instance: Layers Tutorial by Darrin Mossor Other tutorials can be found here: http://www.mossor.org/Desktop/index.html These tutorials include: - Writing with Sprites - The Duplicator Wizard -or- 5 minute instant DNA - Walking a Centipede Along a Path -or- Building Complex Animations from Simple Pieces - Footsteps in the Snow (using Animated Displacement Decals) - Displacement Maps -or- The 30 minute Do-It-Yourself Garbage Can Thanks Darrin!

Here is a full view of Seven's image tutorial on creating tutorials with the Wink program (from the attachment above). Other formats will be accepted but we are standardizing on Wink whereever possible. It's a Windows only program so making tutorials with a Mac will require a different approach. The .SWF files should be able to be seen on any computer that has a Flash player. Wink is an excellent way to share your step-by-step tutorials with others. You can even record your troubleshooting steps for reporting to A:M Reports.

Jesus, You know... I can never see those things. Anyway, thanks for the tutorial as I'm sure others will find it useful. It was very clear and concise. Congratulations also for being the first tutorial uploaded to the new A:M Tutes area. For those that want to view directly: View Online If you prefer to keep it off the Hash Inc site this link will be removed. Thanks again!

Great stuff! I hadn't realized that you used action objects so it took me a second to realize I only had to drop Scooby into the Chor and drop the actoin on him. This is a superb way of demonstrating the usefulness of action objects. Thanks for the files. Great fun!

That was Eugene Liscio over in the Software Tutorials area. Building a truck He still hasn't fessed up the link yet.

You are right about John not caring for off topics. Still he is gracious enough that he's even allowed separate forum areas for Sports Talk, Star Trek, Star Wars and more. The Star Trek and Star Wars was are new. There are specific topics for posting 'fan art'. The one I'm thinking of is about sketchbook art but comics pages and painting etc can be seen there. The focus is on comic characters. I'd think people might be interested in how they can use computers (and especially 3D) to enhance their comic work. Here is the link to the sketchbook thread: "What's in your sketchbook" on the John Byrne Forum John's 3D line work in Strata was a favorite topic for me but he hasn't posted much in that area lately. Rodney

A variation on John's theme. Objects inside objects via the cookie cut images. Bottom image is the patch image.