Rodney

Well... here we are in the new spacious living quarters of the Software Tutorials Forum. Anyone have any specific requests for tutorials? Anyone care to take on a challenge and help build the tutorials of the future? Example: I've long wanted to make a tutorial about putting three segments of animation together into one inside A:M. "Splicing in A:M" on the basic side, or "Film Editing" as a more complex set of instructions I guess you could call it. There are several ways to approach this but I think perhaps that I don't know the best way. -Rodney

Doug, If you are going for 'dazed and confused' the white pupils work fine. If not you I think you'll need more definition even if it's a subtle color in a darker shade. Light (and especially white) pupils tend to suggest blindness, confusion or loss of perception. This can be played well in certain characters of course. As far as construction of the eyes and the removal of the pointy pupils, I'd say... "Right On. You've got it!" If you plan on having him blink you'll want to consider eyelids of course.

Jost, I'm liking your model... simple and effective. At first glance I like the walk cycle. Very nice. I agree that the knees should bend just slightly. As she is walking just now the stiffness 'feels' painful. Not sure why I say this... try walking that way and I guess it would be. The thing I'd suggest to really sell the walk would be to have the left and right feet actually cross over in front of each other at the extremes of the walk cycle. It works as is... but might be even better and help you bend those knees to have the legs actually cross over, shifting her weight back and forth just a little bit more. A+ for demonstration too!

I'd guess most walking sticks/night sticks might not have wood grain but that would certainly sell what it is made out of quickly to the viewer. I'd guess they aren't tapered much either but I think that a little taper might be good.

Here's my take Doug: 1) How does this character's personality read? Have to be honest... I'm not reading much. As Robert mentioned the mouth is where he seems to be getting his personality from... usually (and especially with a character without arms and legs) it'll be the eyes. 2) What is this character? I'm a little raindrop. Yup. Yup. 3) I'm wondering how this simple environment plays? The simplicity plays well. It's an interesting... sewn silk pillow effect. 4) I need to fix his pointy pupils, I know. I'd suggest changing his pupils and making them black. This would solve the issue of #1 above. Since none of your colors are really solid a dark grey surrounded by blue might work well. Please post more.

Please check out the new Animation:Master Tutorials Area

Very nice Marcos! Very expressive animation/walk by Pzu and the jungle set looks great. I'm really looking forward to the next update.

The following video tutorial discusses 'stride length' applied to wheel rotation. Definitely worth the show if you haven't seen it. http://www.s1.hashmirror.com/ftp/VM/walk_w...walk_wheel.html

Now that is too cool. It (the movie and a little explanation) would be a perfect addition to the Dynamic Constraints Tech Talk.

Noah, Inspiration is a strange thing... Unlike many people, when I see the talent that you bring to such projects I want to pack my bags and go back to doodling. Hey... doodling is safe! I won't mind you... I'm having entirely too much fun to stop now. It's a joy to see talent such as yours on display. Keep on inspiring! Congrats on your assist with Shaoguee's "Haruwo" as well! That one is a winner too!

You've given him attitude and emotion in both design and motion. Right on! You've got yourself a winner.

You made that fencing mask in A:M? or the whole ad? Come on... fess up the details!

Pardon the adjustment. I just couldn't see anything. I took the liberty to adjust the gamma to 2.2 on my end. Probably too light but definitely reveals the detail on my end. Great modeling and lighting!

Great fun watching you put this ROV together.

Since we are on the subject of Wink it might be good to point out that the creators of Wink also put out some other graphics programs of interest. WAX (a movie editor) WINMORPH (morph images from one to another) and more... I've used both WINMORPH (Long time ago) and WAX (More recently) and thought they were quite useful. http://www.debugmode.com Hard to beat the price (free) and usage is free for personal and commerical use. Distribution of the programs require consent of the creator.

Thanks for the update Chris. That is a bear any child would love.

Well... I did say it was ugly. Obviously if I plan on continuing with mini-tutorials I'll have to make them a little bit prettier and standardize some fonts and add a little style. I redid the tutorial about 3 times from scratch in about 45 minutes... each time finding it easier to start from scratch rather than edit what I had... I learned a lot. You guessed right on the scaling... I scaled the image down 80%. For an update on this tutorial I will show only the menus as the whole A:M screen is unnecessary. That will make it easier to read. As far as scaling in the HTML... WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU TALKIN' BOUT! I didn't do that... Wink has a setting to scale the whole thing down. ...and as far as Martin liking these little tutorials... Lord I hope not! Like I have free time as it is...

Sorry Mr. 7... must have mistaken you for someone else. My first test... very ugly and basic... is finished. Lets see how it links: Custom Tools Menu Tutorial

Mr. 7, I finished looking at both your tutorials and have to say... well done. It looks like I owe you 2 tutorials now. Decisions... Decisions... all the things I like to do most are so obscure...

Spending as much time in the New Users Forum as I do I have a soft spot for the basics; things that many A:M Users would think were just too darn simple. - Basic Spline Modeling* - Applying a Rig* - Lathing* - Font Wizard ** - Duplicator Plugin ** - Basic Expressions ** - Basic Materials *** - Basic Constraints (i.e. Path, Orient Like, Translate, etc)* etc. * The Art of Animation:Master Video Tutorials cover these ** Tech Talk video exists *** Forum area exists

By chance? Gah... a link to 'Useful Links' is at the bottom of everyone of almost 5000 of my posts in the forum. There are none so blind as those that cannot see. Concerning a new forum for tutorials... I personally like the idea. However, as mentioned, there is even now a place in A:M Films for Tutorials... it just needs to be populated. In order to be populated the tutorials must first be created. Who will create these tutorials? How much money will we pay them? Free you say... well then... it may be best to be patient. Or... we can work through the issues with others in the forum and then share the knowledge we gain with each other. The easiest way to prove to Hash Inc that they need a Tutorial Forum is to create content that will fill it. I'll start... you can follow. What shall we tut first?

...and why is Joe so lonely?

I agree with the others... you already have him showing emotion in this shot already. He'll be perfect for learning/demonstrating expressive animation. I like him!

Seven (is that because you have seven logins?), The easiest way to promote Wink tutorials would be to *make* Wink tutorials. Get to it! Then others are sure to follow. The tutorials you create need not be complicated. They could be basic... model this... lathe that... learn. FWIW: One of the reasons I'm not a big fan of Wink and SWF tutorials is that I can't cut them to pieces on my end and add them into my personal library as I'd like... but that is a minor quibble. Any tutorial that illustrates proper usage of animation tools is fine by me.

Well... you can link SWF files into the forum but that requires your SWF files to reside on *your* webspace.