Rodney

Drat drat drat. I missed it. Congrats anyway Zack!

Oh yeah! They are moving now.

Glad to see you are bringing her back. She's a great character with great potential... and um... character!

Very nice work thus far and a compeling story too. I like the way you've set up your site. Really looking forward to seeing more of 'Raglan'.

There definitely looks like there is a story there. Nice work on both the radiosity box and character.

Really shaping up nicely Daniel. I love the detail you've been adding.

Very cute! That'll make a great Math book cover. If you have time to tweak I'd suggest angling the turtles just a bit more to give the impression of speeding around the corner... but still... the image is nice as is.

In the process of collecting information we'll be identifying some resources that already exist rather than reaccomplish the information. For instance, while I don't own a copy, information on the Anzovin "Get Started" CD might cover a lot of territory that wouldn't need to be repeated by us. We'll do some juggling and balancing to determine what information is readily available and what isn't. While we won't avoid topics that are covered elsewhere we will take it into consideration whether the information is available and where possible move on to other areas of learning.

Thanks for the input everyone. Most of what will be focused on with the A:M Step by Step How to instruction will be on how A:M works. Of course in the process of showing these steps something is usually built and there is generally an end product so by default a tutorial on How to model is always a possibility. I think some of the items on Gaijin's list would be perfect for paid tutorials. I'm not suggesting a means or distribution route but I think it would most likely be in the fashion of the SIGGRAPH tapes or the Anzovin CDs. I think there is good precidence for specific information to be sold in the form of books, videos and other media. I'd pay for some useful condensed information on such A:M related subjects. Since we are on the subject of Anime, the books that have been making there way into the states over the past year or so on how to draw Anime/Manga illustrate what would be perfect for the delivery of the information. Cost, distribution and number of willing consumers are important factors that might keep such products from seeing the light of day.

I just saw this. Awesome. Bravo. Encore! The Adventures of Crimebomb & Ms.Demeanor on A:M Films *Sorry... mispelled Crimebomb in the Title. Well... his name is Bob during non-duty hours right? right?? Admin... HEEEEELLLLP!

Love those 360 turnarounds. Like you I don't care for the color I'd guess but what ya gonna do. I can't help but think yellow would work in this case a bit more than red/orange. Maybe even gold. Your Superheroes are cool regardless... so you've impressed me!

Frank, I imagine the more realistic style is what you are going for here but I think everyone would love to see what he'd look like via toon render.

Thanks for the update John! I was experiencing serious depression for lack of getting regular updates regarding "Investigating Jack"! It's a good think I ran into in #hash3d the other day or who knows what state I'd be in. If everyone else is as addicted to your story and characters as I am I'd say you've really got a real hit on your hands. I keep wanting to see more of the world of Jack and the Kapsules. It doesn't have to be much... but please please please... keep those images flowing. Crop out all the secret stuff if necessary but keep the world of "Investigating Jack" in the headlines and hearts of the viewers. Please? Perhaps you could share with others some of the sketches you showed in chat. Thanks!

Not to sidetrack too much but it's always good to get the thoughts and direction of the creators of Animation:Master. If there is anything that can be considered 'authoritive' it would be the words that come from those at Hash Inc. Concerning CP Weighting there is some revelation into the history of CP Weights in A:M. The follks at Hash said: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Weighted Control Points Hash Inc. has resisted embracing weighted CP's for a very long time. There are several reasons for this. The technology is fairly good at softening hard joints especially when the geometry is dense. However, it has serious limitations. Weighted vertices have a tendency to reduce the volume of the joint as it blends. The technology feels vague and uncontrollable to the artist. There are a wide variety of tools out there, each one trying to give the artists some level of control. Some use paint tools to paint the weights. Some have falloff tools and curve editors for the falloff. Some have manual weight editing dialogs. Now that the technology is in AM it would seem to the artist that they could get the weights set correctly if they just had the tool like brand X. This pursuit of weight setting nirvana is, unfortunately, often not achievable. I am sure tools to adjust the weights will be added on as demand warrants it. Here is the crux of the problem: Take the simple, but extreme worst case example of a simple tube like an arm. Consider a single point that is at the outside of the elbow joint. It is equally close to both the bicep and forearm. So most would consider 50% - 50% to be a good choice of weights. Now, an elbow cannot twist, but for simplicity, suppose this is a joint that can. Now consider the worst case, a roll of 180 degrees on the forearm. The bicep hasn't rolled, so according to it, the point should be placed on the outside of the elbow where it was modeled. The forearm however thinks it should be rotated 180 degrees, which would place it at the inside of the elbow. Now comes the blending. The 50/50 that we chose would result in the point being halfway between these two places. That is right at the center of the elbow joint. Oops, this is what causes the collapse. If all of the points around the elbow were subject to the same 50/50 blending, they would all end up at the center. This results in an elbow that has pinched down to nothing. Now let us adjust the weights. Consider our point on the outside of the elbow again. Our only control is to do a linear blend of the inside and the outside result. That means no matter what we set these weights to (even if we had ultimate, perfect control) the resulting answer would have to lie on the line that connects the inside and outside of the elbow. None of these choices are the correct one. So no matter what the tool, or how fancy, or how gee-whiz it is you will not be able to get that point on the elbow to go where you really want. Frustrating. Hash Solution 1 - Version 5.0: Blended bones by using an additional bone and constraints on the other hand, set at 50/50 would come up with a new true transform that is only rotated 90 degrees on the roll axis. Now this point on the outside of the elbow is rotated to the front or the back of the elbow by 90 degrees. It is just as far from the center of the arm as it was modeled. Hence, no collapsing. Nice preservation of the volume of the arm. The only problem is it is rather technical, and prohibitively more and more complex to setup if the geometry becomes quite dense. Since it then requires many bones each with different weights. Fortunately our geometry is usually not that dense, so this technology got us by for a long time. Hash Solution 2 - Version 7.1: Smartskin. This is much more hands on and visual. The artist gets to remodel to specify exactly what he/she wants at a given angle. We can model to give the same results as solution 1 above. Or we have the flexibility to sculpt anything we want, like bulging muscles or whatever. The downfall of this solution, is that is tedious and adds to the initial model creation time. Additionally, in version 7.1 to 8.5 the artist was restricted to creating keys only along the primary three axes. Version 9.0 improves on this by allowing arbitrary rotations to have keyframes set. Hash Solution 3 - Version 9.0: Finally give in. Now that weighted vertices are supported directly in hardware by many video cards, it is hard to keep saying no to the gamers. So, do an initial release allowing weighted vertices, primarily to give the game developers a way to still build models in AM, and get reasonable joints fairly quickly and simply. Add tools for more control on a by demand basis in future releases. Smartskin can be used in conjunction with weighted vertices, it requires that you remodel out the natural collapsing that occurs with weighted vertices. For characters that demand perfection it may be just as easy to smartskin without using weighted vertices first. I hope this give you some hints into the decision making process revolving around this technology. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There you have some of the background behind CP weighting in Animation:Master. A careful read will reveal pitfalls to avoid and hint at further development. As Luckbat suggested reading where Hash Inc went with CP Weights after v9.0 shows what they've accomplished with CP Weighting technology despite its limitations. The information provided includes some nice illustrations and project files. The link once again: CP Weights

Not to mention it does take effort to make those coherent and concise tutorial. It sure isn't easy that's for sure. We'll try to hit some of the highlights rather than just work strickly in chronology. Reusable motions hit two birds with one stone (such violence!) so those would be great to do. It certainly helps if the person writing the tutorial is familiar with the subject. That could be a problem with me doing some of the more advanced action write ups. I tend to gravitate toward esoteric and little used features which could be problematic as well. Undocumented and unused features sometimes disappear without people even knowing they exist. So we'll try to tread cautiously in those areas.

Great stuff! Thanks much for the project file too. That will help people understand how to achieve the effect more easily than thousands of words could. Awesome! I should mention that your entire setup and presentation is outstanding as well. For those that might not know what I'm hinting at, the photographers backdrop (the curved mesh with grid) and the blue sky (default A:M background) are a hint at what you can do with backgrounds that are off camera. In this case creating the chrome effect. From the example wireframe images to the project to the animation. Well Done!

A good place to start the project might be to lock down the basic but optimal format for documentation. While the format might evolve the style that best seems to fit at the moment is none other than Hash Inc's own online HTML Technical Reference. Here is an example from Surface Properties Clear and concise with examples right? Very nice. Now what we'd like to do is take it to the next level. How can we demonstrate the same information in a way that is simple yet easy to remember and useful? The user is really the one that must determine the final answer to that question. If the example is useful and easy to understand for you that sounds like success. If we could add a project file or two with fully illustrated examples that would help, right? That would be a nice start. If anyone would care to comment or contribute we could use this area (Surface Materials) to refine and set an example to use as we start on our journey.

We are embarking on a project here in the New Users Forum to identify, resource, fully illustrate and thoroughly reveal areas of Animation:Master that users of Animation:Master want to see fully explained. The perspective we are seeking is that of the New User. From opening the box on the first day to adding detail to your animated film successful we want to document it all. This is not a new idea and there are many who have contributed to the wealth of knowledge already available. We are greatful for those that have worked so hard to help everyone understand the power and ease of animating with A:M. We hope you'll join in and help with this project. Shortly a mysterious gentleman with the moniker triath5147 will hopefully introduce himself here and we'll get underway. He has volunteered to help get this project moving. While this particular project isn't specifically linked with the 2005 CD Project or other Tutorial works it is hoped to be compatible with them and freely available for all . If we do a good job perhaps it'll find its way onto a future CDs or Hash Inc's Technical Reference. In any case we hope you add it to your storehouse of A:M related knowledge. We encourage new users to add their questions and suggestions to ensure we address each area thoroughly and to make instructions clear, concise and thoroughly document each case with examples that show what success looks like. Whether new or old we encourage you to add your 2 cents to help produce the absolute best possible How to documentation available.

Here is probably more character shots than most people would care to look at. John Byrne Gallery - Marvel Universe Images A lot of the Byrne style is hidden (I think) by inks from Al Milgrom and/or Joe Rubenstein but overall they still aren't bad. John tends to try to keep his images even boring straight ahead shots assymetrical but I guess you'd just need the one half anyway. If you need larger images I have a lot of the plates from set that I could scan in. Assuming I haven't buried them too deep.

John Byrne did a large part of the images from The Marvel Universe. I'll see what I can dig up... but a lot of the images are online in his gallery. John Byrne Gallery You've almost got Captain America in the current character.

. Yeah. The youngest daughter of two. They are sweethearts. They must get that cuteness from their Mom. Certainly wan't from me! Thanks! One of the reasons I've always wanted to tackle John Byrne's style is I thought it'd be neat to convince John Byrne to use Animation:Master some day. He's been using 3D in his comic work for several years... mostly props and the like. For characters he could do so much more with A:M than with Poser and Strata.

Very nice Andy. If blurred a little I'd say it'd make a great desktop background for those so inclined. Can you tell us anything else about the project?

And here I thought you only modeled cool futuristic cities.

Thanks fo that Photoshop tut. Will dive into it later this morning. You said: Even as I was pushing submit I was chatising myself for being stupid. Your character is incredible... and really have nothing to suggest. Still, for some reason I thought the character looked a little off (perhaps too realistic?) in the lower abdomen/groin area. I started to search the net trying to find an Alex Ross image that I could point to that might show what I'm talking about but had to stop short and head off to work. I'll try again later today and see if I can find something. It may be that my tastes tend to run a bit less 'fleshy' in comic book heroes. I think mine is one of those nitpicky "don't know why but it looks off" kind of things. I thought I might even model an example but realized the error of my ways VERY quickly. I will NOT be challenging you to a duel of splines anytime soon! After you get done with all the Alex Ross images let me know if you want to do a couple John Byrne style characters. I'd pay for a generic John Byrne character. I've tried (briefly) to capture a likeness of his style but couldn't manage to get it right. I really need to do some sketches first. With my family away for about a month and my work schedule clearing up... it *almost* looks like I may have some time to spline. Don't be afraid... okay?

That's incredible stuff Colin! Can I be brutally honest and just say "Wow" at the same time? I think your client will be very pleased. The groin vault looks a bit strange... too wide. I guess I'd have to dig out the Alex Ross images to say it looks "wrong" though. You make modeling look too easy. How is it that splines don't look that wasy when *I* move them around? Can you go into any more detail on how you applied the photoshop effect? I'd love to see that documented thoroughly.