Rodney

This may be a good example of the importance of maintaining a focus for the main character. As soon as the emphasis changes from Osterich to the animals the entire dynamic of the image (and story flow) changes. The issue here is that the text implies Osterich as is the main character.

Interesting explorations Nancy. I'm enjoying the journey. With this latest you've changes some major dynamics of the composition that take a lot away from that initial image. I'll state the following... see what you think of it: - By turning Ostrich and plane around you've undid the improvement of the suggestion you mentioned before. Now, Osterich is flying to the left again. So that doesn't work as a page turning device if that makes sense. In other words now you'd need to flip the image back again because you've changed the dynamic/direction of the action. A few story points change with this latest. Whereas before the image reflected the animals were surprised and amazed that Osterich was flying now it reads that they aren't sure Osterich has mastered flying just yet. As such something like this layout might serve well as a page before the previous page before the animals see that Osterich was really flying! I'll actually make this a suggestion. If you change the wording of 'this page' and flip the image we'd then have Osterich entering the two-page spread from left with animals in fear and bewilderment on the right... building the suspense as the reader wonders along with the animals... time for a page turn... next page... Aha! "None of the animals could believe their eyes. The aircraft worked! For the first time, Ostrich was actually flying." So the focus of the previous imagery is on the animals but on the next transfers to Osterich. The change is echoed in that on the previous the animals/masters have concern in their faces and (best of all) we cannot even see Osteriches face (wonderful in this case... not so much otherwise). The in the big reveal the animals/masters are all smiles and we see Osterich's face. He's flying! A final page then might be added as a denouncement/epilogue to suggest Osterich is still flying. Perhaps a pic of a an updated plane with friends going along for the ride... an Osterich that looks a bit more seasoned... and text that suggests, "And Osterich is still flying today." I guess you could say that I'm a fan of Osterich being the focus of the story if you are only doing one page and hiding his face and making the animals the focus works against this. This is not unlike dialogue/phrasing in animation where an emphasis is placed on certain words. What is the emphasis in the 'story' idea of "None of the animals could believe their eyes. The aircraft worked! For the first time, Ostrich was actually flying." I'd submit to you that would be Osterich flying. The animals are therefore there to support that idea. If there are in fear of Osterich crashing into them they are still in denial of Osterich's ability to fly. Regarding the text, I visited the SVS site (after initially reading your post... nice site!) and in the video feedback for a theme from a couple months ago one of the critical suggestions related to text. It included the critiquer lightening the artwork underneath the text so that the text reads better. It's from the 'Charlie's Forest' session and can be found here: https://youtu.be/AjY-NBkWfPQ?t=62 Note that I've given a little lead time in this link but it gets to the right place in short order... assuming the timing in the link works and takes you to the right place. My feel is that black text would be better unless there is very good reason for white text (i.e. in cases where the background must be very dark). As your image is already light that wouldn't apply.

It appears that if you have Adobe CC this patch is automatically installed. Added: Chrome reportedly automatically updates the Flash Player too but I'm not sure how reliable that message is because reports suggest that Google/Chrome was to drop support of Flash entirely.

That's awesome Nancy. I love the style. Makes me want to read the rest of the story. It sounds to me like the SVS is going to be very good for you. It's important to get that critical feedback that challenges us to raise the bar even higher in our work. That suggestion to flip the image was a great one... pointing the reader forward toward the reveals that will occur as they turn the page of the book.

Oh yeah, now we've got Nancy screencasting. I ran a similar approach to yours after seeing Serg and Liaxiong's methods. Your presentation/results turned out much better and I forgot to make it animated.. I'm a big fan of auto assigning bones so thats just the ticket. Most definitely! I think it'll be worth mentioning here that at the point where your video drops off and the decal would be applied we have to select the model in the PWS as decals cannot be applied directly in an Action. By briefly selecting the original model this 'tricks' A:M into thinking it's in the Modeling window. A similar thing can/must be done when applying decals in a Choreography. For a first attempt at screen casting that was great Nancy. Keep it up.

Looking forward to it Dan.

Ha! Brialliant. There's Nancy, programming features like 'Chor Image Filtering' without dropping a single bit or byte of code.

Hmmm... I assume you mean to say that you don't necessarily know which images are being used and you want to remove all those that aren't being used anyway? If you know which ones they are you can shift click (or Control Click) them in the PWS and then hit the delete key.

Laoxiong said: Ha! I love it! Very well done. Now that is what I'd call a 'robcat' solution. Serg also said: Checking out your video now Serg. Back. Nicely done Serg. You guys have inspired me to try several variations on your themes.

It works up to a point and perhaps adequately for what I'm after. An issue still at hand... is that via your method (as seen) we don't get the full image applied as if the entire image were fit to the corners of all of the patches in the spiral. I will assume that if your video continued and we entered the Decal Editor we would then be able to align the UVs to the image properly. Serg's project file shows the ideal result; that of being able to assign any rectangular image to all of the patches in the spiral. While I don't know Serg's exact approach I presume that your approach is what he used to get the A:M logo to properly and fully align. Perhaps not.

That's awesome Serg. I have no idea how you did it but... awesome. Care to share your secret? (Something to do with the Pose slider/flattening?) Thanks!

Values can be hard to evaluate. Link: Most valuable pennies. Aside: That site has some nice decals for money! From Time article: It's unknown to me why the penny mentioned in the TIme article isn't listed in the list of most valuable pennies (linked to above). Actually it's listed (as number 2) just not with the most recently stated $1.7M sale... conjucture: the listing must predate the latest sale. In the meantime, we'll just have to wait for the penny to drop.

Here's what I envision as a starting shape although the shape itself might change/animate over time. Note that this doesn't have to be the shape but a general spiral is what I have in mind. The problem with that approach is that the spiraled patches (from top view) would have to be reoriented to align with the rectangular decal. That's doable but a bit more work than I'd like.

This one is eluding me... What I'm trying to do is place a rectangular decal (or patch image... although this would be problematic) onto a a plane that (from the top view) has the curvature of a spiral. In thinking about this further I can see how I might warp (or unwarp) the mesh to get everything straight from top view and then drop the 'bottom' down to where it needs to be but I'm wondering if there is an easier or more elegant way. A cylindrical stamp won't work because that would repeat the image (which isn't what I want). Hmm.... while typing another approach suggests itself but I don't think it'll work. That would be to decal only one small part of the spiraled patches and then adjust the image to UV assignment in the Decal Editor. Any thoughts? Disclaimer: In the end the results might not turn out as I hope but applying an image to that spiral has now captured my attention. Added: In thinking about how a robcat might perform this trick I wonder if setting up some system to roll the patches out so that they are straight might suffice.

Just the act of facing your fears of losing access to After Effects alone may be worth the upgrade. Peace of mind is worth a very shiny penny.

It sounds like you may need to put a plan in place that would maintain your current system for use with After Effects while gaining another system to charge ahead full speed. I hear things like that work well. I often wish I could have a dedicated system just for A:M... or older versions of A:M... or just for After Effects CC... or just for Fusion... or for web surfing... or file management... or as a server... or this... or just for that... but it seems like every time I get ahead computer-wise my other system(s) begin to fail. Computers are cheap enough these days that I should look at such an option again. I do have a couple older systems I've been meaning to move to Linux but really haven't had time or longer term interest in playing.

Yes, I believe we are seeing the same thing there. Thanks for the video... I should have done something like that myself. Perhaps a bug report linking that video will suffice to let Steffen know what is happening.

Might as well make it v50. Then we could really celebrate.

Try this and see what happens... Do the same thing you are doing but when you get to the step of using the O key select the entire X shape (the entire spline) instead of the individual CP. If you are seeing the same thing I am you should note that the orientation of the bias handles at that new insertion point (CP created with Y key) is aligned as desired. I'm not smart enough to know why but it seems to me that this has something to do with the 'end condition tangents' spoken of in the paper I linked to above. The document is old and tweaks in the code have very likely changed some behavior in how Bias is computed but it seems to me that the Bias produced is a product of the collective biases of what is selected at the time of 'smoothing' of the selected CPs and/or splines. Try this also with selecting anything other than the individual CP at the insertion point you've created and when you hit the O key to smooth the curvature, the Biases should likewise (correctly) align. Added: Interestingly enough! if as soon as you create the new CP with the Y key you hit the space key and then O key to smooth you should see that the curvature appears correct but the bias handles themselves have adjusted and are (from a user's perspective) ever so slightly mis-alinged. Interesting. (This reads as 0 gamma in the properties panel but when adjusted to be fully flush appears to be somewhere between 8 and 10 degrees off of traveling straight through the CP to match with the other (mirrored) side) Assuming all this is true (and I'm not seeing something odd) it may be that isolating that individual CP is the root of the (originally) observed problem. Apologies for where my terminology and understanding is woefully inadequate.

If you can further relate how that applies to Gamma and Alpha (in A:M) we might see a breakthrough in my understanding. I can probably just read Martin's paper on it but that doesn't mean I'd understand it. REF: Martin's paper: Spline Mesh Character Modeling Note that Bias Control is covered (briefly) in para 2.2.1 It sure looks to me that Gamma is off by plus or minus 10 percent when using the Y key to dissect splines in half (from peaked splines which are subsequently unpeaked).

I found the posts where Martin asks Emilio what the difference between the regular properties for Bias and his plugin are. While Martin acknowledges the differences none were ever incorporated into A:M's interface (that I know of!). LINK It's long gone from Emilio's site but the link in Emilio's post where he explains a bit further (about why he created the SetBias plugin) is available via wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20040825015756/http://www.moscafilms.com.br/emilioleroux/amplugins_setbias.html

That sounds right although for some reason I feel the term angle might be more appropriate than direction? If you had said direction of the spline I'm not sure that'd be right as magnitude, alpha and gamma all contribute to the orientation/direction of the spline. I've long ago exceeded my level of understanding here so will defer to the experts and gladly learn from them.

I'm seeing something a bit different than you describe, but I follow what you are saying. From what I see when two peaked corners have the spline dissected via the Y key this results in a CP that is peaked in the middle with 100% Mag In and 100% Mag Out. It is only upon making that CP smooth (via O key) that we get the curvature you describe. It may be worth noting that adjusting the Gamma at this point to 10 will return it to (I assume) proper orientation. While certainly not ideal for our purposes, I think the difference is that 100% magnitude going into a CP from both sides (while peaked) doesn't equate to 100% magnitude of the curvature of a (non-peaked) spline. How to rectify? Outside of adjusting the Alpha or Gamma to refine the axis I'm not sure. I'll guess that we'll see better results when the splines are perpendicular... and test that out to see if a hunch there is right. Edit: My hunch was incorrect. The orientation of the inserted CP adjusts the same on the perpendicular as well. In the case I tested it is corrected via a -10 adjustment of Gamma. Added: From appearances it looks like everything on the right side of the Y axis line is losing 10 percent of Gamma orientation while everything on the left of the Y axis line is gaining 10 percent. It may be worth restating that when working from smoothed splines at the start the new CP's spline properly aligns. It is when it is then peaked that they aren't. What is a bit odd about this is that nothing is seen to change in the settings of the Biases. As I recall, way back in the day Emilio LeRoux created his Set Bias plugin to account for some of this; namely that the Ins and Outs of Magnatudes weren't entirely covered by the settings available via the properties panel.

This one almost doesn't rate a 'tech watch' label but there are aspects to it that certainly lend itself to further exploration. xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWzurBQ81CM

It's important that we don't go from one ditch to the other when considering technology. And as you point out, we chase after anything that appears new and spectacular. I don't know the whole (origin) story of Webster Calcord and his adventures with A:M but from appearances it looks to me that he needed to learn CG animation and did just that with the tools and experience he had at hand. He was fortunate in that he knew the folks at Hash Inc, had access to their software and used that as a springboard to a career in digital animation. As stated in his interview (link in first post), he also transferred the skills he had previously learned through stop motion animation and his epiphany of animating pose to pose in CG animation... just as he did in stop motion.... is an epiphany every animator should and very likely will have. And I'd say, one that can/should be taught. My memory is a bit foggy but I may have very briefly met Webster at SIGGRAPH. If I recall correctly I was headed to get some lunch with (master of enchantments) Greg Rostami and they recognized each other. .