Rodney

Yoda: Always two there are. A master and an apprentice. Obiwan: Yes, but which is the apprentice.

Will makes an excellent point and having such a primal name as Papa Bear Studios is surely a plus. I don't see anything amiss with the brand name. It's always going to be the content that matters. As such you may want to chart out how your other creative endeavors will fit under the Papa Bear umbrella. It's the diversification of the content produced by Papa Bear Studios that will ultimately define the brand. The only other name that comes to mind for a brand name (for you) would be 'fae alba' and I have no earthly idea what that means... but I think that is a potential brand name that further encapsulates content produced by Papa Bear Studios. Fae alba might be used for your production house or distribution? Hmmm, assuming I'm not way off the mark... root origin-wise... 'fae alba' would seem (to me) to be a 'realm of flowers' or 'garden of flowers' which fits fairly well with the notion of distributing quality content. It hearkens to a paradise of plenty where all the original stories begin. So let that be my feedback. fae alba (as the production house/distributor) Papa Bear Studios for the branding of content The screen might show: a fae alba production in association with Papa Bear Studios Title and music And if someone else funds the production or distributes those names would be added (substitute cuts for the fades if the content is mostly comedy)

Too late for that... you've already seen my first test (and second, third and fourth). At present I'd say the direct route to Renderman is above my patience level. This coming from someone that loved typing in DOS commands and creating batch files back in the good 'ol day. For those taking notes, in the short term I'd say a shorter and more successful route to Renderman would be to go through the non-commercial version of Nuke, which I've only experimented with enough to know it works at a basic level. Export your assets out of A:M as OBJ... import into Nuke... texture and light... render out via Renderman (there's a Renderman node for that). The problem on my side is that I have little need (outside of satisfying curiosity) for an external renderer. This isn't to say I have no interest though. I've even been using Netrender these days. A:M has a great renderer. I should have added: The most difficult part of setting up Renderman to render A:M models is converting your models/scenes to .rib format.

Thanks for that Nancy, you've actually had some success where I didn't before. I'll add that we can get some cropping and zoom effects on those tiled images/sequences by using floating point (decimal) entries in the repeat settings. The sweet spot for most images will be just before the image is repeated. Negative numbers can also be used to invert the image/tiles. If an origin point could be added to the settings that would open up a whole lot more possibilities (animated sprite sheets etc.). Short of that however a similar result can be obtained by using a different frame from an image sequence (via timing setting) to control the origin. In other words, the sequence would be animated to alter where the upper left corner of the image is located. Setting the timing to the correct frame would establish that origin on the decal/patch image, and the repeat setting would then be used to refine further or to duplicate. As for animating a decal... you should check out Marcos (Xtaz) Rezende's tutorial on using smartskin/poses to animate decals. Edit: Hmmm... Marcos's tutorial appears to be attached to the post but comes up as unavailable.

I was going to point out a few highlights but realized that I'd pretty much have to itemize the entire 50 minutes... easier just to watch the whole thing. One of the most passionate points from Mark is not to give up ownership (but to license a property). Of course as with all 'rules' there are exceptions to this rule and in the Q&A session at the end one of those is discussed... namely, where you have no emotional attachment in the property. I fit into that category with a lot of my creative endeavors mostly because I know they would have to continue to change considerably in order to be commercially viable. Unrelated, Mark once posted a comment/correction to a thought I posted on my blog. He stated that Walt Disney's 'Steamboat Willie' was without a doubt originally designed for sychronized sound. In other words, he claims the short film was designed from the start with 'recorded sound' in mind. I believe the facts to be a bit more complicated than that but... Mark is the expert and I would have to supply proof the short film was in fact initially designed otherwise (i.e. if it was initially designed with theater orchestration in mind which seems highly probable). My belief is that 'Steamboat Willie' was a property Walt Disney had on the drawing board that was easily retooled to take advantage of new technology which Disney saw on the horizon. All I have to do is the hard work of providing historical evidence in support of an alternative. As exhibit A I might suggest that at the time of 'Steamboat WIllies' origin very few theaters were equipped to play recorded sound. Exhibit B would likely be how Walt and his crew used their family members to gauge their degree of success when experimenting with (small band) live orchestration just out of sight in the next room. Exhibit C might be the timeline where Walt and Roy invested in recorded sound even going so far as to provide the technology to competitors. Other exhibits to follow as necessary and to enhance the historical context. 'Steamboat Willie' was definitely designed with synchronized sound in mind but I have a hard time buying the chronology that it was designed with recorded sound in mind.

Mark Mayerson (of Mayerson on Animation blog-fame) has a video "Don't Pitch a Buyer, Pitch the Audience!" that is making the rounds that covers a good bit of territory of topics of interest to creators. The video is just short of one hour in length but will be well worth your time. xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQQmmbvmGc It's a great summary on topics that have been gaining ground, especially as more creative types vie for the attention (and money) to support their projects.

Thanks for that Robert... (talking specificially episode 7 here)... having been caught up in direction maps for hair I had completely forgotten the simplicity and power of the black and white maps to control hair density. Thanks for the reminder!

I agree! I'm envisioning a pretty sweet workflow but the reality will work much better I'm sure!

Yes indeed. Barry's tutorials are best in class. And now everyone can enjoy them.

Technology is catching up! What amazes me is that much of what is accomplished in that (last) video can currently be accomplished in A:M (albeit not with the smooth workflow that one would prefer due to reliance on plugins). While the underlying tech to get at the ultimate workflow would be to incorporate some of the latest and greatest subdiv tech... on the lower end an update of the following would bring about a near perfect match: Split Patch (plugin) - incorporating it more fully into the UI and/or allowing it to be assigned a shortcut key. I'm not sure what it would take to resolve the more difficult aspects of splitting patches nor of incorporating it into the UI. A rewrite of core code from scratch would likely be necessary which realistically rules that out as an option. A:M Loft (external program) - the video makes a lot of lofting and A:M has not taken advantage of lofting. I assume this is primarily because one has to define targets anyway so a modeler might as well just extrude repeatedly to get the surfaces where they want. Still, lofting does represent something that looks cool and does provide a useful approach to modeling. With regard to lofting... Sweeper - sweeper is a specific implementation of lofting (and alternately duplicating) and if updated with additional options or more fully integrated into modeling ui would offer the 80% solution (with regard to what is on view in the video). Sweeper was an initial look into what could be accomplished. Cap wizard (plugin) - This is one that might have fallen off most folks radar - it's basic usage proved a case for closure of simple surfaces. In a way this is similar also to the Font and AI wizards which perform similar function in closing off a surface using existing CPs Connect plugin - a simple concept proving how a series of splines can be automatically converted into patches based on their proximity to one another. I mention this above but having shortkeys for items not more fully integrated into the UI would make short work of automating tasks and smoothing workflow. Perhaps if the code for each of these plugins could be published then others would be willing to plus them up.

Done.

Suggested title?

Easily done. Which parts? Just your last post?

(This topic moved from original topic by request. For more info see original topic) Although a little off topic, the folks at DIsney have an interesting paper that (very loosely) relates to this: http://www.disneyresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/Sketch-Based-Generation-and-Editing-of-Quad-Meshes-Paper.pdf

I don't know if I should post this here. Please feel free to move it as necessary. Some of the imagery was pretty vivid from your description and while the end product isn't anywhere near where I first imagined it I figure it might be worth posting. Somewhat unfortunately, an actual rendering of this scene turns out to be muck... so here's a screen capture. I think the issue is the negative light that I used to get the blood effect in the water. Gah! It was user error. I somehow animated settings and so the initial frames where muck but the frame I was on was fine. The final render (of the same frame) looks almost exactly like the screen capture. Always... always... always... rule out user error. (Moon is courtesy of a link just posted by our favorite Tinkering Gnome)

While I'm glad to be associated with A:M, I'm a user of the software just like you (minus the Mac). I'm still waiting for some Mac user to donate me a Mac so I can troubleshoot.

http://www.hash.com/reports/login_page.php

Nice and concise. I like.... and I especially like the short episode format you've got going. Not that such a description equates to how easy it will be to produce it. Time to R&D some water effects.

There is an Align Model plugin for use in the Chor but I confess I haven't put it to use because frankly I don't know how it works. I'll investigate its (proper) usage. A quick search of the forum reveals I asked about proper usage of the plugin but that usage still eludes us.

You don't need kazzlions if one will suffice. With your donation of $15K USD that'll get that programmer off to a great start.

The latest video from Alan Becker covers Run Cycles. Well worth viewing! And if you didn't catch his last video on walk cycles, check that one out too.

Bertram looks a bit kid-sized there. Tiny even. Perhaps it's mostly due to the angle of him in the image. I'm mainly judging this by the door/doorknob but also the examination bench/seat.

You missed the first step Serg.

Hi Jody! I may not be understanding the question but using the arrow keys to nudge groups around in both Model and Chor windows is working as expected here. Perhaps you have Mirror Mode on or something like that? This is the part that confuses me... you said: Your images make it appear that you are adjusting splines/CPs in a Model window but perhaps this is an Action? If in the same Model then they aren't separate models so nudging splines should operate as usual. If in an Action (using Action Objects) then models usually get moved by the Bones that import in with them. Need more info!

More like pasting an environment onto the model. I tried to get the surface to reflect the environment.... failed.