Rodney

Yes, it is quite straightforward. I'd say the best method for organizing decals would be to place those decal images in the same folder as the model they belong to. Then when you move or rename the model folder the decals will go with them. Renaming and moving files is the reason the link gets broken in the first place. The same goes for renaming the decal images themselves. By placing the images in with the model they are less likely to be mistaken for images that belong somewhere else. As for reestablishing the path you can either do that in A:M via the browse function to point A:M to where you have moved the file or move the file into the proper location on your harddrive where A:M will automatically make the connection. One easy way to reestablish a connection for decals whose path or location is problematic is to open that image in A:M from it's current location (at this point even if you do not... A:M 'knows' it's path). Then crack open the decal properties in the Project Workspace listing and change/select that image from the dropdown images that appear. All the images that are currently loaded in A:M should appear there. If you have a lot of decals for the same model its a good idea to create a folder inside your model folder (call it 'decals') and place all of your decal images there. If you've really messed things up and 100's of paths are broken it is often best to use a text editor to go into the file and replace the paths via a global search and replace. Having sad all this... there really is no substitution for good (and perhaps more importantly consistent) organization.

I had an odd thought today... What if we had a mode of modeling that wouldn't allow more than two splines to connect to the same Control Point? I can think of one particular downside to this (more on that later), and surely there must be more problems waiting in the wings but the thought is/was that while most folks are looking for easier ways to model another solution might actually be to make it a little bit harder to model in that... while in that particular mode... modeling with less than optimal splinage would be harder if not impossible. The downside would be where we want to connect discontinuous splines to another spline. But in this case we (the modelers) may be attempting to introduce an other-than-optimal spline topology into our model. Now, there would be a special case where continuous splines would/should be allowed and that is if the spline is one of the terminal ends of a continuous spline. This then does beg the question of how we could better differentiate the terminal CPs from the internal CPs of a given spline. These thought occurred to me while considering that many folks spend a great deal of effort trying to shore up and improve the bridges to the polygon world but this is often at the expense of the further development and benefits of spline-patch technology and rarely an aid to it. In other words... building bridges to inferior technology. So I guess primary questions might be, "Should the user be prevented from making errors in ideal spline topology and if so what might success look like? A tentative answer might be that A:M might initially refuse to allow the connection but the user could easily override that 'safety' (via holding down the Alt Key or some other equivalent). From a programmatic view the modeling process (in that mode) would be streamlined considerably because after two connections that particular connection/vertex would be locked or closed. This could lead to a number of other possibilities for modeling with splines. As I see it A:M wouldn't even have to process these because although the user might try to attach additional splines/CPs they won't be able to stick to the model. Why won't it stick? Because it's not going to yield optimal topology. Aside: This is a little off topic but relates to spline continuity. Have you ever considered that a spline circle isn't (i.e. cannot be) perfectly continuous? This is a similar problem to the real world conundrum of creating a perfect sphere... technically we can't as there is always going to be a start and stop point. The classic remedy/solution is that of scale. If you can make the 'error' so small as to not be noticeable it is an equivalent to not being there. Other classic remedies include 'polishing' or masking with other textures or shapes. But none of these change the fact that the starting and stopping points in the original form are still intrinsically there. They simply obscure/hide that evidence. When considering the plight of the circular spline another potential solution presents itself *if* the start and end points of the spline can transfer to another place on that spline. The ideal place for the terminal points to be with respect to a single point of view would be out of site... on the back side of the circle, sphere, etc. And because these terminal points could be told to stay in that relative place on the back side of any 3D shape these terminal points would effectively disappear. They'd also be a lot easier to find at that location should those that know they exist look for them there. A continuous spline (circle) that can adjust/transfer it's terminal points to another segment along the length of it's spline might be useful.

My first animation/breakdown with the saucy rig. And I shall call it, 'Hey waiter.' The tests I did for this include creating five different actions/poses and throwing those onto Robbie in a Chor, then adding additional movement to that. Prior to that.. for no particular reason... I played with constraining Robbie (and the saucy rig) to a BVH action. That satisfied my curiosity so I moved on to creating some drag and drop poses via actions. While playing with the rig the thought occurred to me that the saucy rig needs some more User Settings for basic poses such as making fists and such. Can someone tell me if there is a controller that allows the clenching of hands (i.e. movement of all of the fingers simultaneously) with the saucy rig... did I miss that? dining.mov

Just got done watching the tutorials. Well done! My biggest question out the gate was... why name it 'Saucy' rig? Asked and answered via your website and you expertly explained the influences of those other rigging gurus on your latest rig as well within the videos. I hesitate to mention specifics because I"ll leave a lot out but things like the foot/heel roller are very welcome additions. The null controllers on the hands are intriguing and I'm anxious to try those out. You've also suggested some great workflow tips throughout and I thank you for that. Also: I enjoyed your 'warm up' rigging tutorial... the one with the tank... I'd somehow missed that one. Newbies just getting started with rigging should definitely watch that! Thanks Mack!

Happy Birthday!

The folks over at 'Taught by a Pro' have a new video lesson by Reuben Aquino that focuses on use of Center of Gravity in animation. At $10 I'd say it's well worth the prince of admission. http://taughtbyapro.com/course/animation-fundamentals-center-gravity/ Some of his credits include: “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” 1982 (clean-up inbetweener) “Black Cauldron” 1985 (animator) “Great Mouse Detective” 1986 (animator) “Oilspot & Lipstick” 1987 (CG short, animator) “Oliver & Company” 1988 (supervising animator, worked mostly on Francis the Bulldog) “The Little Mermaid” (1989; supervising animator, Ursula the Seawitch) “Rescuers Down Under” (1990; supervising animator, Jake the Kangaroo Mouse) “Beauty & the Beast” (1991; supervising animator, Maurice (Belle’s dad)) “Lion King” (1994; supervising animator, adult Simba) “Pocahontas” (1995; supervising animator, Chief Powhatan) “Mulan” (1998; supervising animator, Captain Li Shang; won 1998 Annie Award for character animation– Captain Shang) “Lilo & Stitch” (2002; supervising animator, Pleakley & David) “Brother Bear” (2003; supervising animator, Denahi) “Meet the Robinsons” (2007; supervising animator, Mildred and Mr. Willerstein; his first CG feature credit) “The Princess & the Frog” (2009; supervising animator, Eudora & James) “Winnie the Pooh” (2011; animator, Winnie the Pooh & Eeyore)

That was deep. You took the song and added layers of additional (resonating) meaning to it. Nicely done!

Here's an interesting (hand drawn) flour sack animation by Ron Zorman. The aspect I like best is perhaps the transitions of weight throughout with the flour sack interacting with those various objects. Not that it's high-falutin' awesome or anything but that it's subtle-like. There are a few inconsistencies (the typical continuity problems that exist in most stories) such as when flour sack feels obvious pain in his foot during one sequence but is oblivious to that pain later (when we are set to anticipate it). Ron Zorman is a character animator on Ren and Stimpy and many Pixar movies.

Thanks guys! I've tried to paint watercolor before (the real stuff... not the cg flavor) and it can be really hard to get a solid color spread across an area so I'm pretty pleased with the look of this one. I have my doubts the effect will hold up with animation but I'd be glad to be surprised in that. I suppose there is one way to find out! Aside: When I considering the pine bristles on the branches I immediately thought A:M's particle hair would work well,and after placing the hair material on the branches and letting A:M render... it looked exactly how I imagined it would which... as I am very much a tweak as you go until something starts to look better kind of guy... is a sensation I hope to feel again. The toon render... that I had to tweak considerably as the early tests didn't have the line quality I was looking for. I eventually settled for a very thin line with 88% of underlying color and that worked a whole lot better. I did struggle a bit with lighting and color as each time I started to hone in on what I was after I noticed one element that still wasn't working... tweaked myself right out of those other desirable settings. In the end I did composite two rendered images together in Black Magic Fusion in order to bring some of what I considered the ideal color (specifically red) back into the image. I think I could accomplish the same composite in A:M but it'd take awhile longer to get there. And needless to say the text I'm adding to images these days is comp'd in via Fusion in a few seconds as well. As A:M doesn't have directly editable text capability Fusion has found a perfect fit in my workflow with A:M.

Tried something a little different (remodeled character basically from scratch and threw in a basic rig)... then thought I'd try toon rendering... then thought I'd go for a watercolor look...

I know you can have a bone revert to the size of another via the 'Scale Like' constraint. One way to do that would be to set that up as a 'On/Off' Pose and then you could toggle between any size set and the original/source bone it is constrained to. In this same way you can set one bone to be a percentage of the length of another as well. Added: An interesting aspect of creating the constraint within a pose is that it give us a method to tell A:M to ignore the command (in this case of copying the length/scale) when the pose is turned off. If the length/scale of the bone should always be the same length then no pose control is necessary. Of course even then there are alternative ways to interact with the scale... for instance, by using/animating the constraint settings themselves.

The holidays can be rough on folks so... Hang in there. (This is a frame from an animated doodle I recently did named 'Sintercuss'... with the idea being to get an idea moving and take it to it's logical conclusion in one or two sittings. The areas tested included the use of limited (minimal) animation, sound, volumetric effects, text, etc. A few lessons learned include making sure there is enough contrast in the character to read well in a variety of lighting conditions and to plan on the doodle lasting more than 10 seconds because, while certainly not impossible, it's hard to tell a story in less then 10 seconds.)

2015 is going to be an exciting year.

You'll need to drag/drop your group named 'Lips' to a place lower in the Project Workspace listing's hierarchy. Right now it's hiding behind the 'Head' group. I have a video that demos what I'm talking about... (see attached) Named Group Hierarchy.mov

On many occasion I have tried to do a google search on Bob because I know there is a lot of information about him out there but haven't been able to find it. It's not exactly easy finding relevant material based on a search for a guy named 'Robert Taylor' who goes by 'Bob'. Bob's old website contained a whole lot of pilot ideas for animated short films and features not yet told and for awhile we could even download a copy of a 3D model of Keekat's little sister at one of the footnotes. The site's pages occasionally can be found (mostly via internet archive) and there are even a few interviews with him (entirely too short) out on the internet to be found. If what he said during one interview can be believed he was bitten by the animation bug when as an orphan he felt alone in the world and through tears saw a short film featuring Goofy on the television. Now, if that sounds a bit like the origins of a superhero that isn't too far off the mark because his speed and skill at drawing were legendary. Truly super-heroic stuff. I'm not sure how accurate that tale is as Bob does come from the generation of animation directors skilled at creating awesome back stories for themselves out of pixie dust. Alas, life is not screened in perpetuity like most cartoons are and his life's story has now come to a close while we are left with our own fleeting impressions of Bob. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and the many whose lives he made just a little bit better through his prolific storytelling, animation and cartoons.

Have you ever spent hours and hours working on an image, tweaking the littlest things, changing them, changing them back... going through the entire process all over again... only to ask yourself, "Was there a point to all of that?" Here's an image that applies... for no good reason... I started tweaking rabbit... then hours went by...

I'm very sad to hear this news. Bob was an an extremely talented artist... and fast!

Well done Adam. You are off to a great start! You've got a lot going on in that teaser and is shows you've been exercising your skill.

Thanks for the link Mark. And thanks for the Ocean Generator Mark! That Ocean Generator is great stuff!

Here's a little drawing I put together to note a few things I didn't know about lightning. The first is that the ends of each branch of the lightning tend to flare/brighten back and forth was the energy 'searches' for a conduit to the ground. The second is that electically charged tendrils of energy have been photographed reaching upward from the ground as the tendrils wave around seeking their own conduit to the sky. The tendrils from various conductive surfaces all seem to be inviting the lightning to come down. The lightning and a trendril then move toward each other and as they begin to form a connect the stored energy within the lightning suddenly transfers to the ground. Here's a video that describes the process: I assume you may be going for a more stylized approach to lightning but that might be a good starting point. The idea being to have a point in the sky that moves back and forth along a line (of low resistance) and a point on the ground where it will hit (that will flare slightly just prior to the lightning strike. At the moment the ground fires the lightening ceases from it's wandering and strikes. Here's another slow mo recording of a lightning strike. This one showing how it progressively grows outward/downward. It's hard to see but it does appear to be several flashes on the ground just prior to the lightning strike. lightning with environ 2.mov

Myron, it's great to see you again. I'm afraid the CD version went away about the time you purchased v15. There are two flavors currently available 1) $79 annual subscription - expires 365 days after activation (Note that you can use any subscription version during this subscription period... v15 through the current release)* 2) $299 perpetual - doesn't expire but updates only extend through the current year - after that you can still use that version but have to purchase to move to newer versions. *I recommend the annual subscription as it works the best for most folks. There may be specials offered but you'd have to contact Hash Inc for those. If you can meet them at a convention or tradeshow they often offer great deals there. As for the two things you need moving forward... we'll have to look into those. I'd love to hear more about your project so if it isn't hush/hush super secret start a WIP topic and away you go! Added: There are a couple of methods for creating lightning bolts. The easiest would be to use a single spline and the ramp up the roughness/noise. If you spy any reference out there on that internet that suggests 'just like that!' that would provide something to shoot for.

Nice detail! You have a very vivid imagination.

That's certainly an option. The difficulty with that would be control. If the hair movement you need can easily be keyframed (say, by posing three or so key positions and then inbetweening those) then simulation is probably overkill. Another concern with Simcloth hair would be the penetration of the meshes which would often either 1) keep hair from animating appropriately 2) keep the simulation from working. An argument could be made also that if that much complexity is required then the better option would likely be particle hair. I believe folks tend to overthink these things and in many cases should consider a more classical animator's approach: (Note that this approach also works well with Particle Hair and Simcloth so that is yet another good reason to start with a more classical non-fully-simulated approach). - Set the key poses you want the hair to hit (Do this via pose to pose, straight ahead animation... or both) - Inbetween those key poses (when in doubt favoring the key pose the movement originated from*) - Consider Overlap and Follow Through (so that the hair has weight in its movement) *Inbetweening is something computers do without thought and thought is exactly want we want to get into our animated movement. Consider, for instance whether the object (hair strand or group of hair strands) is slowing down or accellerating. If inbetweening exactly half way between two keyframes we get a steady motion with no change in speed (this not very entertaining... and works against the principle of Exaggeration). If inbetweening via thirds then we might choose the 1/3 point in our inbetween to create a Slow Out of the first pose... thereby creating acceleration in the movement. Choosing the point at 2/3 as or breakdown point would create a Slow In to the second key pose... thereby creating the effect of deceleration. Simulation is one of those 'you get what you get' things. When using simulation I generally use that as only a starting point. - Save prior to simulation - Simulate - Save under a new filename (that way you can return to the original or this one later as necessary) - Identify Key Poses (those worth keeping) - Delete all the unnecessary keys - Finish by finessing those Poses All of this to say, 'Use Cloth Simulation for hair'? CERTAINLY!

A new trailer is out... and it's looking good.

I was having trouble keeping sprites inside a container as well. One solution I came up with was to increase the number of patches by using the Split Patch wizard. When even that failed, I added a second (fully transparent) shape just outside the first to assist further. I suppose yet another method would be to color the background the same as the shapes (in your case white) while keeping the background inside the globe a different color. Then when the flakes escape although they'd still be there, they'd effectively be invisible (white on white).