Rodney

Looking very good Mark! That's a great approach. You need to have a 'Be Largento!' graffiti spraypainted somewhere nearby... I'm just sayin'.

Nice! That turned out great. For a 3D print you've got some very nice detail in there.

Nice. I knew that was what you were doing before but it seemed like you were stopping with the OBJ models in this instance. I could easily see the value for generating props that way but knew you'd be wanting to animate creatures like this. Thanks for the clarification.

And this is the beauty of animation in that rough ideas (of movement and form) are can quickly be carved out of empty space. This working through concepts via multiple attempts isn't exclusive to animators but animation trained artists certainly have an advantage in it. Animators usually don't grow too fond of one solitary image that will or will not change. They know that image will all too soon pass away. I have a few entries on my blog that attempts to outline the importance of roughing out ideas; one is 'Get a Plan'. This seems to be a bit harder for computer animators outside of the paradigm of manipulation of objects in a puppet-like fashion although for the most part we've adapted well. So lets roll this back a little and ask the question again as to why drawing is so important. Quite often in our attempts to put together a scene we operate on a continual process of filling in empty space. Namely, we have our basic setup (concept) and then upon further reflection determine something to be missing from a given space. These are often background objects... the additional details that won't interact directly with characters but do have an associated history assigned to them. Something to give the scene a sense of actually being lived in. While not all important to the story if these elements were real they would have been manufactured by someone, put in place by someone and generally have some purpose for occupying that space. They are elements that contribute revealing a character's personal interests and personality. Externally, those elements are not important so in rough sketches they may only need to be hinted at with squiggly lines or a hastily placed word (ex: 'pile of crumpled papers'). In identifying what will most likely occupy a given space, our work can quickly progress to filling in other (less important) empty spaces. Assuming of course these aren't required to remain 'empty' space (i.e. space the characters will move through in the scene). And here we enter the realm of layout... putting everything in its proper place. Now this could be done on the fly... create a model of everything we think we might need... and place them. Through drawing (thumbnailing, storyboarding, etc.) we cut to the chase and quickly (in a matter of seconds) begin to visualize what really will occupy (or not occupy)... and this part is important... camera space. But here we are getting ahead of ourselves because in development we generally do not want to confine our creativity to that little area constricted by the camera or stage . Optimally, we will quickly explore space that the camera may not see as well. Why? Because in the development stage we are only exploring what might work best for the camera (i.e. the audience) to see. We may discover that another approach... a different orientation... a different location... works better. Thus, in the development stage (where we aren't yet locked down to detailed direction we will see later in production) we can draw from a much wider range of possibilities.

This use to be an issue and I assume it still is. The problem exists because in some cases the user will want light to shine through an object. In your case of course you don't so building objects with double thickness tells the renderer to keep the light out. We use to have a better explanation around here somewhere...

Here's a slightly modified version from a camera view. In order to be remotely useful I'd say a second transparency map would need to be added to account for more depth and the water splashing off the character and the rock. Converting the walls to a box and filling that box with animated material to simulate the waterfall might produce a more volumetric effect in this specific case.

But isn't there? Can't everyone just scratch lines on paper (or pixels) and draw? I'm not talking about reproducing the Mona Lisa here... that might be adjudged to be more akin to producing art. I'm talking about communicating ideas through drawings. Alternatively, we'll have to do this through words (which in written form are just culturally accepted codified drawings).

It's not every day we get to recommend multiplane effects (and much of that is taken for granted) but if the project calls for it you could try an all A:M approach where you would replace your green walls with multiple walls of varying transparency with the desired imagery on it. Then your character or object would appear to emerge from that 'real' space created within the walls.

William, I should have thought to say that your method of a moving mask/wall may be just as useful as these other techniques. Assuming you have access to After Effects or other automasking program that might in fact be the best approach. I wouldn't want to remove each mask individually so the other techniques would work in those cases that require more manual labor. A benefit of using the moving wall would be that you could layer in additional effects as well. For instance, if you kept your wall a solid color you could add particle effects with that color as well. Then when you remove that mask the remainder of the imagery would show through. I always hesitate to recommend creating a mask when it is unnecessary (i.e. if the background can just be removed via an alpha channel) but there are certainly times when creating the mask will work well. Example attached: (note that I colored the wall black in the first pass to demonstrate the particle masking). Layering in effect.mov

Nicest bowl of modeled fruit I've seen in ages. Come to think of it... perhaps one of the nicest.

Ah, but that's why when placed together with other words they begin to form context.

Nice! Are keeping them as OBJ files/Props? I assume you might want to animate them eventually. I suppose in a pinch one could animate the OBJ files in A:M via a stopmotion methodology, swap in/swap out or turn on/turn off in order to gain the effect of movement with different iterations of the same object.

Both setups take almost exactly the same time although with Material Effects you have more options (so exploring those might take more time) As mentioned, assuming your model is not all of one unibody mesh entirely enclosed by splines you might have some problems with stray artifacts with boolean cutters. In many ways they are the same thing.... in fact I wouldn't be surprised to discover that underneath it all they are the same thing with different approaches in the UI. The benefit of Boolean Cutters might be the nesting of bones/booleans. I'm not sure how that might be accomplished with Material Effectors outside of using them as Action Objects. If your object is not a closed mesh I believe I'd opt for the Material Effect.

I truncated my last response because after some consideration I didn't think it worth pointing out my disagreement with the following: The dilemma of course being that this entire topic relies upon the meaning of the root words being entirely the opposite of 'completely different' (i.e. that the two words are of common origin). Interesting. So how does one proceed without offending, especially where no one is particularly invested the underlying subject matter. Perhaps best to table topic for another time? Should we take the time to outline the origins of the words 'draught' and 'draw'? I am willing to do this in furtherance of the topic but not at the expense of offending anyone. It's an interesting dilemma with a tinge of irony; Will offered a correction regarding the generally accepted authorship of the verse I paraphrased (or quoted at if you prefer) from Proverbs to which I readily received correction. I am curious if the same general acceptance might extent to the known common origin of the words 'draught' and 'draw'. If one is to accept that the sense of the words 'draught' and 'draw' is 'completely different' there is little purpose in this topic. As an example; let me suggest that the principles of animation labeled 'Appeal' and 'Solid Drawing' can be more clearly seen to be different sides of the same coin where one correctly senses the meaning of the underlying words. The first attracts the attention of the reader/viewer/audience while the latter visually grounds the concept into some sense of (generally acceptable) reality. Why is this important? Because artists and animators (as we are currently demonstrating) commonly misunderstand the sense and meaning of one of their favorite words; 'draw'.

There are two primary approaches that I can think of: 1) Bypass the need for clipping entirely by compositing the whole shot in A:M 2) Use Boolean cutter(s) to clip the object Both methods have their strengths and weaknesses. The first one being that you might not be able to composite in A:M (we would have to know more about your specific situation). For boolean cutters the objects should be 'water-tight' so that individual patches aren't inadvertently clipped by the camera angle. Other approaches that might work: hiding the back part of the object or using material effectors to clip through the object. For accuracy's sake I'd likely prefer the latter. Edit: Attached is a test of the material effector approach. Note that everything that is black is (or could be) an alpha channel. I used a bare bones material (only setting was 100% transparency and the effector was set to be a box. Combining materials with varying levels of transparency might give a nice effect... and setting some internal thickness to the object would help as well. mat effector.mov

Thanks for the correction William. I'm always glad to be corrected by bible believers who know their stuff. Regarding the origin and similarities of the words 'draught' and 'draw' though I would say naught.

Here's a HAMR view of the water ripple test I recently put together. The two primary things demo'd here are the wireframe mode that shows how the ripples were simply animated and the automatic subdivision generated on the fly to tesselate the quads into tris for the purpose of displaying the animation on a monitor as processed by modern day graphics cards. Of note: The file itself is only a few kilobytes whereas the resulting representation of the sesson (via mp4 movie) is over 5MB. HAMR testing.mp4

Here's a proof of concept/setup of a bobber creating ripples in water. I didn't attempt to animate any angle on the impact so the force is moving straight down. I went with the straightforward method of animating the mesh but displacement might be a more effective way to control everything. The initial ripple could use more exaggeration... waterripple.mov

It's been awhile since I picked up my copy of her book and I confess that I've never read through it. If I would have had it at an earlier age perhaps it would have altered my approach considerably When I was a kid I bought in to the idea that 'real artists' didn't use reference but drew forth their creativity from their imagination! And thus I entered into the world of iconic imagery and symbols (I later titled some of my doodle books 'symbiotics' and 'iconoci'; the latter implying there is more than one way to read and interpret things. Having gone all cerebral here, I sense that similarly the text of Betty Edwards' book tends to scare people away; "Oh, we need to think about drawing... that sounds like too much work to me!" As a kid I certainly didn't want to make something I enjoyed so much take on the form of some scientific cerebral approach to creativity. So rather than work hard I settled for abstracting reality through cartoonery; it need not be judged as too unrealistic if it wasn't meant to be realistic in the first place. One doesn't need a how to book to draw anything. Just place the things in front of you (or in your mind) that begin to describe what you want to see. Don't know quite what you want? Cut out pictures from a catalog... grab images from Google... mish and mash and change things up until they begin to resemble what you need them to be. Don't have the right model or imagery? Put a temporary proxy there instead. Don't have a proxy? Put a word or description in its place. We cannot effectively draw upon what cannot be seen. And this is true for imaginary things as well. We must begin by picking a known point of reference and extrapolate the details from there. A benefit to being an animator is that we become familiar with seeing moving/changing imagery. The ability to visualize (and discard at will) massive amounts of imagery is a very useful methodology.

More often than not creative types find themselves locked in a self contained cycle of non-creativity at one point or another. One of the most significant of locks they place on the imagination is that of the eternal self fulfilling prophesy of 'I can't draw.' Let's cut to the chase. To draw is to pull something up or toward you (although if something or someone else is drawing in an opposing direction it might also be said to be drawn away or down) One need not place lines on a piece of paper with graphite, pen or other instrument capable of producing a visible line but some form of line must be placed in order to reveal the structure of a visual idea. One form of drawing is to bring forth lines that form letters which in turn form words and phrases. As the Psalmist said, "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." It will reflect and illuminate as it shines forth light. And our eyes will be instinctively drawn to that imagery. We live in a time where our senses are continuously and purposefully drawn toward this idea or that concept. And as we see something shiny and new it draws us in and we extrapolate, expand and redraw anew upon those. Subconsciously we take it all in but consciously we often stop there in our creative tracks. For we find that we cannot draw out our new thing from where we perceive it to be hiding. What can we do then to find it? Where does it live? What does it look like? Is it tall or short? Is it black or white? Is it colorful? Sad or happy? What does it resemble the most? What does it least look like? What other thing in this world can we use as a measuring stick to describe it? What can we use to formulate our plan and to aid others in their attempt to find it? Everyone that has ever been successful has drawn from the reality around them. Drawing lines of what to include and what to leave out. Those with a talent for it, adding a pinch of a favored ingredient while tossing in a dash or dosage of another extract. If we cannot draw from what we see plainly in front of us when our eyes are open how can we hope to successfully draw from our imagination?

The demos allow you to move the lights around in real time and select from a variety of HDR images to IBL the model.... not that I would really any of that animation. The promise of Physical Base Rendering (PBR) is to remove guesswork and needless repetition out of the process of lighting setup. I don't know enough about the demo to say at this point. I'd guess as documentation flows from SIGGRAPH more will be known. Hard to predict the future is. It could happen tomorrow (rather unlikely) but a conservative guess (from me) would be well before v25.

That is rather the point here. The demo is not real time rendering so much as interactive physical based lighting. Lighting that can be (easily?) changed. But if the application doesn't load I guess it wont qualify much as interactive either. An HTML5 webpage shut down your system? Are you serious?

Here's another demo with a different model: https://labs.sketchfab.com/siggraph2014/viewer.html?model=android

Rendering to file that is... Increasingly real time rendering is going mainstream and in consumer markets long render times won't be acceptable. Just in time for SIGGRAPH 2014, Physical Based Rendering is being demo'd without plugins via HTML5. https://labs.sketchfab.com/siggraph2014/viewer.html?model=devastator It's a far cry from fully rendered real time animation but it's getting there.

Fun stuff! I know this hasn't turned out as you'd hoped but it's really great to see these. As I'm not really all that familiar with the original movie I can't comment on that part.