Montanto

Hi all After using AM for modeling for over two years I'm embarrased to say this is my first attempt at actual rigging. Since I've primarily been using AM for background shots for a comic strip. This has been working great except that I hadn't been able to certain focal shots because the walls kept getting in the way. I finally decided to try and solve this problem by rigging the set so i could swing the walls out of the way of the camera whenever the need arose. (see attachment) It mostly worked except at that the walls appear to be attached to the floor and distort it every time I move them. Other than making the floor a separate model, is there anyway to fix this?

Not sure, it's 250*358 at 86KB which I am guessing is too high since a gif for a black and white sketch at that size would be in the twenties tops. Just to be on the safe side, I deleted the front rotoscope. (I'd just been eyeballing it for a while anyway) It's still being uncooperative on the front top and back views (though the front view is the worst offender) Sides and bird's eye are behaving just fine though.

Hardware Overview: Machine Name: iMac G5 Machine Model: PowerMac12,1 CPU Type: PowerPC G5 (3.1) Number Of CPUs: 1 CPU Speed: 1.9 GHz L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB Memory: 1.5 GB Bus Speed: 633 MHz

That worked. The embarrassing thing is I know that's come up before in past attempts. I should have remembered it, thanks.

Okay I think I fixed all of the crease problems. And I managed to take nearly all of the hooks off. There were two remaining points that refused to take but at least there weren't anymore hooks that were stretching across the models so I made the last two attachments manually. Now if there are any suggestions on a good way to "sand" the object that don't involve blowing an after noon tweaking it.. On another note I'm having two technical dificulties the first big one is that the processing time is beginning to pick up. Fortunatly it's mostly just in the front view but still some times it get's to the point where I get the pinwheel every time I so much as touch a spline. I originally thought this problem was caused by making my models too big, but this one's barely ten centemeters across. The other problem is I've been unable to select the entire object. This is the reason I didn't regroup and fix all of the white patches along the seam.

Just dusted this one off after a long hiatus. I've found a couple of tutorials about how to fix creases so i've cleaned up the ones I was complaining about the last time. Though as you can see in the picture, I still have a few bits on the forehead and the area between the nose and the lips that at the moment seem immune to any adujstments. Also I've been having some problems with where the nose starts right after the eye around the tear duct. (the yellow arrow) I've managed to simplefy it a bit and get rid of a five point spline but it is still being problematic. I suppose if I were less stubborn I would chalk this up as experience and start again from scratch. On another note, out of a little bit of impatience in the process, I occasionally try to make the whole face after saving the session and get this recurring problem. As you can see a few of the splines didn't attach along the seam and I usually find on the back side several splines have attached in unusual ways ( for example a line from the top of the head to the lip. (you can see it right behind the nose, apologies for not labeling it) deleting them usually causes a mess.

Sorry I accidentally made a duplicate of the previous entry when editing the attachments. I haven't figured out how to delete an entry so the best I can do is change it into an apology in the edit. My Bad.

Well, Folks here's the latest. One of the recurring props I've been using is a phone stand in Nancy and Michelle's house (first seen here) Anyway for the longest time I'd been using some clip art that I'd made in Illustrator (See bellow) obviously the big problem with this is that I'd have to use the same camera angle every time I used it. Finally I decided enough was enough so I just finished making the Stand and the lamp. I cheated and used a phone from the archive file (which I may correct.. I don't know if the wire is intended to be animated but at the moment I don't have the time or inclination to rig it) Anyway I think it came out all right otherwise. The only problem I had was that one of the groups wouldn't change color no matter what I did.

Looks like ypou're going to have to work on that six pack. The abdominals look like they're sticking out two inches from the obliques.

A little of both I use color for the sunday strips. And it's easier to visualize the project having it exactly as it should be instead of just white blocks. I suppose I could tinker with a grouping so I can switch back and fourth from color to plain line art. But as long as it's a cartoon render I have at least two filters on photoshop that can flush the colors fairly easily. On another not I finally finished the premier piece for this set. I'm afraid it's not my funniest joke but I think it gets the job done.

Hi all Once again I dived in the deep end and decided to take another crack at character modeling. This time, partially for an overly ambitious idea for advertising my webcomic on youtube, I started playing with one of my newer characters a cute, perky and petite goth punk from Devonshire: P. Blossom Hannaford. anyway as per usual i whipped up a rotoscope and got to work. So far it's coming along nicely so far. For what it's worth, I think it's much more successful than my previous attempts Mainly because this time I worked a lot smaller so the computer isn't choking on it yet and since this is a cartoon figure I went in with the Kiss principle in mind which gives me the luxury to add more splines if I have to. as the arrows indicate their are a few creases I haven't been able to correct just yet. (Yes I'm aware of the one bellow the lower lip but I know what I did on that) I also am having a little trouble smoothing it out completely. I don't know if this is a side affect of working too small or that this will be corrected in the render. Anyway as always all comments and nitpicks are welcome and appreciated. Thanks in advance. Bill

A brief deviation from the recurring sets this is something I threw together for the finale of one of the storylines I've been doing for half a year. It's going meant to be a homage to the first Wintermute sequence in William Gibson's Neuromancer where the protagonist walks down a wall of payphones and each one rings once as he passes it. The model was easy enough though I think I overdid it with the number of them in the set. AM was choking on it at the end and it took me forever to move the camera even a little bit.

Okay Here's the latest progress report. I've thrown all of the components together and mostly it's looking good. As you can see with the second image I'm going to have to tinker with the glass a little bit. At this point I'm going back and looking everything thing over. From the perspective of a director I want to embellish I can think of more ways of making this into a convincing working independent bookstore, a few more posters on the wall, paperwork next to the counter perhaps a magazine rack next to the door or window... However from the perspective of a cartoonist I think I have to reign myself in and remember the KISS principle is law. There is no point putting in more props when you know that they are going to be hidden by word balloons. So at this point I think it might be better to master the finer points of the cartoon render, somehow see how I can tweak the line work and add lighting. A quick technical question. Does anyone else have a problem with props moving around on them? At this point my only hypothesis is that I'm somehow animating them by mistake. On another note I also started working on the outside of the store for establishing shots. So far I think it's looking all right. Based on what I've learned thus far I'm using decals whenever I have the opportunity. I think I'm going to need at least two more buildings (and any thoughts on how to cheat on them are appreciated.) Along with that headache there's still a bit of set dressing to go. Other than having to do most of the architecture, that I'm going to have to build from scratch, I have plenty of street accessories to spruce this thing up with. My biggest concern is at the moment I how to keep everything cartoony and not looking like a photograph that I ran through a few filters (Like the Volkswagen bus in the picture.)

Yeah, he's a nice guy. As far as Cartoonists Northwest is concerned he kind of disappeared over a year ago. Last time I saw him was this Easter at the local Science Fiction convention where he had a table at the artist alley.

Everything is coming along nicely I pretty much fixed the counter manually, it's just digital carpentry after all. The next thing I added was a bookshelf. At first it was pretty self explanitory (again, digital carpentry) but I started stumping myself on the books themselves. After wasting a good amount of time and memory trying to make individual books. I took a screenshot of the front and put books into it on illustrator which I then turned into a jpeg. Then I went back into AM and put a panel inside the shelves making them about "two inches" deep. I then put the jpeg onto this panel as a decal. It wasn't a perfect fit but that's what adjustable shelves are for... and besides it's for a comic strip, I'm not exactly going for photorealism.

Hi all. After a considerable hiatus I dusted off my ongoing project of cheating on backgrounds on my webcomic Rhapsodies (Previous attempts can be seen here) This time I started working on one of the strip's principle sets/locations, Lysistrata Books a progressive bookstore owned by one of the cast members. After a rather frustrating false start of trying to alter one of the sets in the extra's dvd I went back in treating it like a television set with only two walls (after all we never see the others) Anyway so far this approach is going fairly well with only a few stumbling blocks. These being so far trying to find the correct recipe for plate glass (yes I know 30% opacity is a good rule of thumb but should I start with any specific color? What I have now looks more like tracing paper. The other problem is that after I created it I realized I had pretty much created a mirror image of my design for the counter. Anyone know what the Animation Master equivalent of "Flip Horizontal" is? Anyway It has a way to go. There are a few more props I have to do such as a few bookshelves. And I still have to master lighting and rigging to make this work right. But so far the learning curve is much more bearable then most of my other leap into the deep end projects. Look forward to seeing what you all think and all comments and suggestions are more than welcome! Thanks in advance Bill

Sorry about the multiple I had some problems with the attachments

I decided to dust this one off and since I was worried about virtually destroying the original by trimming it I decided to try again from scratch with consciously less splines. I'm fairly happy with it so far though the art of smoothing the flesh out is something that continues to allude me. Despite having read the page on it several times I've yet to figure out how to do hooks. On a side note while doing this and other models I've been having trouble with what I think is a memory issue. As I started out for the first three hours of this everything went fine. But as I got closer to completion the system became increasingly sluggish until unless I switched to wire view I would get 30 seconds of spinning pinwheel and I almost have to give up as it becomes unworkable. I had this problem with the original and I assumed it was a size issue so I made a point of making this one smaller. At the moment this one is 4.5 MB the first one that was giving me the identical problem was only one MB. Since I wish to remain productive with making these I would like to know if there is something incredibly stupid I should stop doing or if it is a technical matter. Thanks in advance

I decided to dust this one off and since I was worried about virtually destroying the original by trimming it I decided to try again from scratch with consciously less splines. I'm fairly happy with it so far though the art of smoothing the flesh out is something that continues to allude me. Despite having read the page on it several times I've yet to figure out how to do hooks. On a side note while doing this and other models I've been having trouble with what I think is a memory issue. As I started out for the first three hours of this everything went fine. But as I got closer to completion the system became increasingly sluggish until unless I switched to wire view I would get 30 seconds of spinning pinwheel and I almost have to give up as it becomes unworkable. I had this problem with the original and I assumed it was a size issue so I made a point of making this one smaller. At the moment this one is 4.5 MB the first one that was giving me the identical problem was only one MB. Since I wish to remain productive with making these I would like to know if there is something incredibly stupid I should stop doing or if it is a technical matter. Thanks in advance

That could be part of the problem. I was going in assuming that I was just decalling the front of the sphere, I had another decal for the other side. Going by that I would assume I should apply it without clicking the spherical option.

Hi all Perhaps this is just another example of why I should stick with the baby steps instead of jumping into the deep end head first but my first attempt at using decals has been frustrating to say the least. For a little bit of background I was playing around with creating scenes from a space opera i've been dabbling with and I was playing with from space shots of the principle setting. For this I assumed that the best approach for creating this planet would be to make a large decal made from one of my maps of the setting (attachment 1) on top of of a 32patch sphere unfortunately the end result of this leads us to attachment 2. I've played with the size of the decal but most of them aren't much prettier. I am assuming that the decal going on would have to be distorted from the start. Anyone have good suggestions on how to go about this? At the moment my arsenal consists of painter, photoshop and illustrator and after AM and Poser my 3D resources are limited. (though I am perfectly willing to invest in the right toy if the price is reasonable)

Hi all In my webcomic I've been doing an annual christmas story. This time I gave the protagonist's a slightly different manner of getting to the North-pole as seen here: Anyway I rather liked this concept and thought the magic snow bus came dangerously stealing the show for a while. Therefore since I felt I could probably use it for other projects I decided to take a crack at it. Obviously this has a way to go. I was a little premature putting in the wheels on but I wanted to get the idea across for these images. On the top of my list for what to do next is to work out the mechanics of the wheels and figure out how to do the windows and shingles. Anyway all comments and sugestions are welcome. Thanks in advance Bill

Thanks that got it. Simple really but I couldn't find that tip anywhere (Sorry about the tiffs completely slipped my mind)

Hi all The latest sticking point I've been having with a small project I've been working on. I just finished creating one of the first 3d set pieces I've been experimenting with In this case a stairway. (Yes I know It has a way to go but bear with me) Anyway what I want to do is animate a tracking shot going up the stairs. The problem I'm having Is I mostly have figured out how to manipulate the camera and I think some of my attempts are working. But so far I haven't even figured out how to look through camera 1 so even If I'm doing everything else right for the render I'm flying blind. All suggestions are welcome and with any luck this isn't too stupid a question. Thanks in advance. Bill stairwell.tiff camera.tiff

Indeed, and this time I think I got it (mostly). The remaining problems seem to be changes I have to do in the model itself and not the technique itself. I realize this is part of the learning curve but I haven't figured out how to rework the splines in the five point patches you itemized.