danf

Well that shot was rendered at 1-pass, which probably explains why it looks SO crappy? I've been asking that but haven't gotten an answer- more passes will kinda blend out those glitches? I wasn't sure if multiple passes would change a thing if I wasn't adding motion blur or depth of field.

I removed the large flickering ground texture map for a solid color and added shrubs for a more 3D sort of "texture." I'm satisfied with the result, but it's only trimmed another 20% off the render time. I wouldn't be so obsessed with it, but I did some earlier shots on a different .prj, and I feel like they were rendering far faster... although it's possible they were just shorter shots, come to think of it.

I think I've resolved the flickering by reducing the size of the ground plane, I have another shot with no truck distortion where the ground was continuing the same. I'll give an update when my current render completes (which will vary depending on how many ideas I get to reduce render time and render faster).

Yeah, I have two pretty hi-res textures being applied to different ground elements. I'm thinking this could be the problem. I've considered masking in actual photos of a more realistic desert ground post-rendering, but I don't want to lose the shadows of my scene's elements. Is there a way to render with my ground missing as an alpha mask, but keeping the shadows as if that ground was there?

So here are potential culprits: Cloth effects? Roughness Texture? Reflectivity? Motion Blur? Multi-Pass Rendering? And btw, I have it in my head that multi-pass makes it look softer and less pixelated, is that the goal?

Ahh! So my stretch of pavement that is pretty hi-res and uses a ton of tiny grains of concrete, that might be the problem??

One thing I notice is I don't think the motion is eased in, meaning he seems to move the ball instantly in two jerk motions. Also, there's no sign of straining. If I had to name what muscle was doing all the lifting, I'd say the butt, because he hinges his waist without anything else moving during the lift. He may be taking the old adage "Lift with your waist, not with your back" too literally. While lifting with the back might just reflect an ill-informed lifter, when I lift something heavy, I try to get above it, and gradually apply more strength to the object until I have applied the right amount to raise it. This lift includes no muscle-evaluative period, no trying before the success, which makes it look like the ball is so light that his first amount of effort was sufficient.

That's so awesome. Now I can literally work as fast as my computer renders.

What are the factors that influence render times?

If I'm feeling feisty and want to work on my next shot while rendering this one, can I open A:M a second time? Anyone know how I'd do this on a mac?

Yeah the ground is basically a square with a cross-line in it, with a bitmapped ground texture on it, which I've enlarged to replace the "ground" plane... I guess I could have just edited the ground plane instead. Do I need a more detailed bitmap for the ground? Other angles of the same thing came out looking okay. Is that because they have more passes? What is the difference between a few passes anyways?

What's up with this? http://homepage.mac.com/somniac/.Pictures/s02swerve.mov

Oooo, I've felt like a Newbie until now! My first question that requires venturing outside of the Newbie forum!

So when you all say "duplicate the choreography file," what you're referring to is "save as.." it, and then reload it when you want to work with it again? Or is there another way to duplicate the chor. file within the same .prj?

I like the cloth idea a lot. I'm trying to upgrade the pump with a cloth hose, but right now there's one problem: When I grab the nozzle and move it, the cloth seems locked at the next spline. Is it normal for cloth to only act like cloth between splines, which still act locked in place? How would I go about unlocking the hose splines to react to gravity like cloth, or is that a different thing, and I should take off the splines and replace it all with a saggy cloth spline?

I'm using the stock Gas Pump model from the A:M supplemental DVD. It has a skeleton on the hose so it can be manipulated. My problem: I can't seem to manipulate it gracefully. My reasoning tells me I should be able to put some kind of constraint on the handle so it stays in my character's hand, but it never seems to work right. So I'm stuck with this hose that is constantly flying around, twisting my handle during inbetween frames, and generally giving me a headache. I actually finished a whole shot doing the nozzle frame-by-frame. It just feels wrong. What's the answer?

I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, but using texture mapped planes isn't looking as good as a real 3D environment would (especially when the camera moves). So I'm starting to think about building a desert from scratch. Or from reference photos anyway. I'm thinking something like the Great Plains: There's a lot to terrain like this. Subtle rolling hills. Bluffs and Crags. Shrubs aplenty. Crackled ground. I don't even know where to start with this. I tried making a displacement map but it didn't come out at all. Like, a splotch in the middle disappeared, that was it. Seems like bluffs would be easy enough to model... Anyways, just starting to sort out these thoughts. Where would you start?

Alright I followed up until here (yeah I haven't pursued rendering the animation until now). I don't see "Timing" let alone an "Image" to find it under. It seems like you got some properties window that I haven't seen. Where do I find these controls, more specifically?

Nice tutorial recall! I seriously think this vid should be amended to that TAO:AM tutorial, it's that fundamental.

Booya! Those are the kind of common-sense answers I was looking for!

Last time I tried (this isn't a real example I'm talking about) I had issues going from one action to the next. The scenerio is a character walks up to something, and then grabs it, much like in the door-opening tutorial. But in that tutorial I used no walk cycle, and animated each step one at a time. In a larger setting it seems it's harder to control precision movements from the choreography mode, largely because my character is no longer perfectly centered on axis, and the keypad no longer gives me clean perspectives to adjust the position from. So I've been exploring walk-cycles and pre-constructed actions. My problem was that once the walk cycle ends, it seemed my character did not want to break off of it. I could not simply drag his hand forward for the reach without damaging the entire walk cycle. What's the trick to transition from one canned action to another, or to a choreography action, without damaging the keyframes of the former?

I'm working on a short that takes place in mostly one place. For that giant bulk where the scene is set, and most things won't be moving, would you make it all one choreography file, or would you arrange choreography on a shot-by-shot basis? My first sequence I began by going shot-by-shot, but by the end there were segments of action that were continuous, so it made more sense to render the various perspectives out of the same choreography file. I can imagine a variety of perks to keeping one file (not pulling out all your props for each new shot), but I also feel like there are advantages to having a clean slate for each shot (not confined to realistic object arrangement and perspective, no issues with overlapping actions, a nice clean PWS with just as many dots as you're thinking about at the time.) So those are my few thoughts on the issue. What dictates how you work?

I found photos of the exact desert I want represented in my animation, and I feel humbled by the number of subtle shrubs, hills, bluffs, and so on that make the desert what it is. Especially since it is only going to be in the background and does not move, I don't see the sense in modeling all of this from scratch. So now I'm toying with the logistics of animating my A:M components to be most compatible with my photoshopped and then 3-D composited (probably in After Effects) sort of environment. I understand there's a way to render animations with an alpha channel, although I don't know how. I guess that's question number one. Another question is "how to cast shadows that also preserve this alpha layer, so they will be cast on whatever the animation is later composited upon?" I was experimenting with giving the ground a texture map of the desert I wanted, but here was my catch: I have photos from the angle I want represented. I was hoping to texture map the ground layer at that angle, so the perspective would be relatively preserved. But to apply a decal I have to leave the choreography for the modeling mode, which strips me of the context I was using to get the perspective right. Any tips on achieving this effect?

WHOOHOOO!!!!!! That was the fastest reply ever. I was seriously just checking to humor myself

When I went through TAO:AM, I know there were some moments that I was asked to do things that just didn't seem to be in my software. Easing is a great example, and since I finally have a reason I want to ease, I'm going to ask about it. So I locate the ease in the PW. I double-click it. Isn't it supposed to expand? For me, the "ease" looks like a bone's keyframe line or anything else's, but I can't find anywhere to edit it. In the Properties window, it lists only the title, "Ease*" and a single button which changes whether the waveform is curvey, sharply angled, or another one. I can't figure out how to edit ease functions on my computer, although I can view those keyframes that were made by someone else, like in this prj robcat posted. Is this a Mac issue? Is this a low ram issue? (I ordered more RAM) Fortunately I see other ways around the problem, but it seems like a matter of time before I want to expand PW sliders into those cool graphs I've seen in the tutorials.