animas3D

Hahaha! 512 of memory. And you actually were rendering 3D with that? I didn't start until I had at least 2MB! I can see you are one of the original users. I am looking forward to the new one. Please let us know when it is finished. Will you be making a blog for it? Best of luck and keep up the good work.

Every once in a while someone does something that just kind of makes me say "holy cow". This is one of those times. Excellent work on the Kafka short. Excellent pre-vis on the new one. What's the new one about basically? All Animation Master? By the way, how did you hear about Animation Master? Just curious. Really great stuff.

This is really cool stuff! Great work going on here. What is that ocean rig? There must have been a thread I missed somewhere... Would someone point it out to me? How'd you do those clouds robert. Were they done with sprites or particles?

Cool! I just discovered these series of tutorials. I look forward to watching all of them. Thanks for making them!

Hey Rob, Nice animation. What kind of rig did you use to do it? Your own?

Thanks!

Love that subtle variation in the surface with the bump maps. Excuse my lack of knowledge here, but what exactly is a normal map. I've heard the term bandied around and think that I've seen some pretty dayglow colors on something one time, but I still have no idea what it is all about. How do they differ from bump maps? In any case the rivets look good (although they look like bump maps to me).

Thanks!

Quick question: Was there any major work done (such as increased functionality) to the hair system in version 16, or 15 for that matter. I am still running version 14 on a 32 bit system but plan to upgrade to a new system and version 16 after the new year. By the way, that movie looks great. Also just read Matt Campbell's pdf. Very interesting! Thanks!

Hey thanks for posting those nice splinage examples.

maybe when I write my book. Seriously Rob, are you really working on a book? That would be great.

This won't play for some reason? Can anybody else watch it?

Wow. This was really good. Looks like you've done your homework studying classic Disney films. Great work and good luck!

Wow, just saw this. Awesome. When the rope hits the floor it kind of jiggles around a bit in its coil. I suppose that is because the cloth simulator is going through some calculations. Is there any way to minimize this. Also, I suppose the model is a very long extruded ring. Can you give some idea as to how many cross sections you used? 16, 32, more? P.S. What's the chance you do a tutorial on this one? Thanks!

Hi ya, Haven't checked around here for a bit. Where can I see Bus Stop???

Aha, I see. Okay. A coincidence that happened to work for you.

I see, thanks. That's interesting. There is an option under the shadow options for a klieg that says distribute in passes. Do you know what that means? Thanks!

That's cool, thanks for giving insight into your process. Good work. Compositing is something that you should definately learn since it's better to do effects there as much as possible. There is a glow effect in After Effects that does a pretty good job of making lights glow and other things like lasers. Still, are the bright windows casting a bit of light on the raise in the hull, or did you paint that illumination in gimp? I'm taking about how the light cast on the raise in the hull seems to get brighter near the windows (circled in red in the above image). I mean, I assume you applied the lit up windows with an image map. I saw a demo recently for a 3D program where they were able to use a texture map to actually cast light in the scene. I don't think you can do this in A:M, but I might be mistaken. Maybe you know of a way?

That makes sense. So basically the shadow cast on the cardboard was used to figure out how soft the shadow needed to be. That is amazing. You are equal parts scientist and artist. In any case, I didn't know that changing the diameter of a klieg affected its shadow. That is good to know. Regarding the rays cast, what does increasing that do? Make it smoother? Softer? Thanks for the notes.

That is so cool. I love the detail of the textures on the ships. Good use of bump maps (not displacement, right?) Are my eyes deceiving me or do the luminance maps cast light. I mean on the image below, the windows actually seem to be casting light (circled in red). I wasn't aware that you could set image maps to cast light onto other surfaces. Is that a radiosity thing? Man, that's nice. Just a few suggestions. - I think that the glow around the laser main laser being shot at the midnight can be a little thinner. - Maybe tone down the glow on the warp engines as well. Or maybe just put them on the top. By the way, this is the kind of thing you might want to consider doing in compositing where you would have better control. If it's in the render you cant change them. Right now those glows seem a bit too pronounced for my taste. - On the other hand I think that the green lights on the space ship in the center could use some glow since they are too crisp. By the way is that image straight out of the renderer or did you do some post processing? Keep up the good work.

Hello, Nice models all around. So in order to get your soft shadows, Rodger, you are basically using a klieg (spot light) as your main source of shadow casting light, then setting the softness of the cone to zero (in other words, the inner cone doesn't exist so the whole cone is soft?), you're putting it really far away from the model you wish to light, you're increasing it's diameter and you are setting the rays cast in the shadow to be 2 or more. And this is how you are achieving those nice soft shadows all around. Correct?

Dude, that is awesome!!! Star Trek Lives!

Although I never got around to participating, I'm looking forward to watching it! Is it viewable yet?

Very cool as always. How did you make the tree? I'm guessing with the hair system...

Rodger, First of all, incredible model on the locomotive. Very, very inspiring. Secondly, I saw the images from the Penn Station model you were working on. Are you still working on it? Are you from New York? I'm a native New Yorker and have lamented the destruction of the original Penn Station, a beautiful beaux-arts palace designed by famed architects McKim, Meade and White since I first learned about its existence. It was torn down, as I am sure you know, in the early 1960s in order to construct the unsightly Madison Square Garden which stands there today. It was the public outcry from this ridiculous decision to destroy the original Penn Station which sparked the New York City architectural preservation movement. There are black and white films from the era showing New Yorkers shedding tears as they watched it being destroyed. Very cool. I applaud you for resurrecting this piece of New York City history for us to see! Cheers!