Dearmad

Best parts for me: 1: I was entranced watching her earrings. Fascinating. Very cool. Dynamic constraints look like a LOT of fun to me! Right now I'm animating four bracelets that one of my character's wears- two on each arm. It's pretty straightforward and a little fun (how they interact with her arm and each other when she moves), but I'd love to mess with dynamic constraints on those- However, I doubt they'd work since so far it looks like dynamic constraints are limited to angle changes, not translations set within certain limits... but I don't know yet. 2: Also the motion blur settings worked sweetly. Would like more details on that, and how that's going in the latest versions of AM. Looking like an upgrade year for me if things remain stable for the coming version. Nice stuff.

It's all just damned creepy to me... Man, I've not been affected so... viscerally by animation in a long time unless it was on the bigscreen. <shivers> Grr... your website ain't working w/mozzy... I need to use IE? yeah probably pick up some weird virus at a site run by an animator like you... hm... dare I risk it?

Some people are a damn bit more "lucky" than they deserve... ...movin' cp's around randomly... Looking great so far- she has a certain quality that makes her interesting to me.

Big ol' bump and: A non-technical bit, but I've found it helpful. In creating animated shots where more than two characters are involved, I've found that choreographing their emotional responses and body motions can sometimes be difficult to get in hand. So I came up with a simple little concept- it's like a dance, and one person usually leads. This means I'll animate the character who's got the "lead" of the dance in those places where they have the lead... then animate the other characters in the shot where they have the lead. Then I go back and animate reations to this lead action. I find this also fits neatly into the conept of one (important) thing at a time for the viewer... it helps me remain conscious about where I want the viewer's main attention to be focused- and keeps the narrative of the shot clearer. Ok, bye fer now...

For those of you who remember this fondly, check out the new version- it's rendered bigger and with better textures... For those of you who've never heard of it, check it out, done in AM 7.x and pretty funny. http://www.jefflew.com/videos.html Disregard this if it's already been posted.

At least it's not rutting paper...

I'd ease up on the density of the roughness or texturing you have going on- that'll read not so well when you animate it. Other than that- it's a good start. I don't envy you the road ahead, however... it takes a looooong time to learn this and a looooong time to make any headway on "short" films.

You miss one point- Yves isn't selling or distributing in a commercial manner. He can do what he wants so long as he's short of this step. I've never understood why so many people forget about this, the most critical aspect of copyright law.

I liked the bigger head... But then it's a personal taste thing at this point, certainly not a real crit.

Yeah, the sound is at 22khz in this sample, to save space- it sounds really close to the micr. in that clip. I just let Premiere compress it without any concern for how it ended up- which is not how I treat sound in the final- I'll be putting together the sound in a dedicated app before letting premiere slap it into the video without any further compression. Original recordings are 44khz and *much* nicer. And yes, he does say "hum," which, given you guys have no real context for this moment isn't exactly an expected word. Funny thing is of all the lines in the entire script, that is the one that bugs me the most due to that word. Thanks for the comments.

Boo again. Added all the other animation to that scene above and uploaded it again. It should look more "alive" now. Eyes, shoulders, etc... Ravel moves his head a *little* too much in the secondpart... but mostly this'll work well enough for me to move on. So... no comments, hm?

Boo. There's a brief animation up at my site- quickshaded and small- two character's talking. While some main poses are done, other than the lip synch, they're not completely animated- their eyes are in "STARE" mode still, for example. I like to peg the larger timings before I mess with that sort of stuff. In this case the timing of their line delivery was what I was most wanting to get done right before I move on. DiVX 5.2. about 1.25MB. Anyway, HERE'S, the link. In the Sweatbox from there.

Hm. That doesn't read very well to me. Here's what I see off the bat: "OO" in You- initial pose in fact, is completely missing. She hsould be hitting this pose, IMO even before she has her first sound- I might even hit it 12 or so frames before and then move hold it as she comes into her voice. Too many poses hit in "can never tell". way too many. "W" in "what's in a man's mind" is missing. Too many poses again in the "what's in" part. I'd use 3: "W" "TS" "N" and the vowels are the transitions. Looks like you may have tried to hit vowel poses. And the lips should NOT pull away to an "E" on "M" in "man's." Did another open pose for "mind" too. Close her lips.

The head whacking part against the ceiling is pretty funny.

I never understood the petite comments about her in the first place... so, no. I LIKE your overall proportions a lot. They wouldn't be my personal choice, but that doesn't belong in a criticism of another person's work- that belongs in the praise department; I like to see the diversity of wonderful solutions people come up with in order to express an idea. And besides, who can knock a woman willing to stand so patiently and so scantily in a field like that?

Nice look there. I'd smooth the backs of her upper and lower leg muscles- but looks like you're going for some sort of athletic look to her legs. She's seriously buff in her legs, reminds me a little of the bicyclists in Triplets of Belleville. As to the knees- I'd go jsut the opposite once I rouded out her legs muscles- smaller knees! They look great either way! Her back is incredible. WOw- what a nightmare to rig that back, since you have a strapless she's going into, I'm sure... and causing the surface of that detailed skin to move right will take a lot of time... the underlying musclutature and bones to her back is outstandingly done.

Yves, Yours are about the only splines out there that nearly make me drool. This is inspired on the Arora girl, eh? That must be why her feet are tipped... I thought it was something to do with future rigging ideas, no? Anyway, what can I say? The subtlety of that elegant twisting spline to the arms (they wind around the long axis of the arm) is unbelievable. Just placing those alone took forthought which I completely lack. But at least I get WHY you did that... Anyway, in comparing the Arora with yours, you've got it all over Arora in spades. Reasons I like yours better: the pelvis bones show at the top of the hip, that really gives her some solidity and "realness" considering her unreal proportions. Breasts have weight to them and form. The concave/convex curve form is classy. Maybe push the concave top curve a little more if she's going to be nude? At any rate, thank you for doing that- much more attractive to me than the typical CG balloons. Her stomach reads as much more layered in tissue than the Arora- nice job. Well, better go before my wife finds me drooling here and doesn't believe me it's because of the splinemanship and not something else. Oh, and for those interested: http://jamesart.com/

Not 2. 1 or 3. I choose 3 because: the text is "anchored" to the book better- looks less like its floating.

Quick! Start selling those rivets! Slap a price on 'em! NOW Schumsky's started to sound like a shill! Reindeer... santa schemes...rivets. Got his hands in everything.

Yeah I didn't want to say anything as I don't know with the latest AM versions, but the extrude tool doesn't have a scaler to it? Interesting since the duplicator wizard does.

Incredible shoulders.

Let us know if you end up succeeding. I'd love to understand what you changed/did in order to fix this, if you do.

He DID try aliased edges. I've run into this problem before and thought it would be fixed. What version is this problem occuring in? I've run into it a lot in 8.5 and no amount of fidgeting with any minor adjustments seems to help sometimes. Some images cookie-cut perfectly and others, seemingly EXACTLY the same as far as the pertinent qualities go, have halos...

Did you extrude along a spline path you defined yourself? I'd try that way. Actually I wouldn't- I'd model it by hand.

By mouth you mean teeth and such? Start modelling them and place them inside. Is this a trick question because I see a mouth already...