dblhelix

been surfing here quite a bit and i've this board with yellow post-its pinned on for reminders. among them one says i've chosen OpenEXR "with PIZ" (i think, i've MD in illegibility) as only viable renderer without writing down why. now i know. he he. also found two bookmarks for light buffers, new term there. slowly building context.. upgrade to j+, check. thank you!

this is a pre-emptive strike; i was just wondering if anyone is currently working with floating point images and has experience and perhaps dos and don'ts to share? i'm sure it's a breeze to find render settings etc pin pointy info on these boards but was just curious of all the other stuff that usually pops up along the way. i'm on a pc, vista home, don't mind the renders and recently bought the subscription to 15h. i'm used to AE but this is my first time in A:M. the project is fantastically devoid of visual detail, nearly black&white&grey with a little blue and green. have just spent a couple of hours watching cutout animations on the net and as a result, have an acute allergy to blur&glow. i want the depth from 32bpc to oomph my blacks and whites with the brutality glow can't give. blacks=some bgr+shadow; white=characters "made of" paper. any thoughts? or is it just smooth sailing?

okay, scratch that. now that this pre-prod-period is drawing to a close, i'm loosing the rig altogether and choosing a true-to-life cut-out technique. loosing the hip&toes as well, since motion is built on different premises. have had poodles of fun with the fact that my pre-viz for a 3D film has been done with a camera and real paper dolls. the cookie has crumbled again!

this is reacting to the first image on the thread, nice work, the redwhite one in the foreground especially so. an animator's answer to achieving motion is by looking at the body. even with robots as subjects, check if your story allows you to use their balance as a source of dynamics. the redwhite one is very compact and sturdy but the taller thinner ones could portray speed by posing their bodies "against the wind". really small changes might do the trick. as to the other images, maybe you're developing a 3Dmingled manga style of your own?

this was very helpful! since i'm not familiar with 3D, just the fact that you mention certain terminology will steer my studies in the right direction. the film is really short and only seven scenes (now...) so it's a realistic first project, but you've probably just saved me a month. thank you! AE is home sweet home, and it'll be a hoot to learn masks and color manipulation on a new level for boosting the photorealism in torn white paper. for those reading this and interested in post production, this page might perk up interest: http://vimeo.com/7337675 more stuff in the list on the right. he works in fusion now, but you can train your eye and fill your think-tank regardless.

i was trying to avoid the term paper doll, but, ok, it's a paper doll. made of rough aquarelle paper by precise tearing (fluffy edges); one head with two bodies no arms = torso and hip; thigh leg foot toe -parts; all with back and front, up&down differences. one body walks the right way up and the other upside down above it, the head in the proper place uniting them. for starters. then it gets complicated. like, "when there's a will there's a way" but what if there are two wills in one head and a hole in the ground? the dolls move as one being, but they will also be separated (and headless), and change walking directions. one of them will use its legs as propellers in one scene. it's basically a cut-out film. it starts as a "photoreal" replica with the characteristic chops of discontinuous motion here and there. in throes of first conflict speed excludes chops and beziery smoothness prevail till the end, but the "stacking of parts"-principle is used for dismantling the character = he can "crumble to a heap" of pieces of paper instead of "curling up in fetal position" like a humanoid). scaling of parts is introduced for ittybitty&increasing stretch&squash. the camera is an actor in the end and i'm busting the fourth wall by "showing the studio" with the bits of paper and backgrounds on the glass panes. i'm curious to learn how the IK in 3D can help animating the head as the axis of two dynamics. but right now i feel just lost and stupid trying to plan these different stages since i've no facts or experience to judge by, and lack of knowledge means too complicated and time consuming scene structures. i'm dying to improve at animation and story-telling, yet every project is swamped with learning one to three other occupations. thank you! there's a quadroped digitigrade in a pending project, TSM will be a big help! (it used to be a cat but then along came Shane Acker. no more cat.) this instant all effort is going to grappling with the "what is real?" of the film. i've been reading about maps, bumps and normals, on these stunningly helpful boards, hair is next. the white bubbly paper parts will of course be defined by shadows, and light will even be a character in the end, so "appearences" are a priority right now. what kind of time table are you living - maybe freelance with no possibility to plan? flexing my brainmuscle to see the first scene as pure cut out motion, with just constraints for levels so parts move as if on a glass and in a fixed 'piled-up-order'. if anything here made you want to join, please let me know! i'm at finishing stages of another project with deadline in the middle of June, but would like to get a sense of the 3D in this project as soon as possible, since i expect the story to evolve through the technical possibilities.

hi, not much traffic 'round these parts? let's see what happens; nearly-newbie-to-a:m filmmaker/animator wishes to get going with a very first 3D project in a month - 6 weeks. looking for a technically skilled person who knows this program well, and who enjoys the absurd, willing to build and rig a deceivingly simple-looking character. there's already one boneless character =the basic finished shape to start from. your job would be to add detail if needed to facilitate future use, hair etc; duplicate the character then connect the two; resulting in one character, one IK, breakable to FK. there's also a turning-scenario, which in the rather 2D world might mean a third singular character = a second doubled character with different IK/constraints is needed. naturally there are several ways to go about this so i need someone who can see the options, understand their ramifications and choose the rational approach. production time is at least a year, doing this on my pauper own, half time. half of that time goes to studying animation/cgi and i usually weave between two projects -believe it or not- for efficiency. i'll buy you something i can afford from cdon.com; music or film; nice value for money = for your time. looking forward to hearing from you contact me at doublehlx aaaaat yahoo ceeohmm