Wildsided

Thanks for the support guys. I have got Ursa's body rigged and threw together a walk cycle to test it out. Still need to rig his cloak and hood. Magika walk cycle.mp4

Now the book is out I need to promote it and for Christmas I wanted to make some festive artwork to post on social media. Naturally the first thing that comes to mind is Santa Claus, but then it dawned on me that Santa and for that matter Christmas, wouldn't exist in Bernie's world. So I needed to create a holiday and its mascot to fill the roll. Anyway long story that you're probably not interested in short. I created a Santa-esque character called Ursa Magika. He isn't textured yet and the colours aren't final but I figured I'd post what I've got done so far.

Congratulations, Mark. Pleased and happy for you.

Lol, yeah that might be useful info eh? The link for US amazon is https://www.amazon.com/Bernie-Snuffles-Monster-Lillymoss-Cave/dp/B09KNGG48F/ but changing the .com to a different locale, .ca or .co.uk etc, goes to the equivalent listing on those versions of the site.

Well guys and gals it's done and it's available to buy. The logo and all of the illustrations were made using A:M in some way so if you'd like to check it out or if you know a kid that might like an adventure featuring cute animal people then thanks in advance.

A spooky Bernie for spooktober

I've opted to go for a simpler look that closer resembles the 2D style I used for the book. Gonna be a fair bit of work but it's coming along nicely.

Cheers Robert, I tried turning on the lines in the fur material of the model and it didn't come on. So I made a new material with the lines on and they work. It doesn't suit the overall style of that version of the model, but good to know. Thanks again.

Guys, is there a a way to make toon lines detect the edges of particles? Even with the particles baked the toon lines are drawn around the underlying geometry.

The software can change the audio by changing words in the transcript? Is it a computer voice like Microsoft Sam or does it modify real spoken audio? Or am I reading this wrong.

That's cool, John.

Just finished another base image and thought I'd share it. Everyone is pretty miserable in this one. Ignore the fact that the boxer dog kid is naked, I don't have a complete model of him so his body is a stand in.

Not posted in a while, but I just finished a reference image for chapter 7 and thought I'd post it. As you can see Bernie's Grandpa has excellent fencing form 😄.

Well that's good to know, lol. Even if it does demonstrate how much my system chugs along sometimes.

I've just noticed that most of the time A:M tells me how many Frames Per Second I currently have. But sometimes it tells me how effective it would be as a sun block...

Stay safe Robert, we had a couple of days without power when I lived in Bracebridge Ontario and you don't realise how dark and cold it gets until there's no power. Hope they get it sorted soon.

Oooooh that's puuuuurdy 😮.

Great job, Robert. Congrats to all the winners.

Nice one.

Thanks everyone I thought I'd post a more extreme example of the process. One of the pictures was supposed to be of Bernie and his Grandpa inside their local Newsagents, Bernie is browsing comics and Grandpa was talking to Mr. John the owner. This meant that in order to produce the image in 3D I would need models of: Mr. John, Bernie (outdoor clothes), Grandpa (Outdoor Clothes) and everything inside the Newsagents. I didn't have any of that. So I roughed out a basic layout of the Newsagents interior using shapes and a free prop plant I found online, slapped on a few decals to give me an idea of what certain areas would look like and then figured out character positions using the models I did have (Including a basic squirrel head and male body). I also refined the process to only rough sketch the parts I absolutely needed to so there isn't a full image for that aspect. Also the text on the pop fridge, sweet packets and numbers on the clock are in 'Eulish' the language spoken by the inhabitants of Bernie's universe. I made a font for it so I can write things easier.

Sorry, Robert. I was just making a rude joke about November and there being much ado about 'nutting'. At least according to the Internet. (trust me,no need to look it up if you've never heard of it)

I wonder if this originally came out in November...

Happy Christmas to you too and to everyone else on the forums. 🎄🎅

Thanks Robert. I've made a picture to demo the work flow. Essentially I'll be using a choreography and the models I've already made, plus stand-ins for the ones I haven't (Like basic blocks to represent furniture or a body to represent characters I haven't modelled). That will allow me to get the correct perspectives on the images and then I'll use photoshop to finish the pictures. I've uploaded another example of Bernie waking up in the morning. In the story he's wearing his pajamas, but I don't have a model, or the time to model and texture a different outfit for him. So I used the model I had to pose him and then drew over the image to have him in the correct outfit.

So, I ran the numbers and quickly established that if I wanted to release Bernie some time before the heat death of the universe, I was gonna have to change tact. Modelling each individual character, costume and location was going to take waaay longer than I had available so I came up with a solution that I think will work. I'm going to use A:M to rough out the images I need and then sketch over them in photoshop. Case in point I needed a picture of Mrs Burrows in exercise clothes. My model of Mrs B has her in a long dress and rather than remodel and texture her into a new outfit I tore the bottom part of her dress off, posed her and made this.