TommyDAQ2

Hey Mark, did that tool allow you to set the dimensions of the tileable area? Like could you set it to 512x512 or 3600x3600, or is it just it's fixed size? I think it's pretty easy to make tileable textures in Photoshop using the Offset filter. If anyone needs a tutorial on it, I'd be happy to throw one together. Been making them for decades! (literally - that's kinda scary!)

That looks interesting, Mark!

Mark, That does look really good! and I LOVE your rendition of that character! I've attached a rendering that Kevin set up w/ my guy. It definitely hits what I was trying to achieve - a nice, professional looking "product shot" to show the client the character - and it's a very simple setup. Thanks everyone for the input and ideas on this. Very educational and inspiring! Character spin_640x360.mov

Thanks Rodney... I didn't think it ever became available, but wanted to check.

Is there a way to use DarkTree materials on a Mac yet?

While reading Martin's post from earlier today, Stolen Smells, I followed the link to YouTube, and then happened upon the Hash CG History channel on YouTube (very cool, if you haven't checked it out), and it reminded me of a project I had worked on in a day gone by... TBT Circa 1998 - Review and Herald New Releases 1998 conference! https://youtu.be/sHgrs2pu6Z8 I had worked on a video to announce all the books that would be released that year by the Review & Herald Publishing Association, and a live action Book Store Manager would be meeting some Interesting Characters! The T-Rex (in the linked video) was one of the interesting characters! There were 4 different animted characters in all - A Walrus, Goat, Snake, and the T-Rex. Fun Project! Unfortunately, at this point, the T-Rex is the only excerpt I still have from the video. All characters were modeled and animated in A:M. I was the sole TD, Modeler, Animator, etc... We were using A:M '98 - I think that was like version 3.3 or something??? I had been a Mac Guy, but for this production, the A:M on the Mac was just not stable enough, so the client had purchased a Pentium 300 for me to work on! Fun Stuff! -Tommy

I agree... hadn't gotten to the facial decal yet. BTW, Your setup didn't look as good w/ my character - he got quite washed out and flat. Perhaps settings may have gotten out of whack in passing from your setup to mine, Detbear tried a setup for him that is basically just a Klieg, AO and some GA, and it looks really great. I've got to keep playing with this so I can start to get these nuances right. Thanks for everything guys. I'll post something back here when I'm further along with it.

Doh! You just made me realize what I forgot to do during my recent testing. I didn't crank up the ambient setting. Another trick in similar fashion is to make the ground plane mostly transparent (each setup calls for a different percentage but a good starting place is 80%). Then set the camera background color to the desired color and the ground will render 'mostly' that color and tend to fade into it as it progresses to the horizon. This also works well when rendering with alpha channel because whatever background the image is placed over will blend in with the partially transparent ground plane. As such we can control the color of background and ground dynamically on a webpage via CSS or whatever. Shhh... this is a very secret technique so don't tell anyone. I like that idea of the translucent floor - going to play with that... Also, thinking about he IBL that I had been struggling with, I hope to do some tests today w/ a reflective cube and sphere to document how each of the different environment mapping techniques resolves. Unless that's something that is already around in relation to IBL, I think it'd be a nice resource to have.

Perfect! Thank you!

Wow, Rob, this is really great!!! I look forward to learning what i can from your sample files, as well as the bonus tips! I had no idea I could set Surface>Average Normals... Thank you, so much!!! Is the "Average Normals" set with the Normal Weight of whichever group I want to adjust? -Tommy

Looks really nice... Yes, I would love to achieve that look, but I'm not sure how to. Want to share your .prj, or .cho? or at least where and how you have your lights set? Looks really great, Rob!

Rob, Will you share what your Z-buff settings are on your first image? And how do you have AO set in the second one? Also, and this is a (has been) Newbie question: Are my progressive renders representative of what my "Final" renders would be? and... fwiw, I can't get IBL to work for S***! Have a nice HDRI Studio lighting image loaded, set to Lat/Long, then Mirrrored Sphere, but it just renders flat. I've obviously got something set wrong. Going back to using lights!

1 Z-buffered Spot: Shadows 20% soft, 80% dark Choreography: - Global Ambience: 25% - Ambience Occlusion: 100% Camera: - Global Ambience: 23% (What's the difference???) - Ambience Occlusion: 50% (again, what's the diff???) - SSAO: On (default settings) Nothing reflecting for spec highlights. Still not there, but very simple setup. ~1 min per frame

Right Robcat... The Image I provided is the character the client found on iStock and said, I want THIS guy - so, I've built a model based on him. Really having trouble smoothing the mesh on his face though. Seems like such a simple model, but it's giving me difficulty. Here's my first render for he client review (of just the model), but I have not yet gotten that look that I want to get like in the sample: https://youtu.be/nSSON4gXlZg FWIW, I tried one large Z-buffered light, but hadn't played w/ Ambient light, which would probably be necessary to get that look. \\ ...and Sorry I missed Live Answer Time... I thought about it at about 2:15 - It was 1-2 in my time zone.

Awesome mock-up, Rodney! Can't wait to see what you come up with! I'm rendering a quick (or not so quick) 180 frame character turning around so the customer can evaluate v1 of the model, so that knocks me out for the next few hours (and house work calls), but I'll start playing with some IBL w/ HDRI images after my rendering's done.

Just found the IBL threads... I'll start there. Thanks Rodney

Wow, Rodney, that was a lot! First of all, Yeah, I've got a model - based on the sample that was uploaded (see attachement). I've never used OpenEXR. Is that compatible w/ PhotoShop or After Effects? Just thinking about post processing. Not sure what SSAO is, I assume that's a variant of AO. Hadn't even considered HDRI in A:M. I'll see if I can rig something up to implement that. Is there a specific way to set up HDRI for A:M? Thanks! Tommy

I'd love some advice, other than reading Jeremy Birn's book (which I have somewhere, lost in the move and separation... ugh), about how you would go about achieving lighting as in the attached sample. The character is well lit, seeing all features, and even the underside of his cheeks, while there's still a nice soft shadow being cast by the brim of his hat. I've been playing in a .cho all day tryint to get something similar. I built a psych w/ my character on it, and I probably had about 18 lights in there trying to achieve this effect and still wasn't even close. The sample came out of 3DS Max - it's by a tremendous 3D cartoon artist in Paris, Julien Tromeur. However, it'd be really great to be able to light characters like this in A:M. I don't mind putting the work in, but it'd be great for some guidance to get started. (Wish I still had that old Extras DVD - some of the sample scenes in there could probably help). Would I start w/ a light array? Suns? Does ambient occlusion contribute to this kind of look? Any tips you got would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Tommy

Martin! Great to see your post! I miss the old days of our e-mail community, before the forums. It was like a big user family back then: Jeff Lew, Zero Dean, Armando Afre... We had a lot of good times and looked forward to the weekly banter of Martin's Minutes!!! I remember working so closely with Ken as he was developing the Mac Platform as I just did not want to conform to the PC platform... Anyway, great to see you! TommyDAQ

Looks like you got that fist bump working! Yep! Thanks Rob! You're recommendations always seem to come through! -T-DAQ Thanks for the recommendations, Detbear. I'll be doing some tweaks tonight. Perhaps I'll try some of these.

Right Rodney, you remember when I was trying to figure out how to do the Flame head, but then the client just wanted it static. This is the 3rd spot the guy is doing with him - only a few seconds each time, but at least "Woody" is getting a bit of life to him! -Tommy

I figured I'd upload my first test... I always forget to once I go final. Still need to adjust lighting, and tweak some animation a bit. 25 years opening green screeen fist bump.mov

That took care of it! Thanks Rob!

Thanks Rob, Trying it now. It appears as though there is no updated documentation on the current Camera Rotoscope Properties panel: under Timing: There is Crop, Range, Length, Speed, Frame, Sound... And, as much as I'd like to think I understand this software, they don't appear to be very intuitive. Maybe it will make more sense with the Targa Sequence...

Need a little help guys... I've got a character for a local commercial - 7 second intro, that he's supposed to "fist bump" the owner at the end of his intro. I've set up the lip-synch anim for the VO, and now I want to do the body action and fist bump. I would typically work in the action window for his movements, but since he's got to interact with a live action character, I figured I'd have to work int he Choreography window w/ a Camera Rotoscope playing the live action video. I've set up a cho, imported the video clip as a Camera Rotoscope, I set the start point at 0:00 and the end point at 7:17 on the rotoscope. But when I advance frames, the video roto just remains static on the first frame. How do I get the video to follow the frames of the animation? Thanks, Tommy