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They'll need to be in an environment.. if something is hanging from the ceiling... there should be at least the hint of a ceiling. The cool thing about that scene to me.. was all the old pipes and rusty stuff around the scream machine. Looks cool though. C

February 12th.. still working on a location. I'll find a cool place or we'll default to my house.. Don't want to do it at IBM.. too boring. Bring your Laptops... I'll post a thread as to were and time when I think about it a little more. Colin

Yeah I'm still working on Uberman. This guy was sort of a test run. I've got two modelling commisions and an animation to do and then Uberman. At least thats the plan. I'm still shooting to have something by summer. The good news is that the two modelling commisions are also serving as more test runs.. so by the time I actually get to Uberman.. a good bit of the bugs should be worked out. I learned allot in doing this guy. I'll keep you guys posted. Tell you what.. I'll start a new WIP thread when I start Uberman and give everyone input into the process. C

I tried eyes, and they werent working.. I might revisit them with the new costume. I got word today that Major Innovation (this guys name) was so well received that IBM is going to trademark him for use with other things. Not sure what. Thanks for all the input guys. C

wow.. looks done to me! C

Damn Yves, what do you do go over your monitor with a magnifying glass. You are very perceptive! This was a very early render in spite of the the fact that I'm just showing these images (I didn't want to steal Hash's thunder) I hadnt done any smartskin on the shoulders at that point, and in fact I have redone all the weighting since these pics. There were some problems when he shrugged his shoulders. What you noticed was just one of the issues. He's better now, not one hundred percent.. but better. just lathed a cross section and used the distortion cage to make it fit. Then I mapped a bump on the center of the belt. Pretty straight forward. Making it stay fitted when he does a stomach crunch was the hard part. Vern, Don't worry.. I thought the exact same thing. If you could see his back you'd really thing that. But he also resembles some of the Costumes for the Inhumans or the gods (who fight DarkSeid) in the DC comics. C

And your point is Vern? C

Actually yes.. I'm going to make a villain. I'm just smothered with work right now. Its in the works though. I suppose I asked for that. I am resolved to stay out of the rants forum as much as possible and to limit my trips to this forum to 1 a week or more if I have something to post or a question to ask. If I've got pics.. I'll post them.. if I have a question I'll ask it. I'll do searches for my name if someone can't reach me (once a week) otherwise, I'll come browse and leave (yeah right) who'd have thought my resolution for this year would be to limit my forum time. Maybe I should give it up for Lent.... arrghh.... there I go again. where's that rants forum? Thanks for the comments guys. They are appreciated. C

the thing I'm noticing is that his face (cheeks) arent round. Look at the model from the top view in shaded mode and pull those points to make the cheek round. then go to the side view and adjust to fit the image. One word of warning. If those rotoscopes you started with arent lined up then you'll have a hard time modelling. Take them in Photoshop or some program with layers and overlay them to see if the eyes, nose, mouth etc line up. I also notice the the rotoscope is very pixelated. Take the original into photoshop and blow it up so that you can see the line detail when you are zoomed in. You might want to go into the rotoscope and draw out some more detail on the face. Even though it won't show up much in the rendered version.. it will help you model. C

OK, well he's in the can.. Tradeshow in New York is over. Well recieved and yada yada ayada... Time to make him mine! He are some images of him in a different costume I did for Hash. I liked it ok for about 15 minutes of work.. but I'll probably modify it for my next animation with him in it. I'm planning on having him kick the shiite out of my Hulk model. Just have to get through some other (paying) projects first. Here are the images. Same poses just different costume. Input is more than welcome as long as it doesnt have to do with "evolution, god, or the bible" C

Hey Jim, I know what you mean about that dreamy look.. I do the exact same thing with my stuff. I do it differently.. I duplicate the channel in photoshop 2 times.. the second layer is set to screen at 50 to seventy percent.. and guassian blurred to make it soft. How much depends on the size and brightness of the image.. The 3rd layer I set to overlay to bring back the "pop" that the screen took out... Its blurred the same amount and set at 20 to 30 percent. I use this technique for brightening photgraphs and images as well. Not much if any image resulotion of tonality is lost in the process and it usually brings the color gamut more inline with a real world look. I'm very excited about the new image formats in version 12 just for that reason. The image looks great.. I would make the same comment about the nose though.. it seems turned up or the nostrils flaired a bit. If you want finer hair.. just scale your model up and increase hair density. That will make the hair thinner by the amount you scale up. You want hair thats half as thin.. just double the model size and increase the density. C

looking pretty good. I'd like to see those wires also. Couple of comments. Something odd is happening at the point were the nose runs to the brows.. If you look at the eyes.. that point is usually a valley. Yours, is a mountain, well not literally.. just using the same metaphor. If you where looking at a head from the side.. the top of the nose bridge would be behind the forward point of the brow. Now some "meatier" characters might have a bulge there.. and this guy definately looks meaty.. but there is still a little to much "cut" were the eye brows meet the nose. With the exception of wrinkles.. most lines on a face should be smooth .. not to sharp. This goes double for AM heads if you want to animate them.. Sharp creases can be hard to work around. This is just my oppinion, but I'd add sharp creases like brow wrinkles and hard facial lines with a bump or displacement map. That way you might be able to reuse the model for some other character later. My only other comment would be to create some rounder transitions in the cheeks. They seem a littel flat. Some people have flat cheeks.. but this guy seems much to muscular to have them. Looks great. Show us some wires please. How are you liking the tutorial? C

J.. you need more ram man. Ram Ram Ram.. Thats whats slowing you down. at least 1024.. I'd go for 2048 if you had the money. and I know.. you dont.. but that should be your next big purchase. Let me know when you need those three matcheens mahn! C

Yeah BABY! hey! where's the naked chick in his hand? C

Hope I'm not late with this. Yeah we can do a meeting soon. I usually provide the venue.. at IBM where I work. I'll see when my schedule looks good and we can get together again. C

Paul, ummm .. hmm .. how do I put this.. but you're seeing stuff. The buttons.. all of them... look very smooth to me. Good Job no extra compression that I can tell. C

Thats a beautifull image as it stands.. Only two things I notice that are off with it. There is some light coming from the top of the plane that cast a shadow. Its off considering the sunset feel. I'd put a blue diffuse light there and put a red yellow backlight onthe plane to make it look like the lighting is coming from the sunside of the plane. The clouds go all the way to the ocean and they shouldnt for such a long view and so high in the air. there should be a fade out on the horizon to perhaps the sun on the edge of the ocean. The adjustments I'd make if it where my image would be to add a coastline and have the plane just leaving the edge. As if it were just flying out of America towards Europe. Maybe some fields in the distance, or a cliff under the plane. Thats a lot more work, but it would spruce up the image with some more detail. Thats all I can think of.. its a good start though. I used to be sooo into aviation in the early 20th century. Make me want to go back and revisit my B17 bomber. C

Hey David, the one thing that stood out to my eye was the use of more than 2 colors. Not saying thats a bad thing.. but for the industrial look of the site it seemed off a little. When you look at most branding attempts, they have color palettes that fall into 2 or maybe 3 families of color. the red and the orange could be in the same family but when you add the blue they stand apart and with the gray as well they pop more than they should considering they are just graphical elements and not buttons. I liked the more muted colors, burgandy and the blue behind your text block, better for the industrial feal. I might also make the panel float over black of perhaps a darker burgandy in order to make it the focus of the page. With the boiler plate it makes you want to see other panels below the center panel. All that said.. it is a great image. I made these comments after going to your site and looking at the clients you do work for. It seems to me that if you cleaned the image up a little.. ie.. a little less texture, a couple less colors, and some more accented areas of focus to guide the eye.. you'd have an award winning site there. Hope you don't take any of these criticisms as bad ones, I really do like the image, I just figured since you posted in the WIP you might want an honest critique. Oh.. I also agreed with the width comment. I like the size vertically.. and I like really wide letterbox type sites.. Hince the opening graphic on my site.. but that image might be wider than the average computer monitor setting. Keep up the cool work. C

Hi Bill, the old guy is looking good! Good to hear your busy, and good to see it. You've come a long way since our first Atlanta AM meetings! We'll try to get together for another soon. Right now I'm swamped as well. Keep up the good work! C

Thanks guys, Yeah he is stiff, unfortunately I have limited time to get him moving at all. But each animation I do seems to get better as I get used to the rig. There are problems that I had with his left knee pointer. something in the 2001 rig was off or something. It made me have to key much more than I should have and caused all kinds of slipping which drew my attention from the other stuff. That and the forced perspective I had to work from gave me fits. Fitz, his shoulder does move but in this one I hadnt smartskinned it yet so I only moved it a little. I'll post some of the other stuff when I get a chance. Right now I'm still in the middle of it all and working like a fiend to get done. Thanks for the comments guys. I agree with them whole heartedly. Its the bane of my existence having to settle to get stuff out the door. Happy New Years! C

I agree Jamagica, except that I have to make him start from a stop and leave the cover as soon as the animation starts. ie I can't give him any running on the cover. If I could I would have given him more pop in the jump. It was rediculously hard to get the angles to work as it was. I had a very wide camera angle in the original pose.. and when I tried to shrink him back to the book cover.. his perspective went crazy. I tried many ways to overcome this, but it was all for not. What I settled on was animating him from the side doing a jump from the planted leg. As he does this the Camera animates back and up, all the while adjusting the camera angle for the final position. The Camera also has to rotate in and translate to the left in order to get him out of the left side of the screen. I figure this was the hardest of all the poses I've created. The punch will basically have him fly off the page finish the punch. You'll see a batman type kapow and he'll come up from the bottom of the page as the stars fade. Then the same ending. Still working out how to do the standing pose transitions. Thanks for the input. C

Heres a link to his first animation. Its sort of a transition for a kiosk type application. He'll Jump off the covers of books. The kiosk itself is actually an interactive projection on book shelves where you touch the projected image and he jumps out at you. then he flies off to find your book. The projector moves and he shows your were its at. I know its a dumb application for a potentially cool technology, but I didn't come up with it.. I just do the animation ;-) Anyway, heres a rough. To get the full effect. Stop the playback and play it from the beginning. That way you see the book for a longer period. When its all done I have to create a Flash app that simulates the way it will work in the actual tradeshow. I'll post that so you can see the full effect. Comments are welcome. http://www.colins-loft.net/free/MIRun.mov C

Me likey. Me Likey long time! very very very cool. I love the style. and the model is impeccable. Well done! C

How far South? We meet in Atlanta sometimes. C

That is a bit more 5 pointers than I prefer to use, but I know its hard not to use them. I much prefer hooks, for several reasons I won't go into here, but it is a good looking mesh. Heres a link to my latest face for comparison. I was able to eliminate all 5 point patches around the mouth, by pulling 3 pointers and creases into the edge of the lips. I think the only 5 pointers are around the ears. I tried but couldnt figure how to lose them there. I've got two on each shoulder that I want to lose for animation purposes, but in general he bends well so far. http://www.colins-loft.net/free/MajorInnovationHead.mov Hope that helps. C