Ross Smith

Really nice! Very attractive, fluid motion. My one crit would be for Keekat. The standing motion looks a bit laborious for him, like an old man getting to his feet. If that emphasis is intended, then good. It certainly doesn't look bad (especially for a test!).

Yep. We decided to make a T-shirt image fashioned after the covers of the pulp mags we study.

Hey all. I finished this T-shirt design for the Genre Evolution Project's research team. The colors and all are much higher definition than we'll need, I'm sure, but this render is a real beaut and will serve as a guide. I was so satisfied with what A:M did in the process that I wanted to post it here. Post-work done in Photoshop and Fireworks. GENRE! 2003-2004 Team Thanks for looking. (If you are interested in the project, the site is: here. I won't plug it here, but suffice to say, we study the humanities by researching pulp science fiction.)

Geiz _ist_ geil. Das stimmt. Really fun advertisement! And very cool job on the rendering... The animation and lighting are good, but so is the color composition, not to be overlooked.

I'm casting another vote for the posting of the animation. I caught this thread the first time around, but somehow missed the animated clip...

Wow. That's... a really convincing walk. Especially for a ball! This little clip is a lot of fun. Share more when you have it.

Nice detail on the eyelids. You have a hook in the upper lip -- that could give you some problems with animation. I found it was worth it, to continue the hooked spline into the inner mouth and hook it there. That way no one sees it, and you have that much more control over the mouth's shape. Also, I think I see a 5-pointer on the corner of his lip... That could give you problems. But I see you've put it there to make the crease in his cheek from the nose to the lip, so I'm guessing you know more about this whole deal than I do. Keep it up! He's got character already. =)

Wow! That model is fantastic! I really like the attention to detail. You clearly put a lot of time into every small feature -- it shows even on a render of this scale. As for the lighting and things, I'd say find a friend who does killer lighting and rendering and let them have a crack at it. You've done your share of the work.

Heya, Adam. I've learned a lot about splining in the past year. There are more qualified artists to teach, but I'll throw my hard-earned lessons in while no one's posted yet. Hope I'm not just sputtering here. You know how the patches work, right? Ideally, a control point is an "intersection" of two (roughly perpendicular) splines. The four CPs (and the connecting splines) that enclose a patch define the curvature of that patch. With that in mind, you can try to find ways to fix a lot of those creases -- try to make every control point a crossing of two splines that flow into each other, not simply attach to that point in space. Also, particularly when modeling heads, consider the different possible approaches to modeling. Some people draw the profile with a spline and extrude to one side, using those extruded patches to form the face, then copy/flip/attach to complete it. Others, like your approach, outline the eye opening and extrude out from there. These tactics work well together, and they often create models with splines that flow well. This way, you use hooks minimally. I suggest you remove that hook beneath the eye and complete the concentric ring. Some helpful hotkeys, in case you don't know them yet: Hold down different numbers (the ones above the keyboard, not the 10-key pad) while moving a CP with the mouse to constrain the motion of the CP. 1 = X axis, 2 = Y axis, 3 = Z axis, 4 = along selected spline, 6 = along the normal. (The normal is the direction perpendicular to the two splines that define the CP.) Last, there are plenty of good tutorials on building heads on the ARM ( http://www.lowrestv.com/arm ). Best of luck!

Thanks, chaps. Zack, I decided to keep a shade of blue for the color scheme. In the end I want a number of these characters, each with their own outfit/hair/hats/colors. But it was good to experiment with it. And ja, I need to do something with his surface. I tried to make each eye with four regions - brow, cheek, upper lid, lower lid. Each spline in each region is controlled by an individual up/down slider taken from a master squash pose. Apart from some odd creases, it seems to work. In the very beginning I lathed him, Modernhorse. Then I did the "draw an outline and extrude" trick for the eyes and made the mouth spline to spline. I'm really learning a lot about modeling in the process, so his mesh is (to me) a mess.

Yow! Very nice. Give us a wireframe?

Hey there, good forum. While I still have a week or two of unemployment (and only that -- knock on wood) I've been burning my free-time on 3D, the way free time should be spent. Here's my newest character, the Belly Bot, with a completely redone face. I had to eliminate the pac-man mouth, sadly. I was very fond of it, but it wasn't capable of the expressions I wanted out of this guy. I mean, he's a face on legs -- his facial expressions matter. I was going for something noir-ish here, and I think it works well. Please give feedback. Belly, New Face New Face WF --Ross

Great start. I love the tree. Be careful choosing a backdrop, though -- it would be really easy to make a backdrop that looks like a reverse projection. I gather that the one you have posted is much lower resolution than what you would end up with. Keep us posted.

This does look good. Don't forget little details like the rings and all that. Rodney, if you could elaborate on using A:M for 2D, I'm all ears... Not to say I don't believe you, but I haven't tried yet, and I am interested in how others do it.

That's a very cool flower you've made, mtpeak2. I doubt I'm the only one who would like to see the files for it -- this technique would be good to know!

The black really works, eh? That surprises me, I admit. I am going for a color scheme (obviously), so maybe we can compromise with a darker blue? I'll post that and some other stuff later in the WIP section, since this little item is out of the showcase for now.

Good point about 2D faces. I think you're on to something with that. The jacket looks totally fine to me. Though I think you could suck in her belly a bit, just below the belt. imho.

Antony, something tells me you're a big Final Fantasy Tactics fan. The models look really nice. Are they animate-able? Some poses would be nice to see!

Very nice arm. You might want to play with the time line handles for the opening and closing claw motions. A snappy motion of the claw may be very visually appealing. I would add a little motor case or some cables, just to hint at the mechanical nature of the arm. It looks fine now, but a little more detail to break up the symmetry may help. You can make anything into a character, if it has enough personality. Keep it up!

Sharky, I am working on the same problem myself. There are a few tutorials in the ARM ( www.lowrestv.com/arm ), sponsored by everyone's favorite Vernon Z.

Patch count looks great, man. I get the feeling the face and head will be your hard areas. It takes a clever, clever modeler to make a good-looking _and_ expressive low-poly face. I cite the many crappy real-time faces that appear in video games. You know, more than a few Hashers would be enthused to pitch in on a project like this.

A little spline-heavy -- but I shouldn't be talkin'. You clearly know your stuff. Looking forward to more.

Hey there, gang. I've been out of town for three weeks (brief school-sponsored trip in Munich!), so's I haven't been keeping track of the forums. Thanks for the posts. Per your request, Zack, the same guy with black pupils: Black Pupils And here are two more renders I made for kicks: Which Hat? Mystery! I have to completely re-do his rig. The rig he had before was one I fashioned myself, and it worked well -- that is, until I tried to get real results out of it. I went through the steps and installed the 2001 rig, and all the magic works so far. Got to work out some problems, such as the necklessness, and remake all his poses (for other reasons). More later!

Cool sort of picture, but I think I'm missing the story. Is the robot happy because the bear can't see him, or because he's getting a free ride? Or is it some dark, malevolent purpose I haven't accounted for?

The "Democrats killed Jesus" bit was a little gratuitous. That's all I have to say.