Ross Smith

Very professional renders you got there. All this hair business... if I didn't make so many bald characters. Heh. Great model from the neck up. Can we see the whole thing, or is that still under development? Keep us posted!

Very cool! For those curious ones among us, how'd you make it? Are they spriticles, or hair, or? Just curious. I saw a good tut on grass once that involved a hair emitter, but the results look different.

Nice job, Xtaz! I second the vote for an ottoman.

Re: the Fay walk cycle. I love the motion of the hair. It's very convincing. The hands speed up as the cycle rolls from the last frame to first, it looks like. Just needs a little tweaking. I'd like to see the dimensionality of the face. From this perspective, and due to the lighting and toon mode, the facial features appear flat. Can we have a close-up? How about a 360 degree fly-around? Really fabulous character. Please keep us posted.

Animus, Looking good! I like the way you moved around with the camera. It's so easy to forget about it in 3D, but with video it's impossible to ignore. Looks good. These are things I noticed that, were I in your chausseurs, I would fix: - The hand motions of the guitarist should reflect the music a bit more. Perhaps make some hand poses for different chords and switch between them at times. I would go for a little more energetic, perhaps even frenetic look with his hands. - The chick in the back has a microphone, but you can barely hear her sing. Only the second time through did I hear her voice track under the piano and guitar. I would either change her instrument, or if you can, maybe add lyrics or boost the volume. 'Course, lyrics involve lip sync, so it all depends on how much time you want to commit. - The lighting isn't bad at all, I like it a lot. But it doesn't seem completely stage-like, if you know what I mean. Maybe make the light a little harsher to increase the contrast with the darkness. I'm really not the best at lighting, though, so don't take me too seriously about that one. I love the close-up and fly-around of the piano player! Overall a great piece of work. Keep it up.

CAUGHT a black widow? ::shudder:: Man, I've never even seen one. I thought they were super-poisonous, deadly-style. Anyway, thanks for all the feedback, guys. I've reshaped the rump a bit so it isn't so flat, but the chor I animated this fellow in got messed up somehow... so I don't thinks I'll be changing this particular animation much. Still, it's good to know how to improve. Thanks, Randy! Means a lot from you. I would love to try new dynamic constraints, but I'm on v10.5. I intend to upgrade once I have the spare cash. Are CP weights in v11 all the rage I hear they are? I'm getting tired of smart-skinning and fan-boning everything.

Thanks for the responses, guys! I'm working on the mouth rig right now... it's a lot more complex than I had figured. But it'll get done eventually. I'll have more tests later. I'm glad that this is actually funny.

Great job, Parlo! I really like the new hand motions. "And slowly... but surely... they drew their plans against us!" Not much more to say -- anything I thought of, you fixed. Congrats!

This is a little short I made to test my new character's rig and (few) face poses. He will become much more elaborate in the future, with any hope. Video format is MPEG - 1. Wasting Time Audio and titles added in post. Thanks.

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I like the sudden drop a lot. I would revise the rapelling a bit, so the back legs are constrained to the thread and the butt is a bit more properly shaped. I might change the second drop to be a little less horizontal, though. I was going for nasty, talon-like legs. I'm glad that it came through, Ken. I tried turning up the motion blur, but it looked a bit ridiculous. I'm not sure how to set motion blur properly to make it blend between the motions, instead of rendering the intermediary frames and layering them onion-skin style. It looks bad with the motion blur turned up any more by that method. Pointers on a better way?

Aye, Parlo, the proxy tut is great! I'll start using it right away with my merman model, which is way too patch-heavy for real-time work right now. Thanks!

Who was it... Plato? Socrates? Someone did a thing with a cave. Is that inspiration, or great minds thinking alike? Sounds like a good idea, at any rate. Looking forward to more.

Ten minutes! Sounds ambitious. Ja, there's a definite improvement between the two posters. So far we've seen a lot of Clay. Are there any other characters in the short? Prop/backdrops? Just curious.

Thanks all! Ja, the butt is a bit flat. I was just told there's on rush to finish this project, so I'll revisit this sequence and fixt that, among other things. Greg, thanks a lot for the pointers. I was wondering what to do with the back legs. I'll work on the drop a bit, too.

Nice motion! It's not a scuttle or a crawl, or a gait -- forbid it should be a gait -- but something really very ant-like. His exoskeleton has a very slightly plastic look to it, but since we don't see ants on this scale (most often), there probably isn't a lot to do about that. If I had known one of my teachers was a 3D animator, I would have thought he was really cool. Heheh.

That seems reasonable to me. It's a visual sort of story, may as well use visual elements to tell it. I would play with the lighting a bit, to match the backdrop a little better. Apart from that, looking good!

Aye, the clip is a little jerky... I wanted to fix that, but somehow my chor got corrupted. Ah well. I still have the spider and action files saved. I might remake it. I understand, Parlo. I myself and terrified of bees for no good reason. The clip starts with a black widow dropping large into the frame and stretching open its legs quickly. After that it's pretty tame. The clip is, however, designed to have some shock value. It's nice to see you on the thread anyway! Seeing as your boogeyman character rocks the scariness house.

Thanks! Climbing back up, eh? Well, I admit that this guy is really starting to grow on me. Lots of potential, especially with the thread. I'll probably elaborate on the model a bit and play with it some more. But that's another animation.

Heya Rob. I was very recently dealing with oddly-shaped eyeballs myself. What's the problem you're having? Is it making the socket fit around the eyeball, or trying to make the eye an unusual shape? I can probably help with either. Check out my "Belly Bot" thread in the WIP section. Noel gave me some advice that really helped, and he included links to his site.

I filmed a theater performance called Die Schwarze Spinne (The Black Spider), and I decided to make a little opening sequence for it. This is the 3D part of that sequence -- I'll add in titles later. This really only took me about four hours in A:M... Considering it went from "idea" to "finished animation" in that time, I'm happy. Anyhow, feedback would be cool. Spider! Warning: not for arachnophobes.

Them's almost fightin' words. ;p It is indeed a fantastic model, John. The Superhero's face looks a little... yellow, I guess. It doesn't feel quite right. But maybe that's just me. Smashing!

Vielen Dank for sharing your mat! I was about to post in admiration, but now I can post in admiration _and_ gratitude. Anyway, it's very swank.

Update! Got the eyes working fine. Noel, your advice was great. Just had to scale a parent bone in relationship mode and the rest is taken care of. Who'd'a thunk? I've got the color scheme just about how I want it. I haven't rigged him, except a little for the eyes, and two eye poses (lower the upper eyelid and dialate the pupil). Comments welcome. Front Back Face 1 Face 2 Face, WF P.S. Yes, I know the resemblance to the M&M/Grimace/Killer Bean... I am charging forward regardless. Jeff Lew can consider himself flattered, if anything. He lacks hands, but that's the next project.

Lookin' good. Want to post a wireframe? I want to see how you did this torso.

Umm... dang. Color me impressed... The back of the neck looks a little too stair-step-like, but other than that, there's no reason I shouldn't be taking your advice instead.