pdaley

Neato work. I do hope that you give photon mapping a try on this when it get's done. Or stage a vampire fight in it with whatever lighting you want. Those are the only two choices I see with this work. One thing you might look at (risking deletion now...) is Wings3D for your shapes that are purely polygonal. I don't use it much, but If I needed to knock out some pews, altars, and other boxy items, I might give it a try. Thanks for posting this. I enjoy seeing other artists work through their process.

My client's website This is as done as it's gonna get. Thanks to all that helped me get it finished. I ended up adding more sound effects, and an establishing shot, but since we were happy with the animation overall, we left that alone. You'll need Flash 7 to see the animation.

Great start. Feels too claustrophobic though. Moria went on and on until it got too dark to see. Also, I don't remember the floor being at all reflective. Fool with some turbulence in the volumetric light to break it up some. Also, it's gonna take a long time to render, so re-enable antialias, crank up the size a little and start the render before you go to bed. Keep posting your progress and thanks for the chance to see your work!

no kidding. You should lend that character to JohnL. Between the two of you, you'll have explored every last feature in AM before too long. Plus if you both used Busty LaRue (or whatever her name is) I know I'd get a lot more out of the experience. Good work and a neat effect.

I must be just sloppy when it comes to placing my bones and spheres is all. Thanks, John.

I see. That's what I've been doing, but for some reason I can't find the 'sweet spot' to place the bone's pivot so that they can go any direction and not let the whites of his eyes peep out.

Neato little test there! Maybe add some bullet ricochets or trails whizzing by and I'd say you're about done.

To get some better comments, we'll need more. A color that contrasts more with the background would be good. Is this just a freestyle face or are you using reference? A front view, side view and 3/4 view would tell us a lot about what we could suggest for you. Wireframes help too.

Hi John, Can I see a closeup of the wireframe around the eyes? I've been wanting to do some cartoony eyed characters, but haven't been happy with any of my eyelid attempts...

Thanks guys. These are some great comments, plus I had a reason to re-learn what 'laconic' means. I've gotten great comments here and the other places I put up the link. I 've got enough to make it final ( hopefully this weekend). I'll be sure to post a link to the final version! Thanks again! Having a community that will sit and think about your work and try to help you improve it is priceless to me.

Interesting interpretation, Peter. Like I mentioned in another forum, there is a missing 'boo' track that will help tell the story also. However, at the tomato part, the boos will not be much more rude muttering from the unseen crowd. Having him slightly notice the incoming tomato before it's visible would add something nice right there....

Rodney and Sam: Thanks for the comments! I'll take a look at incorporating Sam's comments tonight... The sound... I used the Qmusic audio codec and I think it sounds like crap. The clanking is probably a compression artifact. The only intentional clanking is at the end once the mariachi has been blasted offstage and falls into some unseen disaster. I do have a few more applause tracks to choose from though. Maybe I'll try switching them out. Any more comments would be appreciated.

Here's something I've been working on. I'm pretty close to being finished with it, but I thought I'd post it to see if you folks had any suggestions. Mariachi

Do you have story for him? If you do, then I would encourage you to start telling it with this guy and not get too worried about rounding him out into something perfect. It gets a lot more exciting when you start getting that story told...

Nice work, Ballz... I was hoping to see a lday with nice hips, but this is still good...

Rodney, I don't know what your response has been behind-the-scenes, but I would suggest actually seeking out some members of the community and flat out asking if they'd be willing to contribute on a given subject. Some folks are pretty well known within the community as being experts on one topic or another above all else. I know it's an imposition, but it can't do any harm to ask. They just might say yes!

That's cool John. How long have you been quoting Yoda for your signature? It's very fitting for you...

No kidding, Bill. Javier, for your own good, I'm afraid you're going to have to upgrade though. If you can do that without sprites, it's scary what you'll do WITH them.

Serg, Let's try pushing it a little more. Add another displacement texture, much smaller in scale and smaller in intensity. Animate this one basically the same way as you first one. Then, add another texture as a bump map, using a smaller scale than the others and with a high enough percentage that you can see it. Animate this one in its translation area moving up (the y direction). Move it just fast enough to keep it changing, but not so fast that it looks like it's going to boil. Confused yet?

ZachBG: Try this on for size: How's about a crate of beer on his little island with him and instead of having the sign just say 'free beer', have the word 'cheap' crossed out above the word 'free'.

Doug, If you're going for a kind of impressionist feel for your short overall, then I think he's pretty close to good to go. He doesn't look capable of being happy though. Is you short somber? That lighting and all in the first pic sort seems dreamy and dreary. (Is the worm from cgtalk a part of this story?)

compositing is tough. every shot has its own solution. If you are using minidv then I can recommend dvmatte from dvgarage.com. It is specifically designed to try and deal with artifacts created by minidv. They have final cut pro and after effects versions. It is a couple hundred dollars, but it's flexible and can pull great keys using the standard version of afterfx. I'm just telling you and anyone else who's interested, not to harshly criticize. Besides compositing, there were some technical things that could have used improvement, but I bet you already know EVERY single one of them. What I really liked about your flick was the pacing. I've seen all? yes, all Star Wars fan movies and one thing that many of them suffer from is very un-star wars like pacing. George L. loves to push the action-driven narrative to point that it is almost too fast, but that is not usually a characteristic of most fan-films. Most are some-how set to the fast paced 'dual of the fates' but drag like a funeral dirge. Not yours. I thought the pacing (once the action started) was great, fast paced and had a lot of good star warsy action. Even though it was physically impossible for Boba Fett to rocket away with instant velocity and like no acceleration, stuff like that and the quick cuts helped push the story at a real pleasing pace. Keep directing and editing. You have a good handle on action and I'd like to see more, if you have more in the tank...

Hi John, Get the perspective right on the sky and take that pic over to a non-A:M forum and see what folks think... especially from the pre-viz / arch field. Once you get a bunch of compliments, let 'em know "the truth"... Neato pic by the way!

The bump depth seems very uniform. Remember to start with a gray background and use black to depress a line, while using white to raise up the area around it. That will help to add some variation to the bumps. Save some different versions of the original so you can try to really push the map and then play with the percentage in A:M. The color map looks good, but again a little uniform. If you look at a wrinkly person for a while, you'll see that their skin is really just a collection of splotches of all shapes and sizes. You won't find a lot of newborn-fresh skin that only varies in tone slightly from one square inch to the next. Keep pushing!

I've sent off my request to join the yahoo group. I'll continue to post tantalizing tidbits here from time to time though...