martin

Andy, you've always been one of the best.

Wow, that's a really well done, storytelling film. Good direction and sound.

Wow. I really like how clever that format is. It's almost impossible to get people to watch something for long on the Internet but this format makes me want to see what the later frames are going to do, then the page turns and I want to wait for it to finish too. Do another one.

I loved Speed Racer. I was the president of our local Speed Racer club, which I set up at my grandma's house. My brother, Marshall, was in the club, but he wasn't too excited about it. That Mach 5 brings back old memories. Keep it going.

Wow, Tom, you're really catching on to this stuff. Keep it up. Take this "Tom" character all the way to completion.

Raf, have I mentioned lately how great your directing and animating skills are?

Well, Vern, it's now my backdrop. (Mike Sanderson had backdrop honors for a long time with his "comic page" Art Contest winning entry). Thanks for supplying the image.

Damn, Mr. Brewer. Put those on A:M Stills so that a fast server can deliver your genius throughout the world. I bet those pictures will be a big hit in Japan.

My wife wanted to know what I was laughing at, so I showed her, and now she's laughing. Great job, and good production value.

Hash Inc. has a motion capture rig, a Polhemus 16-sensor. We haven't turned it on in years.

John, You do such, er, interesting stuff... Keep it up. Martin Hash

On my LAPTOP (flat LCD), the image on the right appears correct (the hair in the image on the left is mostly in silhouette).

Hey Peter; Those clouds look great. Your little animation clips really whet my appetite too. How close do you think you are to being done?

OMG, you guys are gods! I felt cold watching that, and warm-n-fuzzy inside.

That there sure looks like poster material. I don't know if you intend the final image to be the same camera framing, but the one you have is striking. Render that baby out big and send a copy to Hash. I hope she'll be entered in the "Hero" contest. As for all the hair work-arounds I'm reading here. What are you talking about: hair has pretty good collision detection. A couple simple examples of it not working like you expect should be submitted to A:M Reports so we can look at it.

Wow, Julian; That star sphere is pretty cool. Thanks for making it available to the whole community. Martin Hash

Noah; Those are stunning images: good modeling, good lighting, great sex appeal. OMG, really great sex appeal... Where's my wife? Martin Hash

The "Alex Ross Superman" Jim Talbotski built (available on the CD) is from "Kingdom Come", my favorite Alex Ross book of all time (I also own an original page from Kingdom Come). Your model is excellent (and from a different Superman). It will be great. Martin Hash

That's a TON of work. You should be proud. Martin Hash

I like the lines. Toon lines are familiar - you don't have to "get used to them". A semi-flat rendered image without toon lines is distinctive because it is different. I have an analogy: let's say you have a first impression 10 minute meeting with Steve Jobs. You can come dressed in blue jeans wearing a Timex watch so that Steve spends the first 5 minutes deciding whether you're a smart fashion rebel or you're just oblivious to what other people think, or you can wear the suit and Rolex and get Steve's attention for the full 10 minutes (I know, I know, I'd wear the jeans too - but it's an analogy, man).

I LOVE THAT CHARACTER! My wife, Gwynne, and I laugh everytime we watch either of those two episodes. I show them to my friends. Great stuff! Martin Hash

Hey! Hey! Hey! I love OmOmCAoTKT (One man, One machine, Creating Animation on Their Kitchen Table). Good job! Martin Hash

Wow!

Rich; That's a great rig! As an aside: Noel once spent some time trying to get the "motion capture" plug-in to convert Actions created for one rig to work on another. There have been a couple of new rigs lately that make me want to resurrect that project. Keep up the good work. Sincerely, Martin Hash

However, it does produce blurred images - that's why it isn't always on. In the case of animation, where motion blur is desirable, the directional nature of this blurring is positive, but static elements will be blurred. Almost all post-processing is image blurring: bloom, film-grain, depth-of-field, lens flares, motion blur, HDRI, etc., etc., etc. People like blur, that's the reason there's so much interest in separating out the render elements (diffuse, specular, mirrors, etc.) - so they can be degraded to varying degrees before recompositing. That's the art. Martin Hash