Tore

Any of you have experience with submitting to festivals? Some advice would be much appreciated! Is "Withoutabox" an option, or is it over the top for a small production like Trapez?

Hey, what great comments!! Almost blushing...well, I AM in fact blushing :-) Nothing is better than getting positive feedback from people who really know what they are talking about, and who's opinion matters to you! I certainly will indulge in pride! Regarding subtitles: Here in Denmark nearly every tv airing and theatrical release (that's not in Danish) are subtitled. So we are pretty used to them, and it gives the opportunity to experience the original acting (even if in a language we don't understand). In the case of Trapez it is of course a bit different, as the voice is a narrative and not acting per se. But even so: I do not speak english well enough to make a performance I would be satisfied with (not sounding like Schwarzenegger!), so I guess I'll stick with the subtitle compromise - for now anyhow. @Paul: I agree with your Kafka characteristic, but personally I kinda like that ambiguity: it's like life is itself - to me anyhow: so wonderfully free of meaning and answers, and at the same time ripe with suggestion. In the case of our poor trapeze artist though, I read the story as it is both the ring master and the artist who experience the first sorrow. The artist for the reasons you so precisely describe, and the ring master as he genuinely cares for the artist. Og så var det jo rigtig hyggeligt at få en hilsen på dansk også - helt ovre fra Menifee Valley :-) Rigtig mange tak for de pæne ord!!

Phew! In the middle of moving from one place to another (dust, cardboard boxes, mess and a sore back), I finally managed to finish "Trapez"! Watch here: http://artstax.dk/trapez.html A big thanks to all you guys for advice, encouraging words and interest in my tiny flick :-)

Still a lot of stability issues in 16rc1 - and rendering of volumetrics/fog/mist (which I use intensively) is problematic in several ways. I have reported most of these problems, as I've encountered them. But until the release of 16 is out I just stick to the very stable 15j, I guess.

Slowly, ever so slowly, my little film comes along. Most design decisions have been finalized by now I guess, and hopefully all the strange technical glitches have been ironed out. So now I've begun animating...one frame at a time. As a stop motion animator once said: It's like dancing ballet, just very, very, very slowly. Looking forward to A:M 16 in an usable version, so it will be possible to cut down final rendering times. In the meantime some more stills to look at :-)

In my experience: 1. Bump Maps are faster than additional geometry (think shoelaces)? Right (but only marginally, and they look ugly) 2. Displacement Maps are faster than additional geometry? Depends on detail required and render method used. 3. Smart Skin wrinkles in cloth render faster than "Cloth Simulation"? Right :-)

Explosions galore (some of them free): http://detonationfilms.com/Stock_Directory.html :-)

Great! Thanks for the link! Lot of good info in there. Unfortunately not a word about "mistiness" though...so I'm still 'mistified'...

Nope...do you know where to find that?

I used a volumetric mist object the other day, and came across a lot of settings that I haven't been able to find an explanation for anywhere. Not in the tech ref, nor here in the forum. Anyone got any idea what "mistiness" does? Or "sampling rate"? Or "Height" x 2 (not the one in transform)? Help would be much appreciated :-)

Beautiful images! Got a japanese watercolor feel to them! 3D and 2D elements blends seemlessly and works very well together! Looking forward to see more :-)

Haven't tried that - but it is still an error, that renders the use of volumetrics impossible...for my purposes anyway. And the 0% softness solution makes the volumetric look ugly and computerish. There are in general a lot of problems with the volumetric/fog/glow in both 15j and 16rc1, and I have posted error reports on some of them - not the streaks though. As you mention there is also strange things happening when using standard (transparent) background, which is the reason that I always enclose my scenes in a giant black sphere :-/

I see that you too get these black line artifacts in your volumetrics. Guess that this is rendered multipass in v. 16 rc1, which is where/when I get them. Maybe you should file an error report? Nice walk, by the way :-)

May I propose longer arms and shorter legs, to make him less teddy bear like. Found a photo of the danish designer Bojesen's wooden monkeys for inspiration :-)

No, it is exactly the same with or without dof I now have filed it as an error report, so we have to wait and see.

Made a quick render test to illustrate the glow problems...looks weird! The same scene rendered in vers 15 don't show the green colorings but on the other hand doesn't show any glow at all. If rendered with standard - no multipassing - renderer glow works ok, but other volumetrics related problems then arise.

Glow also has problems when rendered together with volumetrics or fog. I have just filed an error report on other problems with volumetrics http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...mp;#entry340916 so maybe there is a complex of issues revolving around smokelike rendering (volumetric/fog/glow). Unfortunately it seems that vers. 16 suffers from the same problems.

Well, that is a very precise description of my intention :-) All surfaces in Trapez is either 100 % handpainted by me or they are decaled with photographs of existing materials like plywood or paper and then given a hand painted touch-up. Even black and apparently smooth surfaces has been crosshatched with a "pencil". I make extensively use of Pixosaur 3D painter and TwistedBrush in conjunction with a Wacom tablet to make the process as intuitive and expressive as possible. Glad you like my little blog - have just put up a new post today.

Thanks for the words guys! Makes me really happy when just doing what I love, gets such nice response!

I have set up a blog showing production sketches and the progress of "Trapez". For those interested, it 'll be possible to subscribe to the blog. Visit here: http://trapez.posterous.com/

True, In the example with the camera it's not that big a deal, but if you want to animate all your characters (as I do) with a different interpolation method than the default for every bone and every control point, believe me it's a lot of tedious (and unnescessary) work!! :-/

Thanks for your answer, Holmes! I guess then, that I can conclude that there is no way to change the default interpolation method - i.e. the method set automatically by A:M without me having to set keyframes, select them and changing them. Well, maybe a feature to consider in coming versions of A:M? :-)

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No dialog...I think.

Glad you like :-) The software used: A:M 15.0J+, Pixosaur 3D Painter (handpainted textures), Twistedbrush (backdrops+some textures) and good ol´ Gimp. All the renderings are done 100% in A:M (one run / no compositing). I like to be able to manipulate the »photographic« quality of my renderings, and I am working more like if I was doing stop-motion than traditional 3D. A:M with its fast no-nonsense interface, and fast and excellent rendering, keeps the creative flow running. As I´m animating frame by frame, hardly never using interpolation, and with very little camera movement, I dont need complicated rigs or physics simulation, to »get in the way« of the animation process.