Dwayne

Hi Nancy Those are great characters, I also liked the animation you did a few posts back of the Lion. Great work!

The misty look is really blurring ( defocus ) in spots or different areas on the image. The idea being that you have 'say 5 spots' where you want to blur the image. So the blurring is just in areas of the image instead of blurring the whole image. You can do that through actions in PS, So that you can do the same action for all the images in that shot. I think there are some plugins like soft focus , or blur's that give you that look though you have to select, where you want the blurring to occur. It's like looking at your scene through a wet window, where some areas are wet and some are dry. The great thing about this is they are post rendered. No real render times, just run them through your paint program or Video editor. I will try the h264 compression, and see how that works. I didn't see ( h264 ) format in Vegas. I tried h263 but I think I should be able to do better.

Just an update to the opening scene. I was trying to get a better quality, but keep the meg count low. I only have 20 meg on this site. This one is rendered in a mpg4, format. It's about 3.3 meg. (The original is 1080X720X24 fps. I am using Sony Vegas) Any suggestions for getting the best best quality, and the lowest file size, would be welcome. http://dwaynejensen.shawwebspace.ca/videos/

Thanks Jason

My feeling is that it is always good to have the viewer questioning "why" or "what" from the beginning, and even in the middle. It's a great way to get 'em hooked, and keep 'em hooked throughout the entire piece if they are always wondering "what happens next" or "why". They want to know the answer, so they will keep watching. Don't answer the questions too soon. It will work as long as the questions eventually get resolved, revealed, or are left for the viewer to easily interpret/guess (and feel smug). My comments in my previous post let you know the questions that I as a viewer was wondering as I watched this. My comments above were after watching 1 time, ie a first impression. After thinking about it now, and replaying it (a couple of times last night, would have to rewatch again) - I am guessing it is the same character, and that he is running out of his (someone's?) house? palace? to greet or wave goodbye to the canoers. At this point it is not obvious why I need to know about the house, other than it looks grand, large (adding more confusion about which culture had grand houses?) So, if in your piece, it becomes obvious later on as to what that room was and how it's related to the landscape, culture, story (and I expect it will), and it becomes obvious that the characters are the same (or not), then I wouldn't worry about it at this stage. You can always add a bridge scene later if it still turns out to need it. Or perhaps have a slower dissolve between the scenes (rather than abrupt cut) to connect them. When it comes to backgrounds I do very realistic to painted backgrounds to this style with AM. ( this style can only be done in AM, they do not work in other 3d apps). They just flow out. But the animation part takes, discipline, and patience. anyway I'm working on that. The houses are called 'Long House" and sometimes many families lived in one of these structures. A fire was in the middle of the house and the people lived around the edges of them. The out sides were painted and carved to show their family crest. For example , the eagle cland, or bear, or killer whale , for example. Anyway , I am reworking this opening scene.

Hi Nancy Yes this is about the north west coast natives. I have seen pictures from China that have mountains that do look like the ones I did. Plus the water color sort of look. This is exactly the kind of comments I encourage. About the animation itself. I was wondering if the continuity was a problem with opening door and the final position of him waving. I did do an in-between for this but left it out. What this tells me, is not to cut corners or get lazy. Thanks

Thanks spleen

OK , that's a good idea. I guess you mean a volume light, that would have 'smokey' look with the light rays, coming out from the door. That gives me an idea of 'playing' with this fog a little, more. And render it in a higher res. to get a better effect. Thanks robcat,

I did a opening sequence, with a little sound. Does this look interesting? This is just where he ( don't have a name yet) finds out he has been left behind, and decides to head out on his own in then fog. And of course gets lost and separated from his tribe. He has to survive on his own. http://dwaynejensen.shawwebspace.ca/videos/

Really nice modeling Will. I have checked out your site many times, and your drawing and execution of the models you build are excellent.

Thanks Jakerupert. Also for the comment on my site. Yes I'm working on the animation, I hope you guys are tough on me, for that. Because thats where I think I will need the suggestions. Anyway Thanks Jake

Thanks Rodney

I'm just posting the camera shots, I really kind of liked the the canoe hunting party one. I have one side of the paddlers animated, just have to do the other side and the water. http://dwaynejensen.shawwebspace.ca/

Great stuff, Dwayne! Thank you 'itsjustme'.

I added some new images to my website. http://dwaynejensen.shawwebspace.ca/