JTalbotski

Jeff, The sternum is the breastbone, the center bone that the ribs attach to in front. The stomache muscles that attach to it could meet the sternum a bit higher. Not a big problem. The hips are very clean and well modelled! Jim

Jeff, It looks like a very good start! Nice job. The main thing that I would change is the bottom of the sternum seems to be too low in the front and her chest cavity (not including the breasts) is sunken in pretty far. Try tweaking the center spline from the side, while hiding all the rest, to get a good idea of the shape. Keep us updated, Jim

It sounds like an interesting concept. I'm curious how the story goes. Keep posting updates. The pants look good! Jim

Oh my! That is effective...and hilarious! Nice work David. I hope this thread stays active. I want to see how this progresses. Thanks for sharing, Jim

I'm always interested in seeing wireframes! This looks very good. Nice clean mesh. Congrats! Jim

You've got some nice poses, but they flow kind of robotically and too quickly. There could be some pauses to show certain poses better which would clarify his emotions better also. I don't really animate, so take all this with a grain of salt, Jim

That's fun! Nice idea. They look at little stoned, though. Or just very tired. Maybe that's part of their image? Thanks for sharing your work, Jim

That doesn't look like too many 5 point patches and hooks to me. I use around that many for most of my characters. It looks like you probably have some more around the nostril area as my models usually do also. As long as you're keeping the models in A:M, hooks and 5 point patches are fine. Nice model, too! Jim

Thanks, John. I should and now I am looking all this up in the Tech. Ref. book. Here's a render of the image based hair. It looks a LOT like pigeon feathers, which is cool, but not what I wanted. luckbat, if I gave him a goatee, he'd look just like my old boss. But I'm jusy playing around with the hair now. Pretty soon I'll have to start making some new characters. Then I'll go crazy with the hair! Thanks, Jim

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. David, My wife would probably have the same reaction as yours! Kevin, Here's Nigel with his new hair. I gave him a part on the side, but it's basically the same style as before. Only it looks better! Colin, Thanks for the info and suggestions. I tried making the hair with an image as the hair particle, but so far it looks too much like claymation hair. I think I may have to play with it some more. BTW, what does "bow" do as one of the hair properties? Thanks for looking, Jim

A different hairstyle...frizzies! Yes, I'm having fun... Jim

Thanks for the feedback, Yves! Jim

Here's the raytrace render. Does it have the same ambience look as the z-buffer render? Jim

Yves, There is another control to each hair emitter named "brightness". It seems to always be set at 100%, at least each time I open the project it is. What does brightness do? For the images I posted here, I increased the diffuse falloff to 100, the default seemed to be 0. Increasing it to150 makes all the hair almost black, even in the lit areas. I'll try rendering with raytraced shadows to compare, but that will take a while to render. Thanks, Jim

Thanks! When I styled the hair, I used the brush with the realtime density of the hair system set to about 20%. Then I'd turn up the realtime density to about 50% to check it. Then I would turn down the realtime density to 0% to grab individual hair guides and tweak them into place. No wig, the hair material is applied to her head. Here's another model with hair. The hairline still needs work. Jim

Kevin, Thanks! It took a while to move the guide hairs around, mainly because I'm getting used to the hair grooming features. I'm getting a better idea of when to use the FK hair cursor as opposed to the standard cursor. I use the brush first to get the main shape of things and then adjust smaller areas with the 2 cursors. Jim

Kevin, That's a great likeness to the "Rudolph" Santa! The beard looks great, too. The hat and suit fur seems a little dark and too blue. The arms seem pretty long compared to his legs. They would reach the ground if hanging by his sides. Nice stuff! Jim

Thanks, Yves. I checked and found the ambience for the hair material was not touched, but I had set the radiance to 100%, for some reason that I can't remember now. What does the radiance setting do anyway? Is it similar to ambience? Thanks, Jim

I just save and close the project and open it again. The hair in the chor will be updated then. Jim

Is it possibly the choreography's background color showing through or being reflected? Jim

Nice mood in the room. I like the first on the best. It's good to be able to crit your own work. And working in a rushed manner doesn't allow you to do your best. But your characters look good and with the fixes you spotted will only get better. Thanks for sharing your progress. Jim

Thanks for the comments. John, to get the hairline, I kept the color decal on her head that represented the original slicked back hair. It gives a nice transition from the model to the particle hair. I also used the alpha channel of that image as a separate image to control the length of the hair. Whatever is black in the hair length decal allows no hair and whatever is white in the decal has full hair length. And yes, I am using z-buffered shadows, which I'm starting to like a lot more, despite the lights-up-the-nostrils look. Jim

Hi all, Here's a WIP of a hair style on Lady Goodbody using the v.11 hair system. I call this one "the Miss America look". The renders are pretty speedy if you use lights with z-buffered shadows. And the hair looks better with those lights, too. Thanks Hash guys, especially Randy and Ken for bringing the Mac version along so far, and for the great hair system. Jim

Hey David, Those are great characters! I can't wait to see what you do with them. They should be a lot of fun when you get them moving, too. I envision a lot of squash and stretch and classic cartoon style animation. Thanks for showing your stuff, Jim

SUPER-cool! Looks really great! Is there a toon line on him or is that done in post? Jim