JTalbotski

Hi Vern, No, you didn't scare anyone away, I...uh..I was out chopping wood..yeah, that's it...and tearing phonebooks in two and other macho stuff! (Actually I was birthday shopping for my wife.) I did recently team up (in a way) with Stephen Millingen and the Schlitzy animation he did so well. That was for a contest at "another" forum. Here is MY animation attempt for that contest: http://www.homepage.mac.com/talbotj/SCHLIT...-JTalbotski.mov I learned a lot doing this. Mainly that animating is hard AND fun! And like everything else I do, I never really feel like I finished it. Which I didn't in this case. Even my characters are unfinished in a lot of ways, like rigging and final touches to the constraints and smartskin. Another reason I don't animate them much. Thanks for your kind words. And the peculiar ones also. Jim

Oh no! You saw through my facade. I guess I was desperate for someone to help me. I feel better now. And to show my appreciation, here's a project with the lighting set up as I would do it for a character. Actually it's the set up for the Abe image. It's nothing fancy. Just 3 instances of the same bulb light. One used as a slightly warm main spot light, one a cool edge light and the other a dull warm fill light from below. You will need to move them around slightly according to which direction your model faces, how high his head is lifted, how dep his eyes are. You don't want to lose important features in the shadows. Jim SAMPLE_LIGHTING.prj

I know I'm quoting Rodney from a while ago, but...woohoo! I found a copy of my Abe Lincoln model. I wrongly thought I had never backed it up successfully. But here's a render I just did with some softening and color tweaking in Photoshop. I'm waiting for the Mac v 11 to start coming together (after the OSX v 10.5 is done, so it may be quite a while) before I redo the hair and beard. Right now they are just decaled geometry. Jim

Wow, it's alive!! Very cool, Shaun. It's an EXCELLENT model. I know this is only a motion test, but does this mean the caterpillar will be less of a character and more of a "real" caterpillar? Or will he be a character with a unique personality? Can you tell I want to know more about this short, how the story goes and how the characters interact? Definitely looking forward to seeing it all come together! Jim

Hey Jeff, He's really coming along! Nice modeling. He looks like he's quite the ladies' man. Jim

Thanks, Takahiro! I like that idea, thanks for posting the image. I will try to use this in the future. Ears sure are a funny body part, if you look at them long enough! Jim

Wow! Fantastic texturing work! Nice job. I think the only thing that I would change would be the composition. All that sky does nothing for the picture. Try cropping off most of the sky, unless it's area reserved for type or something. If the sky has to remain, I would put something else in to break that flat horizon line. Just my thoughts on how to make a really well done image a little better. Jim

Thanks guys! Sharky- here's a screen capture to show how the ears are attached. Bill Y.- Thanks, I agree about the specularity issues. I never seemed to be able to get the hair to show specularity when the hair is already white. Maybe I should have tried a gray instead. This guy has no porcelain, I thought any lumps and bumps that appeared might add more character. Vern- I usually just do them from my head, but I put the stylus up my nose to avoid hitting the wrong keys. I don't like using a mouse, especially up my nose. Most models I do are just characters that evolve as I model them, unless they are for something specific. like Schlitzy was for a contest. And Joe Williamson told me about the bump as diffuse trick. Jim

Hi Justin, Thanks! I think I posted something to the Animaster part of the forum about the tutorials. I can't imagine you'd need them, though. I also finally got them added to the ARM in the decalling section, although they are all listed in the one link. Okay, I found the original posts by clicking on my nickname and then clicking on "Find all posts by this member" that appears under the large nickname of my profile. It took a while to weed through all the results. Boy do I post a lot! http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=2315&hl= http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=2610&hl= Jim

Hi Rodney, I'm still around. I've just been busy with work so I haven't had as much time for the forum as I did before. But now that I finished the big crunch, I may be more visible (too visible probably). Maybe time to continue the texturing tutes? Thanks for asking! Jim

I don't see anything wrong with what you are doing. It looks very good to me. Eventually, you might want to simplify all the rings that come down onto the cheek area by using hooks. Nice job! Jim

Nice job, Jeff! You've got a good match to your sketch and he's a fun looking character. Keep showing updates. Jim

What did you use for the texture on the tree? I just used a group color and added some roughness to it. To keep the target patches from rendering, I just selected a spline of the target patches, hit "/" to select all connected, hit the period key to select the compliment, and copied that and pasted into a new model. I found that trying to select the target group and deleting it also deleted some of the tree itself, so copying it to a new file was safer. Jim

No, I deleted the target patches and added my own. Here's a capture of the target I created. It's just a lathed spline that makes a dome shape. Then I dragged random cp's around to add variation and get rid of any symetry. Then I ran the treeez plugin. Jim

And here's a render of the tree without any foliage. Jim

Got a render, yeah! Here's an attempt at a willow tree. Great plugin, Marcel! And thanks for porting it over, Randy! Jim

Hi Greg, You should download the project file that Marcel posted. It has the correct groups and group names already created that allows the plugin to work. As of right now, you can't just create the tree without the correct groups and names already in the model file. You can delete the target shapes and create new ones to create different looking trees. I got a nice looking tree with delicate looking end branches that I like. I will post a pic soon, but can't get hair to render with any version of A:M right now. Grrrrr. Jim

Very nice! The trees look great with your architectural model and Jane. Jim

I tried to use the treez plugin with the OSX beta, but the beta has some issues and none of the plugins will load into A:M. Otherwise I would have posted something. Jim

Great facial expressions and life in this character, Victor! He really comes of as being a child (or childlike) with the open mouth smile and the sad frown. Whatever rigging you are using seems to be working extremely well. Thanks for sharing! Jim

Nice job, Sean! Your character has really come along, especially now that he's moving. I'm looking forward to seeing him in a short! Jim

I get an error from Quicktime saying it's "not a file Quicktime understands". What codec are you using? Jim

Very nice! And fast work, too. How long did it take for that image to render? Jim

Here are my suggestions, use as you see fit. The direct profile view of the wolf seems too flat and lacking in interest if he's going to be seen clearly. If he's going to be a silohuette a flat profile view is fine. You need more contrast, right now the whole image is dark. Try to brighten the moon and darken the wolf, add some color to the sky to help things stand out. You're not trying to represent realism here, you're trying to tell a story. Use the tricks of Hollywood to tell it. Good lighting and color can tell a story by themselves. Put some edge lighting on the wolf and cliff. Compostionally it is good, but I would like to see more trees in the right upper corner to balance it a little more. Jim

Great job, Justin! That bug is evil, I tell ya, pure evil! It's amazing how you get the character to look like he's actually thinking, and we can tell what he's thinking. Jim