Paul Forwood

Very good! The texture on his left hand seems to be out of line but, hey, I've never met one of these aliens before so what do I know.

Click on the segment and hit "K" to break the spline, as Matt said. If it doesn't break you can add another CP in the centre of the segment, by selecting the segment and hitting "Y", and then try breaking the spline at that junction. Sometimes you may need to add two CPs before the segment will break. If you are wanting to break a model into seperate parts it is probably best to copy/paste the parts and then go back and break, and delete, the splines that you don't need.

Looking terrific!

Stunning modelling, Roger! Regarding the polarity issue with bump/displacement maps, you can copy your decal and then apply it to the other side of the model, from the same view, and then change the bump/displacement property to a negative value, enabling you to use one map instead of two.

I prefer the first because the expression is emphasized.

Looks like fun! Looking forward to seeing how it all comes out.

"Very well done!", said the fat controller. Time to tell the tale of when the bridge surveyor made an error in his calculations and all the little trains helped to build a bridge across the North Sea to Norway, where they encountered adventures with ships and aircraft before arriving at the splendour of Nidaros Cathedral.

Happy birthday, Gene. Hope you have a good one. I can't believe that all of those people listed in today's birthday list really have a birthday on the 1st of January.

Happy birthday, Dennis. I hope that your animation projects continue throughout 2011.

Nice work, Sebastian! She's lovely! What rig are you using?

The grill on the truck looks like moire patterns. There's not much you can do about that at this resolution but maybe you could try a painted grill when the truck is at this distance from the camera, it might help. The flickering edge along the top of the cab might be caused by the shadow of the train. Increasing the resolution and the number of passes might help. Just ideas. I hope you find a solution. Great progress. I love the look. Like 1950s children's book illustrations. Keep pushing. I'm sure you'll get there.

Use the Render Lock Mode and drag a rectangle around the area to render while holding down the right mouse button.

Merry Christmas, John. Keep tinkering.

Thank you, Sabino. I continue to work on these guys while they get some training: FG_A00c.mov PB_StandLeap_A00.mov Lots of weighting to do and no face rigs yet.

Create two nulls and make them children of your character's model bone. Name one "tripod" and the other"target". Constrain the camera to translate to the tripod and to aim at the target. Position the nulls to frame the subject as you wish. Be sure that the "Aim at" constraint is below the "Translate to" constraint in the heirarchy. Tap the spacebar to update the screen and test by. Ask for more help if you have any problems.

This is the start of the real hero, based on the previous model: FG_A00.mov

Thanks, guys! I haven't sorted out his costume yet but I am very, very happy to discover that TSM2 is working in A:M16 Beta 5! This is roughly the concept that I am working to but everything is subject to change: And this is a low res, single pass before I start redoing the maps: Mapped_A05d_1pass_.mov

Excellent!

I love the vibrant colours and the dynamic motion is sweet too.

Ha! Nice one, Gene. Does that chair have "Director" written on the back?

Thanks, people! I'm going to get on with modelling today and will be working out some of the details for his costume. This was a quick test of bump map strength in A:M 16, applied to the front of his waistcoat only. It looks too much like a smoking jacket, so I won't be using this, but I am happy to see that bumpmaps are working very well in A:M16 Beta5. Mapped_A04k.mov

Well done, Gerry!

After Effects is a great app but very expensive indeed. I'm not sure exactly what you are looking for but if it is simply a video editor in which you can lay out your sequences, add sound, transitions, etc then you should take a look at the very affordable AVS Suite of programs. You get alot for your money.Video editor, converter, audio software, DVD authoring, screen capture software and much, much more . $59 for the unlimited version if you order before Jan 11th. It isn't After Effects but it does give you some basic tools that are well worth the price, especially if you don't have a video editor already. The video converter is the only one that I have found which will convert video successfully for my mpeg 4 player. Try before you buy: http://www.avs4you.com/Register.aspx

Terrific character, Nancy.

Thanks, Robert. That is worth trying but I would like to avoid compositing if possible. This was my last effort: Mapped_A04i.mov