Paul Forwood

Yeah. I take back any nit-picking. This piece is just great!

Bravo! Beautifully done, Jaff. It all looks very good. Models, staging, animating, lighting. The only, very small, nitpic I have is that I would have prefered to see him emphasize the words, "nitwits" and "conducted". Also, if you can fix the texture on the shirt sleeves it will help lift the, otherwise excellent, presentation. One more very small point is the texture on the back wall. It looks as if it has been stretched along the X-axis slightly, but this may just be that the texture map needs some tweaking in PS to get it to tile seamlessly. OUTSTANDING! Some of the best A:M work that I have seen in a long time. Good luck with the voting.

When I first viewed this short I was going to remark on the enormous amount of penetration going on, but as it is all hair, and I understand the complexities of avoiding it, I said nothing. If you step through the frames though you will find plenty of examples of hair penetrating meshes. The brain seems to overlook/forgive these abnormalities when hair is in transition. That sequence, where Santa and the Rabbit are struggling to be first through the door is terrific!

Ha ha! I enjoyed that.

Soulcage do it again! Excellent! If I may just make one tiny little, probably unimportant, criticism... In the closeup of Santa, when he does a double-take of the Christmas list, his body remains static and this takes some of the life out of this shot, in my opinion. Just a little reaction in the shoulders, or a slight turn of the upper body, would have added more emphasis to his shock and surprise I think. You could also have just cut to an extreme close-up of his face when he reacts. Everything else is 1st class, as always. Very well done!

Weight, balance, anticipation and exaggeration.

Nice work, Mark! You've put some very useful pose sliders in there too. I was wondering about the hips null and the hips controller. Is there a unique function that the hips contoller has which the hips null doesn't? The Hips Null seems to make the Hips Controller redundant, or am I missing something? I never liked the 2001 rig but the 2008 rig is much better. Well done!

Very cool, Stian! I would like to see more weight diplayed every time one of his feet lands I changed my mind. I think what it needs is more anticipation before he throws the hammer, (more time and more backward stretch), and have him concentrating on where he is aiming, instead of looking at the camera. (Of course these are just my opinions and I realise that it is probably too late now anyway). Very cool just the same. Well done

Nice work, Stian, and congratulation for landing the job at Atmel! Lots of rigging fun! ;-)

This sounds like a general update issue. Try forcing the window to update, after you move your model, by tapping the spacebar.

Even the simplest of models are capable of transforming into new characters: I didn't bother to get all the weighting correct and the animation sucks but you should get the principal behind it and see the potential for speeding up the modelling of your characters. This is useful for creating similar models, and for getting you part of the way there with the occassional new model

I only use my own models for my own animations but I do create sets of different characters from the same mesh.

Post effects is just like adding a layer of distortion or dust and scratches or... there are a whole bunch of effects to try. Just make a 4 second test movie and try some of them out.

Just beautiful, Eric! Are you going to be rigging the rigging? I had to ask.

One more Big WOW coming up! One little thing that bothers me slightly is the wood grain on the vanity units. Normally the drawer fronts would have the grain running horizontally and the the grain on the framework would run in the direction of the longest span. It is a matter of economy and strength mostly but also takes into account the tendency of wood to warp. Like I said, it is a minor point at the moment. I love the glass wall and the radiosity! So here is that wow: WOW! Oh! One more thing bothers me. Your name. Noober? I don't think so. Well done, Shane!

You're still a class act, Tai Shan. You must finish this one day.

Wow! A big applause from me, Eric. I love that model!

Uhm. Yes. I know that. This was just a super quick way of doing a more interesting turntable view of this village but also very good for testing camera angles while taking another look at the hare in motion. Not meant for any production. I would have to have at least two actions to make a movie.

Nice example, John! I finally worked out the problems that I was having by turning off all the lights, and shadows, and setting the subject matter to 100% ambience. Not quite the effect that I was after but... it's not needed now anyway.

Try constructing a 100% reflective cylinder and then experiment with different arrangements of flat mirrors in the centre. Add some coloured particles and some rotation. Maybe try using Newton Physics with small coloured beads. You could also try fluids for a bit more fun. Just add a light to one end of the cylinder and a camera to the other. Oh. Post some results please. ------------- Edit: Better to use a flat sided cylinder rather than a round one. Edit: Hmmm. I just tried that and it didn't work.

Thanks, guys. Yes, silly and simple. Just playing. Rodney, I have been playing around with the idea of making this rabbit interactive, through Flash or some mobile game engine, but I think the coding part of my brain has rusted up. I'm happy that you made that connection though.

Just threw a bunch of old, half finished models into a choreography and added some paths. All very rough and simple. Just a run cycle on a path. No bending into corners, no interesting antics, no nothin'... just a run cycle for the moment. Oh. It's only 320 x 240 and all hair/grass/foliage was turned off to get a fairly quick test render with just one pass.

Did you perhaps post the wrong movie, Al? As Eric said, that one only turns a few degrees. Oh, I voted for your excellent model. (Just so you know that you did get at least one vote.) It was a tough call though.

You should read the notice on the Anzovin website to see that they will not be able to support A:M related products any more. They are a small team and I imagine that their other products and projects already stretch them to the limit so it is not really fair to start bombing them with requests to continue supporting a product that doesn't earn them the cost of the maintenance. Anzovin Studios Just be grateful for Raf's generosity and his excellent rigging skills.

I am happy to say that Raf Anzovin has confirmed Robert's announcement. Not that I distrusted your words, Robert, but I didn't recognise the name on the quoted email and didn't want to see TSM2 being handed out freely until we had word from the man himself.