Paul Forwood

Well done Rich and Tom! She has turned out really well. Only thing that I can see that might need attention is the weighting in the hands. Otherwise right up there with the rest of Rich's modelling. Did you use simcloth on that skirt, Rich? Looking forward to seeing her go public.

PWS=Project Work Space. The window that displays the hierarchy.

Oops! Sorry. What I meant to say is that the finger joints are probably just weighted and don't require intermediate bones anymore. I didn't mean to imply that the rest of the model is not weighted. I am still pretty new to weighting but I love it. It gives so much more control over the way that the skin and muscle move in response to a bone's motion. The interface could be better thought out, in my opinion. At the moment there is too much clicking and you have to open and close the interface for each selection. It would be nice if you could just go into weighting mode and work through all the CPs.

My guess is that David is just using weighting on the finger joints. Weighting allows you to achieve much the same effect without the need for intermediate bones. You must try it, Zaryin! It is easy to apply and makes a huge difference to the quality of an animated model.

Excellent progress going on here, Satyajit!

As BVH files produce keyframes on every frame, and because any slight deviations in the marker detection would result in jittery motion, I think it will always be better to add eye motion and blinks after importing the motion data into A:M. Having said that I would be interested in seeing what results Zign Track produced. I am fortunate enough to have been chosen as one of the testers for Luuk's motion tracker and, although I have had a few initial problems with beta 1, I am confident that I can achieve good results with better video and better facial markers. I look forward to giving beta 2 a thourough workout later today and will post my results when I have something to show. Zign Track looks like it will be an excellent tool for speeding up facial animation and great for other tracking tasks too. Luuk seems to have a good grip on the subject and the application already has a professional and intuitive feel to it.

Bendytoons.

Yes. That is looking very good, Luuk!

Lookin' good! When you do "copy-flip-attach" always make sure that your geometry is centred around 0,0,0.

Cool character and nice modelling!

If you just outline one side of the head, leaving out the ear, and then select one CP and press "L" to lathe an object you should have a good starting point. You will still need to break some of the splinage and stitch in the detail.

Terrific stuff, Darklimit! Makes me want to request a Flash exporter though. I wonder how HAMR is coming on? I look forward to seeing any of this animated. Brilliant!

Exceptionally good! If the voice work is given this same attention to detail you should be set to produce one of the best things to come out of A:M. First class work, Sat and Nep!

Eric, please excuse me scaling down your image to provide a compact example of what is being discussed. I was just wondering if this image is a composite because there is a big blue-green tank of water filling much of the scene but not a single pixel of blue or green is reflected in the liquid on the floor. But your images at the top of this thread answer that question.

Nice work, Eric!

I believe that you can select a spline in model mode, give it a group name and then use it as a path in a choreography. Failing that you can select the spline that you want to use as a path, hide everything else, go to your choreography and trace the spline with a new path. Then you can constrain your object to that path. Your work is very inspiring, Kelley. Keep it up.

How many passes are you using? Muh-hair especially improves with 5+ passes.

We've probably both got more than enough to do without getting into yet another project. Still, it would be fun to do. Do you still have all your movie files up on the web?

Good test, John. What would be cool would be to extend your music into a complete piece, of about 30 seconds to a minute, and then build on that. Sort your sequences into groups that share the same beat and then start laying down these sequences in patterns that tie to the music. Personally I would just use the sequences that don't have any characters in them. Use animated layers and fades and add effects if you want. Do all of this in your video editor of choice or maybe it would be a good test for A:M's NLE. When you have the full pastiche use it as a funky background for some character animation. I want to see it on my desk by 9 o'clock tomorrow morning! I enjoyed looking at your clips on YouTube. You have some really interesting effects in there.

This sounds like great fun, Vern. I love those characatures caricatures and look forward to seeing the models. Good luck with it all. ----------------------- Meanwhile, on the other side of town, a figure huddles in the shadows. It is too dark to make out his identity. Only a subtle flash of colour, a zig-zag pattern across his chest, can be discerned at times as the figure sways back and forth shaking. A stifled cry can be heard but it is not possible to tell what is causing this pain or indeed if it is pain at all...

Good start, John, but these really need some music. Longer would be cool.

Skinny Scarecrow was designed by Yves Poissant. I just modelled him. Thanks, Dagooos.

Thanks, everyone! I must organise my clips better so that I can plan a proper showreel. There is so much stuff on my hard drive that has never seen the light of day. Maybe by the next revision I will be better prepared. John, I wish that you would edit all of your tinkerings together into a visual extravaganza! That was started as a response to a newcomer to these forums back in June or July who wanted to know how to go about modelling this character. I got a bit carried away and the model came together very quickly but, like most of my models, he is still unfinished. Thanks, Lee.

Check it out HERE if you like.

If you create a sequence of targa images and name them with sequential names, such as frame000, frame001, frame002, etc, you could then import them to A:M as an animation sequence and export as a movie.