Paul Forwood

Nice improvement, Heiner. Are you using procedural textures on the branches or decals? You might think about putting a bit of a halo on the moon. Just a thought. ;-)

Cool, Mike! I don't know if it's just the camera angle but it looks like he could express a little bit more of an effort when he flips off his hands. Something to show that his body carries weight. A slight bending of the arms and then a push over a couple of frames. Very nice though! -------------------------------------- Edit: I think Matt nailed it! The velocity thing. ;-) -------------------------------------- What is it that you don't like about the new QT? I haven't got QT Pro but the new player adds some nice features. The only thing that I don't like is that if you save your animation from from the new player, to add looping, it will force your target audience to upgrade to QT7 or they won't be able to view it. Anyway, are you going to put together a story for this guy?

Hi, Ross. Nice landscape you've got going on here! Regarding your bad hair day: 1) Apply your colour decals to your model 2) Add another image to your decal by right clicking on 'Images' and going via 'Add Image' to see a list of images that you have loaded into A:M. Use the same image that you used for the colour map. 3) Expand that images properties by clicking the little triangle. Change the 'type' of map to 'other'. This will generate a new property called 'Properties Driven' just below the 'type' property. 4) Right click on 'Properties Driven' and select 'Add property'. 5) Now you can expand 'Properties Driven' and select 'Diffuse Color' from the drop-down menu. If you haven't applied hair to your model you will not see any options in the drop-down menu so be sure to apply you hair first. If you have particles/hair turned on then you should see the results instantly. Good luck with the contest and your studies! ------------------------------------------------------ Oh, one more thing to remember! If you have set up a diffuse colour for your hair in the hair material's surface properties, (the material itself), you should set it back to 'not set' or it will over-ride your image driven diffuse colours. You can of course still use the other surface properties in the material.

Oh man, that is so good, John! Great character and great render!

Well done, Dimos and Stian! He looks ready for accidental adventures. ;-) Please keep us posted.

Yikes! I think this guy is going to win Crufts this year. He'll eat the competition! Ha, ha! I like it! Any chance of some jaw movement? Maybe some drool? Nice work, Cory!

Thats great, David! I'm glad you are using the big blue guy again. He is too full of character to leave sitting around on your hard drive. I didn't realise that the 10sec club was functioning again! They have very strict submission requirements don't they? Two questions: What do you use to output to the MPEG1 format required by the 10 sec club? Did you use AO for this animation? Too bad they didn't accept this animation, David. Next time, eh?

Arrrrr! They be pirates! That's what they arrrrr! Great! I'll keep watch from the other boat then. Every animation needs a good hook.

It's good to see you posting some new work in here, Frank! Looking forward to seeing where you take these characters. Is it going to be a parody of 'Beauty and the Beast'?

Keep on rockin', Jeff. You're getting great results!

Yes, GREAT improvements there, Jeff! Maybe too sweet for a warrior now. Maybe if you give her a bigger chin and ... Just kidding! Nice work!

Wow! Beautiful work, Noah!!! So, what is it going to be? A short? A game? Both?

Just a little tip: If something doesn't appear to be working always try saving your project and then opening it again. There are still some refresh glitches that need to be traced. I'm not saying that this is definately what is happening in your case but its just something to keep in mind when you find yourself scratching your head. And it only takes a couple of seconds. I hope you got it sorted.

She looks great, Jeff! I would agree with David about the neck. Perhaps make the trapezius muscles less steep and increase the girth of the neck where they meet. You might want to try making a couple of adjustments on a copy of your model. Try dragging the eyes and nose down slightly so that the eyebrows and the tops of the ears are about level with one another. This will also reduce the space between nose and mouth so that the mouth might need tweaking down slightly. Then see if scaling the head down, very slightly, helps. Her head looks a little heavy for her neck at the moment. Just suggestions of things you might want to try and not criticisms of your very nice model. Looking forward to more.

That poor rat!!! Quick! Turn on 'normals' so that you can see which direction they are facing, (or just use the hair as a guide). Select the patches facing inward and then press 'F' to flip them. The hair grows in the direction of the normal. Edit: Normals are toggled on/off via the blue and yellow icon or press Shift/1

It looks amazing! What caught my eye was the paw motion. This creature is walking like he's burnt his feet on something. At the moment he lifts his paws, moves them forward slightly, drops the toes fully and then moves the leg forward. How about modifying the walk slightly so that he claws his way forward. Emphasize the grasping the ground a bit more and let the toe stay on the ground until the leg is ready to pull it forward. Then curl the toes under as he makes the effort to propel the leg forward. But then you probably weren't posting this to get a crit on anything but the texturing so ... it looks great! :-)

Very nice effect! But how did you get it in the shadow on the ground? Is it the result of using AO along with your pencil textures?

Sorry! I should have checked the site more carefully. I'm not sure if you are refering to the images or something in the soundtrack. I haven't heard the audio so have no idea what they are saying. Links removed. I think I will just remove myself to a lerking position from now on. :-)

Excellent, Robert! You can really feel the effort and the weight.

Pretty darn amazing, Jody!

That's cool, Jake!

I agree that the story seems too harsh. The real world may be full of 'dog-eat-dog' where the biggest, meanest critters seem to come out on top but shouldn't the story carry some hope? I think that the audience will identify with the fairies more than the troll. Perhaps you have a twist that you are not showing us yet? At the moment, and I mean this with the greatest respect, it is just a visually beautiful, horror story about fishing bait. The fairies' magic could be used, through the fish, to provide a moral at the dinner table. Some kind of twist where the troll ends up 'on-the hook' or where he learns to respect creatures that are smaller than himself? Or the fairies are caught in the first place by being preoccupied with their own vanity. I don't know. It just seems a bit barbaric at the moment. To me it just seems to be saying that life is brutal but maybe you're not showing us the whole story. Or maybe I'm just being too soft. Whatever, it looks like it will be a beautiful animated short and will make an excellent show piece.

Lovely sketches, Will! Yes I think you should turn this into an animatic to start with. That way you will get a clearer picture of the timing and will probably want to fill in some of the spaces. Are you setting this to music?

I've never seen this happen in A:M before and don't have a sure-fire solution for you but just wondered if you have tried to install it again. Worth a try I would think.

Edit: Links removed to avoid offending anyone.