Paul Forwood

Nice image, Will! Yeah, I went searching for DEM maps aswell and found some Mars maps. I haven't unzipped them yet though. This new displacement is truly amazing. For those who missed Will's previous post, you may not realise the power of this new displacement. No longer do you need a dense mesh to tease these shapes out of the geometry. One patch is enough! Yes, ONE PATCH! [attachmentid=13275] This image is just a few boxes, one patch per face, with displacement maps on their top patches. Sorry, it seems very dark. Oh well, I should have some better examples by the end of today. Here is Will's jaw-dropping example : [attachmentid=13276] Woo hoo! A:M just got a whole lot better!

Wow, Cory! Those are some very creepy creatures you've got there! Excellent all around!

Pure class, Stian! Absolutely gorgeous! I had to look really hard to find anything to criticize, it's just so well done, but there is a seam on the flexi-pipes at the back, like a misaligned map. Is that modelled or mapped? Very cool lighting!

Select one end of the spline that you want to remove and them hit the 'K' key to break the spline at that point. If nothing appears to happen the cp at that point is probably already disconnected and all you need to do is press 'Delete' to remove the cp and the spline. Edit: How strange!? When I answered this question, yesterday, there were no other responses! What's that about?

Sorry, Gary! I meant to get around to emailing you before Christmas engulfed us. I like that 'Night Flight' shot very much. The stars, of course shouldn't scroll like that but it may be your intention to keep that. It does give it a strange, magical quality having stars appear to be suspended just a few feet off the ground. You could use a still image, or image sequence, for your starfield, which you could also generate in A:M. The stones seem to have too much specular highlight. Almost like melting snow and ice. I really like your set! Maybe some subtle background details? Nice work.

select the 5 points that make up the corners of the patch and then click on the 5 point patch icon. Sorry, can't post an image at the moment.

Hi, Gazz. The link is taking me to your website but clicking on the 'Broom Launch' image is not launching the movie. Right clicking reveals that it is pointing to another web page, "bb_flicks.htm", but the link does not work for me. Sorry to hear you were feeling rough over Christmas.

It's good to see you getting some time to work on this, Dearmad! I have missed your regular updates. So, is 2006 the year? Of course it is! Have a great one!

Wow and Wow again!!! Brilliant, outstanding and the lighting is soooo good! Happy New Year to all at Soulcage. May 2006 be another great one for you guys.

I love that image! I agree with William's comment on grooming the trees. Most of the trees should be growing straight up. Even so, it is a nice image and your normal map looks very like the effects of the crumple material. Is it applied to the whole surface as tiled maps or as a big decal? I haven't experimented with normal maps yet though I know that I should. Soon, I hope.

Looking great, William40! I would be interested in knowing how much of the wrinkles, in his face, is bump/distortion maps and how much is geometry. It looks very good.

Well done! Some parts are more like an animatic and other parts are much more polished. I particularly liked the shot of the horse and waggon riding down into the green valley but it looks like your hair-trees are not casting shadows. Was that a concious decision? That is the only thing that spoils that shot for me, otherwise I love it. The horse's motion looks excellent to me! It's kind of hard to make out the detail but you seem to have produced some very interesting techniques. The heavy, dark, rolling clouds for the canyon shot look amazing but should be casting some shadows. Maybe some rays of sunlight could be seen piercing the clouds in the distance? The terrain could use more detail, in the model and the textures, and the trees could be combed to stand more vertical but with the hills brightly lit and set against that dark sky the scene captures those moments at the start, or end, of a storm when the sun and the storm both share the canvas. The three girls walking together need work. Unsynchronise their walk cycles a bit and give them some weight and naturalise their movements. At the moment they look like animatronics on a track. ;-) That's what I see anyway. Hope it helps. Good work!

What a thread! What a model! What alot of great test animations! Great stuff, Michael! It makes me want to fly. I haven't read all the posts, so excuse me if this has already been suggested, but have you tried using fog to give some depth to your animations? It would help to create the illusion of aerial perspective. Keep it going.

This is all looking very promising, Gary. Very moody locations. I am pretty sure that the artifacts are a result of the volumetric lighting. I get them too, as you can see in the attached images. It is possible to tweak your lighting until they finally vanish but it is unfortunately a compromise. I haven't found a way to avoid them yet but I haven't spent enough time with volumetrics to know what the magic formulas are. Good luck with this new project. It looks like you are pushing your work up to a new level.

I laughed out loud several times. Great fun! To the snowmobile, Rudolph!

What? A free raffle ticket? Thanks, Rodney! It must be Christmas. Please, count me in.

Dhar, you need to watch the A:M cloth video, (not sure where the link is). Then you can anticipate what might happen next, or not! Yeah, that was nicely done, Vern. How long will you keep poor Thom, and us, in suspence?

I don't know what is causing your wireframes to vanish but I have noticed in the past, in various versions, that if perspective mode is enabled, (key: \), that the model would vanish and I couldn't view it no matter what I did. I haven't noticed this problem for some time though and it is probably dependent on all kinds of other variables. If all your efforts fail do a reset.

Ha, ha! This is great fun, John. Nice concept. I look forward to the final version.

For the lantern just try adjusting the position of the light first. Adjust the falloff too. You could replace the bulb with two kliegs, back to back, with 180 degree cone angles. I'm no lighting wizard, so you would be better waiting for someone who is to chime in here, but a bit of experimenting will render rewards.

Lovely Renders, John, but man...how much are they charging for those shoe boxes? You could put one together in a week, or less! Oh, okay, these are outbuildings or extensions are they? Not complete homes? Your renders just keep looking better and better.

Very nice, Gary. I like the palette and the room model. The lighting needs sorting. The space under the table is too bright. I think that the bulb light that you have used in the lantern is penetrating the table or is under it. Be careful not to align elements in the composition. At the moment a leg from the tripod creates a line which continues into the line created by the left side of the window. Please show us an update when you've got time. Well done.

CalArts! Lucky guy! I love what you've got here so far. The character is appealing, the story sounds fun and the topic is one which anyone can relate to. I hope you post more on this as you progress.

Have you tried zipping it, Ed?

I remember Martin mentioned, some time ago and possibly on IRC, something about scrapping the weathering feature so I would look for another method if I were you. That's a nice wagon. I agree though that just using less saturated colours will improve the look immensely.