heyvern

The main problem with the quality was my desire to get this done QUICKLY (before the news cycle passes on to something else). For some reason it indicated 17 hours to render... and this is on my faster new PC. So I just did a shaded render with 1 pass, no shadows. Only took 20 minutes but that still seems long for really nothing in there but.... bunches of houses and cars. It is however a very long animation. It could be the models I used have some funky materials... I pulled them off the first Extras disk without any modifications. I should look through and remove materials or decals that might be slowing it down. Or use instances in the chor rather than jamming everything in one big model... I was in a hurry. -vern

Nancy you are brilliant. Your ideas for the beginning and how to handle the "lack" or actually not needing a lot of animation is dead on. I was considering having "lights" in the windows indicating the voices... or shadows passing in front of windows showing the John character moving through the huge house looking for... a house. I also thought of using the AM "cartoon" style I tried years ago. Using images as cookie cutter decals on very low patch shapes and do a "jib jab" sort of style of character animation inside the house (rather than an the outside shot as it is now). John rummaging through drawers and closets, pockets etc. The characters would be very simplistic "puppets" (some of you may know I use another 2d application for this kind of thing but since the idea originated here I would like to do it with AM.) This however would require a LOT more animation and my schedule it kind of tight right now (new animation job! WooHoo!). However I really like your idea Nancy. I can see it clearly in my head the way you described it. p.s. I am thrilled that the small bit of animation I actually did read at all. The "senior" moment when he walks to the wrong side of the car was my intention. p.s.s. What are the copyright issues with the music? Does this fall into the "fair use" category? Maybe I should get the midi version and use Reason to mix the music track. Does SNL have to pay royalties when they use it? -vern

I would like to clear up a misstatement on my part. Apparently Joe Biden and his family DID NOT live IN my neighborhood when I was a child. He lived nearby and my older sister knew him and worked on his campaign. However my father DID borrow his ladder once to fix the gutters on the house... my father may still have that ladder but I can't be sure. They all look kind of the same. I was very young at the time and for some reason thought he lived in that house on the corner. Apparently that was some other Delaware politician who isn't as famous. Easy to get them confused. -vern

You are too kind. As Nancy so eloquently pointed out there is no "animation" to speak of. It is worse than the "other one" in that regard. Quite below my standards on any scale. I had another idea but it's really too late (and too much work) to pull off: I don't have a finale for this one. I also realized the apparent irony of the Terminator as a democratic vice presidential nominee. -vern

OH NO!!!! Does this mean they will research me? Are they going to do background checks on anyone who lived near or knew Biden?? Yikes! this could be my way to finally get on Count Down with Keith Olberman. I could make up crazy neighbor stories. p.s. To the agents reading this... that was a JOKE. I would never do that. -vern

Nancy, the sign says "The McCain's (1 of 10)". I wanted to animate actual people inside the house but I'm not ready to waste my precious time on it . My goal was sort of a tribute to Gary Trudeau when he shows the outside of the white house and Bush talking to his advisor's. This would probably work better as a comic strip than an animation. The audio was inspired by Harry Shearer's show on NPR. p.s. For a short while I was thinking of doing a portrait of McCain as president and enter it in the Science Fiction image contest but.... ONE, I didn't have time, TWO, I couldn't bare the thought of looking at him that much. If I spent that much time looking at John McCain's image I might get brain washed. The vibes of evil energy would corrupt my system like Arnold when the Terminatrix infected him with nanotechnologicialtransjectors. -vern

Crappy quality. Low res WIP. Did it FAST! Comments... rants... raves... welcome. I can take it... I think. I am not an impersonator. That is the best John McCain I can do. And Cindy sounds like an wealthy chipmunk on heroin. themccains.wmv -vern

WooHooo! He picked our guy! WooHoo! The Biden's use to live up the street from my family when I was a kid. My dad borrowed his ladder once. Wow. I could actually say I lived next to the Vice President. Cool beans! -vern

Jib jab is not JUST "better" animation, it is also satire that is extremely accurate ON BOTH SIDES of the issues. It represents relevant political issues. It also shows failings in a humorous way of both sides. My main disagreement is that the creator of this is claiming to be doing something constructive and making so called "serious" political commentary, which is not the case. There is nothing political about this except for the presence of the two candidates. Nothing. No serious polical satire or comedy. Any made up explanation after the fact is nonsense. Bill as VP representing why Barack is not picking Hilary as VP? What? What are the cigars for? I don't get it. It is a huge gigantic stretch connecting those two dots. I am well aware of WHY Barack does not want Hilary as his VP. It doesn't have ANYTHING to do with Monica Lewinski or Bill Clinton. It has to do with Hilary's need to be in charge. She wants to be president, not vice president. I like Hilary. I think she should be VP. I think she gets a lot of unjust flack for being a beeyatch when in reality that is EXACTLY what we need as president... or vice president. Bill Clinton is an unfortunate and sad "bonus prize" that comes with her but has NO baring on the political landscape. He is irrelevant. Barack just doesn't want Hilary to overshadow him, not because of what Bill did but because of what SHE did trying to win during the campaign. Sadly Barack doesn't realize he needs that wonderful beeyatch to kick some arse. Bill is not why Hilary is not going to be VP. Hilary is why Hilary is not VP. This to me is CLEAR. that is why I object to this. If it was just someone saying "I hate Barack. Here's a stupid cartoon." I would have shut up ages ago. It's the claim that this is more than just a stupid nonsensical designed to inflame cartoon. Don't try to make it more than that. Oh I get it. Free speech means I can't attack it with.... free speech? As long as it's protected by free speech, I lose my free speech? There is NO guarantee of free speech here. Otherwise this whole forum would be overrun with spam and porn. Martin constantly has deleted "free speech" on this forum. He owns it. He determines what is "free speech". If I see something HERE I don't like I can scream bloody murder about it the same as the person who posted it. The difference is there is no free speech on a corporate sponsored software forum and I just might get my way. Nanny nanny boo boo. p.s. This is EXACTLY why I never became a radical extremist Muslim. Those "other" cartoons would have drove me crazy. god dangit. So mad I wrote my name twice. -vern -vern

This is a wild guess from limited experience. My thought would be to export each of the poses with the model from a choreography. I think you can either export directly or bake the actions so the exported models mesh is changed to reflect the poses. Open each complete model in AM and export to .obj. The person using the other application would then load those models as "morph targets". the only problem I see is polygon count and layout. I know absolutely nothing about polygon apps or morph targets but it probably requires that they have the exact same polygon count and basic position. It's been a while since I even learned about morph targets so maybe this isn't the case anymore. Another option would be to export the animation of the poses themselves as some sort of animated sequence in polygon format. Maybe that could be used to create the morph targets. Don't know much about that either. Okay... brain empty. I'm out. -vern

Bingo! My point exactly. this isn't a legitimate attempt to "spark discussion". That is an excuse to justify posting an obnoxious animation attacking a political candidate, not on their stance on issues but from some made up Rube Goldberg logic of how Clinton's sexual affair in the white house is somehow, through some twisted bizarre way, connected to Obama. Using free speech and the guise of political commentary, and posting in the "WIP" section to cover up what the real goal is, to shock and annoy. At least be honest. What are the real motives in posting this? Not political discussion. If this election were really important to the artist then this would not be the type of commentary you would want to present. It's gutter humor. It's the same as dirty cartoons on a bathroom stall in junior high school. No difference. (I am almost certain the kids who drew those things weren't trying to start a discussion on safe sex for teenagers. ) If this REALLY is a work in progress... I would like to see it improve. As it stands it isn't even a rough draught. If this is really a discussion of politics and issues, what is the message? What do the cigars represent? The intern under the desk? Those are pretty straight forward easy to interpret symbols. I don't see them representing foreign policy or economics. They don't represent health care or alternative energy. What do they represent that will effect my decision on who to vote for? This animation was only intended to piss people off not start any real discussion. It works but at least be honest about the intentions. There was no motive for the greater good here. It is what it is. Don't try to sugar coat it. Don't try to pretend it has any loftier goal then to inflame. -vern

Quite frankly Fox news is the LAST place I go for anything. Those guys are so biased it's unreal. As for the Clintons getting a lot of press, it is relevant at the moment. Yes, it is true that Obama must work with HILARY and as a side note her husband. However it is up to Hilary to fix things in the party. If she doesn't convince her own supporters to go with Obama it could cost him the election. Hopefully that will happen at the convention. As far as Monica being a "subtext" it still has NOTHING to do with either Hilary or Obama. Bill is not running for any office. He is not a factor (other than what the campaign may or may not ask him to do. Hopefully he will stay out of the limelight). Why associate Obama with the what we all agree as an embarrassing and stupid scandal the Bill Clinton created all by himself? Obama had nothing to do with it. Hilary for that matter had nothing to do with it. Bill Clinton's PERSONAL failures have absoutely NOTHING to do with the current election. The only reason to even bring it up in association with Obama would be to create a false negative association. As for Obama not having enough "experience"... that is the case for ANY ONE running for president. George Bush had 4 years of experience AS THE PRESIDENT. Without going into specifics or a blow by blow account of the current administrations failings but it's obvious that "experience" isn't all that is needed to be a good president. No one has that experience until they get the job. I'm just glad that Edwards got out when he did. Apparently the way he deals with pressure is to run and hide in a rest room. That is scary. On the topic of marital infidelity and presidential qualifications... sad to say... it could be that the best presidents are those that are "hound dogs". It seems that many presidents had lurid affairs in and out of office. It is hardly any standard to go by for determining how well someone can be president. Maybe George would have been a better president if he had fooled around a bit. p.s. Just a note for some of you younger people. McCain's personal platform requires instituting the draft. My sister has two young sons and is horrified at that possibility. Keep this in mind. McCain wants to build up the military and do a lot more with it during his term. there is no way he can do this without a draft. He has said so himself in the past. He has not ruled out instituting a draft. His own campaign people try to play this down but that is HIS view. This election isn't just about who is more experienced or not. It isn't about who owns more houses or made more money or who went to church where or whose friends did what or who voted for offshore drilling blah blah... this is about what will happen to the US in the next 4 years. Will we start more wars? Lose more of our rights as citizens? Don't make this decision lightly. At least try to look at more than the what your "party" says, or even your religion. Try to vote based on more than ONE SINGLE ISSUE. Look at the big picture. Governments and politicians mostly suck... but at the moment we are stuck with them. At least try to pick someone who might be level headed enough not to get us into MORE trouble. War sucks. I don't want my nephews to get drafted. -vern

The problem I have is why bring up something that happened long ago and is really not even part of the political landscape any longer? Nothing in that animation is even remotely relevant to CURRENT POLITICS. It is a negative image that has no meaning, no truth. WELL DONE satire has TRUTH at its core. There is no TRUTH at all here. Nothing. It is just distasteful and disrespectful. The "intern" incident that happened 8 YEARS AGO is part of history. President Clinton was punished for that (whether it was deserved or not). Trying to sweeten the image by booting out the current president doesn't cut it. It is the same as the New Yorker cover done in very bad taste. A horribly negative image was "cloaked" as funny satire. The end result is the same. Your satire has no basis on reality. Clinton and Barack do not work together. Clinton has nothing to do with the Barack campaign. Barack had nothing to do with whatever happened to the intern in the blue dress during the Clinton administration. Yep, he HATES a lot of things, won't vote for such a hate-fueled person... Barack may "hate" the Clintons but it is from a POLITICAL stand point and from the extremely negative campaign run by Hilary. He is not "Hate filled". I don't see where that comes from at all. It's just nonsense made up like all the other made up crap. God I HATE IT when political stuff ends up on this forum. So much STUPIDITY results and I feel this compulsion to try and respond. PUT THIS CRAP ON A POLITICAL SITE! Create a freaking blog. Political discussion and discourse CAN be a good thing if it's based in REALITY. This election is based on one candidate defending against BOLD FACED LIES instead of actually discussing issues. This animation is just a small representation of the nonsense. -vern

AM is probably not the best choice for "game modding". You could probably find some simple open source polygon modeler to do that better than AM. AM does export .obj and .3ds... I am pretty sure. However I don't know what is needed for game modding and how well exported files from AM would work with that. -vern

I don't understand what Clinton has to do with Barack. Hilary is not going to be VP. Barack HATES the Clintons which is the main reason he wouldn't even consider Hilary for the VP spot anyway. -vern

I used the first technique in the tutorial. I've always done it that way. -vern

Dagnabbit! I never thought of the darn EXTRUDE to make a square! That WILL save time. I LOVE these tutorials. There so exciting. Waiting each week... I got in line Wednesday and camped out to make sure I got the first one. -vern

I would like to take some credit for Darkwing getting his volunteer. Usually these posts fade away with barely a response. I think I had some small part in sparking some interest... not my intention of course but so be it. uh... I should get a credit in the film yes? -vern

I use v7 photoshop. It is ancient but perfectly fine for my needs. I bought it originally as version 3 or 4 off the internet for $99. Someone wanted some quick cash. We contacted Adobe and transfered the license and I have upgraded it periodically since then. Try to find cheap old versions for sale. They are just as good as "new" and once you get the license transfered you can update them. -vern

Weird Wasabi Woman. Sounds like a hippie folk song from the '60s to me for some reason. WWW I like it! We should refer to her as Nancy "WWW" Gormezano from now on... see if she notices. -vern

Trying to get my head around your set up. Let me know if I've got this correct. You have one set, for example a table and two chairs in a room. That set would be used for multiple scenes possibly with different characters and camera angles. The two options you suggest would be: 1) Use one long choreography time line and hide and show the characters or objects for each scene and use multiple cameras to change angles. 2) Duplicate that chor for each scene. If this is correct.. I think you are much better off duplicating the chor for each scene. It would be difficult to name the renders and keep track of different scenes if they are all in one chor. By duplicating the chor and renaming it you can keep track of which one is which. However, if you are going to have multiple camera angles for one "scene", for example a conversation between two characters changing camera angles or with multiple camera angles cutting back and forth, then you could do that in ONE chor using multiple cameras. Hope this makes sense. -vern

Don't worry about 5 point patches on a "non animating" model. If a 5 point patch looks okay... then you're golden. It is NOT bad modeling to use 5 pointers as long as you are happy with it and it looks good in a render. That's what they are for. I use them a lot in mechanical modeling because they help cut down on spline count and they are great for... relatively "flat" areas. A slightly curved surface can often be okay with a 5 point patch. It is when the patch is severely twisted or "bent" that you might have problems. As long as the points in a 5 point patch are relatively evenly spaced apart they work great. If one of the points is "in line" with another point you could get creasing or artifacts. the trick with 5 pointers is that they are as close to an equal distance from each other as possible... not an expert... just my observation. If you look at some primitive models 5 point patches are used extensively. They are also used when attaching limbs. I have models where a cylindrical shape attaches to another shape and the joint area is ALL 5 point patches. 4 around the join. This might not be the best scenario due to bending, the key is to get those 5 pointers in the right spot so they don't cause trouble. -vern

There is no cheating and if booleans or cookie cutters work go for it. However I was thinking more along the lines of extruding. Imagine you created a perfectly smooth curved spline that defined the top edge of the helmet , above the eyes and nose. By extruding and scaling/rotating that spline from a specific origin point you can define those large areas that need to be smooth. If you plan carefully ahead of time this extruded spline can even have enough points included to account for creating the eye and nose pieces or you can use the "shift" key to add points without disturbing the curve of the spline. I love that shift key when adding points. EDIT: Check out the tutorial "Adding Control Points" (the fourth one) Done right you can stitch in things very nicely without disturbing a smooth shape. The irregular splines of the eyes and nose could be stitched in this way and those splines carefully stitched up the surface to hooks. The key is maintaining the spline "flow". If you dead-end a spline hook "too soon" it causes a bump or crease. Try hooking it further back. If the cross section of splines is smooth, carefully stitching in splines using the shift key when adding points will not disturb the smoothness. This model is in a category I call "mechanical" or "fixed" or "non-organic". It doesn't move. This is a bonus because you can do what ever is needed to maintain the smoothness without worrying later if point motion will cause bumps or creases. There is no point motion (unless you put in dents with an action). That's another key thing... low patch count (you have that already but it's worth mentioning) the lower the spline count the easier to keep things smooth. Another trick is to NOT move individual points as much as possible. Only rotate or scale using a whole spline cross section or the whole model and the distortion box grid thingy. You could even distort a high patch sphere into the basic shape of the helmet using this technique, then punch in eye and nose shapes. Let's say a cross section spline needs to move up higher for some reason, or a set of points needs to move up, don't try to move each point, find some way to rotate that whole spline so the splines maintain smoothness, or even stitch in a new set of splines (with the shift key of course). I am not an expert in this kind of mechanical modeling by a long shot, so many others can do it so easily it seems, car models, beautiful curved surfaces. It's hard to explain... when you need a smooth curved surface the trick is to either model it that way using extrusions to maintain the flow of splines or global distortions to get the shape you want. Distortions that modify the whole shape so you are less likely to get bumps. If you need to add spline density to an already smooth surface make sure you use the "shift" key with the add point key. If your patch count is low it can be easier to nudge points to smooth things out. I've done that before. As I said it can be a bit tricky and tedious but you can smooth a curved surface with careful nudging. I wish I could explain it better. Maybe this is a subconscious thing from using AM for so long. One more thing, and this is just my humble opinion... perfection has flaws. Even what you think should be absolutely smooth... in real life there are flaws, slight imperfections to catch the light and break up the surface. A perfectly smooth or flat surface just... doesn't look real to me. If you use any kind of materials or decals to break up the surface or give it some kind of texture this can also hide "flaws" in the surface. Don't forget as well... how long is the object on screen? If it is in motion or part of an action sequence the flaws might never be seen at all. Just a thought. EDIT: Adding thickness to the edges. Your helmet appears to have thickness. Thickness can be simple, just extrude an extra set of splines on the edges of the open surface and "fold" them back inside creating an illusion of thickness with out all the fuss. I used that technique on some parts of my terminator model. There is really no need to model an entire interior surface if it is not needed. Maybe in the case of the helmet it might be necessary. the trick then would be to just copy the whole helmet and scale/distort it to fit inside and connect it at the edges. -vern

If that's the attitude you approach your film with it won't get done either. According to what you say you won't be doing anything but the animation? Art directing? At some point you will encounter ANOTHER area of animated film making you aren't an expert with... what then? Don't give up. Start a thread about your movie. Post your work again even if you feel it's terrible. Ask for help. It's so much easier to guide and teach people than it is to just "do it for you". There you go. If even YOU don't believe in the project you can't expect anyone else to believe in it. Try to be positive about it. If it isn't working and you don't like it maybe you need to show off the story and ask for help in that area as well. If you are negative about it it will come through to others. No one else is going to be more excited about this then YOU. These models will take hours to produce. Why should someone spend hours on something that even you, the creator/director doesn't even like? Show some confidence. Set work? Is that AM sets? Or "real" sets? Building a set in AM can be just as difficult as building a space ship. The "set" should be done as well as the "ships". If you are doing that than you could handle trying to build one of these ships. I never said that. No one said that. I was just trying to be realistic. If you don't get volunteers or responses it doesn't mean your idea is bad. I just said that it might be hard to get people to volunteer if you have nothing to excite them with. Not exactly a fair or a good comparison but look at what Martin is doing with his Oz movie projects. All of those people are volunteering. Why? Because he motivates. He excites. You don't have to be as good as Martin at motivation, but a tiny bit of confidence goes a long way. To excite people you need to make it look like it would be fun or challenging. Instead of showing a drawing of what YOU want, maybe it could be just a request to make ANY ship. I do free posters for all of my brother's plays. They are community theater, non profit. My only requirement is that I have COMPLETE creative control. I do the poster but they take what I create without any questions. They never get a round of revisions unless there is a typo. So far no one has ever complained. You may want to look on the AM disk or the Extras disk for things you might cobble together into a ship. In the old days of special effects ship models were often built from found objects, stuck together in interesting ways. So one person on the forum (me) suggests you won't get a ton of people knocking down the door to work on this... and you give up? Don't give up! Keep trying. And keep working with AM. I know EXACTLY how you feel about your skills modeling in AM. I was there once too. Everyone starts there. If you want it bad enough you find a way. -vern

Good luck with your project. (You need to check those images, they don't load when clicked. Some kind of error.) I hope you find some volunteers but you shouldn't hold your breath waiting for people to jump on this. Credits in the final film aren't really worth that much to the people skilled enough to do what you want. There are many many projects like this that offer "credits" and very few get done. To bring in other like minded volunteers to do this project you need to get people excited about the project. Simply asking for models based on your ideas won't be enough. Give people a reason to want to sign up. Names in credits won't be enough. Show the script, show the story. in the meantime... ... You say your "models are crap"? Let's see them. Maybe while you wait for volunteers you could go through the ToAM and all the tutorials on your own and try to create these models. It might not be as hard as you think. You might learn something. If you drew those sketches of the ship then you obviously have enough talent to build these in AM. You could also not use "completed" models to start with. Use simple geometric primitives as place holders in AM to do a simple animatic, or just do a drawn animatic from sketches. Who knows, if someone likes the story line they might be interested in helping out. The problem with your request is that you want QUALITY help from others who have spent a long time learning AM and have gained some mastery of it. You view that "skill" from your own perspective. Your perspective of having ideas to animate but thinking you don't have the skills to produce the content. You imagine that for someone skilled in AM knocking out these things for free for you to use would be simple. That isn't exactly true. By the time someone gets good enough to model to that level they also value their skills and want more than a credit line for their effort. You will actually get much more advice and help from more people if you try on your own first, ask for guidance and instruction on using AM while you attempt to build these ships rather than just throwing in the towel and asking someone to do it for you. Give it a shot on your own first. Just an opinion... but I've seen so many of these requests over the years. You have to have a strong story with some quality work to show your vision of what the result could be to inspire others to join in. Put yourself in someone else's shoes... if you had the skills would you volunteer hours of your time based on this request? Or would you want to do something of your own? -vern