heyvern

I just saw Alan Alda on PBS talking to a guy who builds bicycles with a computer driven laser that cuts out shapes from high impact plastic sheets. He thinks the day will come when we have those in our house and design our own stuff and print it out. Vernon "!" Zehr

You can get the plans I used here: http://www.thewoodcrafter.net/proj/p46.html It has a bunch of pop-up windows though. Just to warn you. Vernon Zehr

Well, before I animate it I am still waiting for the glue to dry so I can finish sanding and put on a couple of coats of polyurethane... Wait... can I put polyurethane on a model built with AM or do I need a plug-in? Better email Norm... What you see is what you get. I used a wood material I created eons ago for the... wood. It took ages to render with the sky light rig with the motion blur, multipass and raytraced shadows. I plan to use this for a banner image on the arm to promote AM films, thus the logo on the chair back. Thanks for the comments. This was a fun little thing. Vernon Zehr

Here is a director's chair I built the other day. I found a free wood working project with schematics! No really! I used the diagrams for the wood working project and traced in A:M. Cool way to test out wood working projects I guess. I also used Jeff Lee's fantastic web based sky light rig gizmo! That thing rocks! Anyone needs a director's chair I will post it somewhere... it doesn't fold up though. Vernon "!" Zehr

That is a toughy. It all depends on how brave you are. You may want to model the clothing into the character on your first attempt. On the CD Jim Talbot uses a really cool method on the Tarzan and Jane characters where the (minimal) clothing is attached to the model. On the other hand there is no reason you can't model the clothing separately even if you do not use the cloth wizard built into AM. You could do it this way and just bone, smartsin and animate the clothing by hand, constraining it to the body bones and at a later date when you feel confident with the tools you can try using the cloth wizard. For the most part I have seen clothing modeled into the character with "extra bits" extending beyond for "flowing" stuff like skirts, dresses, sleeves etc. This way you could create separate versions of the character and change the outfits by changing colors, materials, and altering the clothing part of the model without a ton of effort. The few "humanoid" type characters I have done just wear really tight body suites so not an issue. I have to address some of this on a current project and will most likely have loose fitting clothing models over the character. Vernon "not an expert" Zehr

The only thing I would say right off the bat is to exagerate the lip synch, but you already mentioned that so... I love this character! He is really...uh I can't put into words. Kind of "Burtonesque" (as in Tim Burton). He kind of creeps me out but in a really good cool way. You may want to talk to him before he gets in front of the camera next time. He should try not to party so late and at least try to straighten his tie and comb his hair! I failed french in high school 3 years in a row! That is why I didn't date much I think. Vernon "vous avez véritable sympathique poitrines!" Zehr

Okay, uh, you see, generally I am a laid back kind of person. I live alone, don't have television. Not a lot of noise... So I am relaxing quietly waiting for the cubic panorama to load.... I had to change my pants... wasn't expecting the sound you see...had it turned up too loud from listening to the internet radio from earlier. Other than that it is really cool! It worked fine on my Mac with OS 9.2 and QT 5 something. Vernon "really glad I was wearing pants!" Zehr

I use poser a lot to create rotoscopes for AM. What you want to do is make sure to use the "left" "front" "side" views in poser to create the screen grabs. These cameras in poser are orthoganal...orthopedic...orthographic... uh... they do not have perspective. They are flat straight views. This is very important as it will help lining things up in AM. If you use a perspective view it distorts the image and you will have trouble getting things lined up in AM. What I also do is load all of my views in photoshop from poser and line them up perfectly. I usually do separate rotoscopes just for the face and head for when I get to that part. Once you get them the way you like in photoshop save out each rotoscope view from photoshop as targas. By doing it this way all of the rotos are exactly the same size and position. You shouldn't have to scale or move them around much in AM. Also I have found using a wireframe render in poser for the rotoscopes is a huge help. It gives you 3D cues to the shape of the body that you really can't see just from a plain render. On side views I will hide the arms and hands so I can see the body more clearly. You can't really use a side view of the arm anyway. I use a top, front and back view for the arms. I also will do a render for the side view only that is a "see through" wireframe. You can see how the body parts connect in the center of the body sort of if you know what I mean. If you plan to use poser for rotoscopes of hands you can also use the high resolution hand models. These have very high detail for close ups. I can't remember if poser has female and male high resolution hands though. This may not be neccessary for the new version of poser. I am still using an older version. You will also need to do a separeate render for the tops of the feet... the...uh... head and other things can get in the way. Here is something I tried a while ago. I did a "3-D" rotoscope from poser. It was somewhat helpful when trying to determine the 3-D shapes, but I got headaches from it. You will need the red/blue glasses to see this: front 3D Side 3D Vernon "I'm a poser" Zehr

Crap! I better get busy on the textures! I still think "The Terminato" would be a cool villain..... Maybe for the sequal! p.s. When you pitch this as a series, keep it simple. Just say: "Veggie Tales meets the Sapranos" p.s.s. I get funny looks at the supermarket with my digital camera. Vernon Zehr

Common myth about black widows. Very rarely are the bites fatal if treated properly. That still sounds kind of painful though. I find it interesting that of the three species of black widow in the united states there is only one that occassionally eats the male after mating. Apparently this is another myth. There are species of black widow in the southern hemisphere that eats its mates as a rule. Maybe most American black widow males have high carbs? Vernon "I hate spiders" Zehr

4 hours! 4 hours! ...4 hours.... My problem is I either can't last 4 hours or else I need much much more time.... Nice job! Vernon "4 hours!" Zehr

Yes, but on the other hand with the techniques I use adjusting the channels I probably could have eliminated the bleeding of the colors. It is a matter of extremes and similar pixel colors. The purple can color had almost the same color values as the skin tones. Even so, I was still able to get a mask. The main difficulty was the shadow areas. The shadow color between the fingers and below the hand on the can were identical. I hope to see if my action works someday! I was not sure if it would be effective on the whole series. For positioning, you could use a point in the video frames as a reference, then constrain the can to a null with an offset and use the null to line up with the reference point. Vernon Zehr

Would zbrush allow you to import a "non-quad" mesh and save it out as a quad mesh? Vernon "Ever seeking" Zehr

Well, I think I got it. First off, this is a Photoshop 7 action file. I am not positive but it may work with 5 or 5.5. To import just get the Action pallette up in PS, click the triangle, right top. It says Load Action. Select this and select the action you downloaded from here. You should get a new folder in your actions pallete called robs_can_movie.atn. Open this folder and inside is the action (robs_can). You should test it on a few frames just to be sure. I did a bunch of "seemingly" wierd commands in the action to get the needed mask. The big thing I did was convert to LAB color (don't worry I switched it back to RGB at the end). I did this because I was able to get a better selection from the color range command in LAB. When you import the action there are 3 commands at the bottom not "checked" (they won't do anything if they don't have a check). The first unchecked command is "invert". This can be ignored unless you have unexpected results. Let me know if the alpha isn't being created properly. There are a couple of spots that might cause trouble depending on how channels are set to display. I am pretty sure it will work fine. The second command that is unchecked is the "Save" command. This is the save as targa step of the action and will allow you to batch save images in one folder to another folder as 32 bit targas with an alpha. The third is the close command. It closes the document after it is saved as targa. You need this and the save command to be checked (on) ONLY when batch processing. (you don't want 300 files open in photoshop at the same time right?) If you are just testing the action keep these items unchecked. To run a batch make sure "robs_can" action is selected in the action pallete then under file/automate/batch... you can choose a source folder and a destination folder. When you choose the destination folder (create a new folder for this) there is a check box to Overide action "save as" command. Check this box, you will get a warning but just hit okay. When you are ready and hit start or whatever, it will open each image in the source folder, run the action and save it to the destination folder. This may take a few minutes... go get coffee, watch some tv whatever. Phew! I hope this works. Don't worry I spent more time writing these instructions than creating the action. Vernon Zehr robs_action.zip

I just did a quick test. Man! If only that can was bright green..... Tip for the future. If you ever try this again, anything you want to "mask" should not be in the same color range as stuff you want to keep.... like skin for instance! The can has the same color values as some of the areas of the hands. In order for an action to do its magic it has to be "hands off", no painting in a specific spot if you follow. If the can were green you could easily grab a mask from the magenta red hues, manipulate the levels, do a little blur, reduce the noise, and bingo. Now if you used a Sprite can it would have only taken a minute to do.... I have to go out for a while this afternoon unfortunately. I will try to play with it a little more and see if I can "find" the mask in the image. It is there somewhere you just have to "tweak" it out. The magic wand works great but the action records it as specific pixel locations. I thought it would use colors. So if I find a similar "trick" to find the colors it might work. I hope I can post an action file for you later. Vernon Zehr

Me too! I was trying to think of ways to create the alpha that could be done with a photoshop action. Using the paint brush and path tools is kind of hands on. If the colors are similar on each frame and the scene doesn't change much you can use the color range selection gizmo, or duplicate a channel then save the selection and fiddle with other filters and levels and they can be recorded in an action. If you get pretty close it is a breeze then to run that action on all of the frames. I have done this before but it requires that all the images be very similar, and also a fairly unique key color for selection purposes in photoshop. I love photoshop actions... p.s. hey Rob! If you send me a few frames from the original vid (one from the beginning middle and end) I might be able to create a photoshop action that would process all of the frames and save out targas with one click. let me know. You could look at the action and learn from it as well. Much more fun to have a cup of coffee while the computer does all the work. Vernon "Man of action" Zehr

One thing I forgot to mention, The Magic wand tool will almost always give you some aliasing on the edges. It is not my first choice for creating a good mask. Actually it has been many years since I have ever used the magic wand too to be honest. Using the select/color range command in photoshop might give you better results. Or even duplicating one of the rgb channels and modifying it with levels or curves is also a technique I use. Vernon Zehr

According to the technique you posted there is one thing left out. You can go in to that channel and modify it after it is created. When you save the alpha channel click on it in the Photoshop channels pallete and you can then paint on it, blur it what ever you want or need to do to clean up the edges. A couple of tricks would be to use the lasso or magic wand step. Then after saving this selection as an alpha use the noise/dust and scratches filter in PS to clean up the edges. Then you can blur this slightly and possibly use levels to adjust the width of the alphas edges. or you can just use the paint brush to clean up the edges. You can also view the mask as you adjust it by turning on the eyeball icon on the RGB channel in the channels pallette in photoshop. This will display both the rgb image AND the extra alpha channel at the same time. Double click the alpha channel and you can change how it is displayed by setting the color and opacity of the channel. This will not change the alpha only how it is displayed in photoshop. I hope this helps. Please don't hesitate to ask for more info if this is unclear. Vernon Zehr

Yeah, this is a toughy. Personally I have done it both ways. I used the dopesheet technique for a project from last year a group from the list put together (still in progress?). Fractured Film Project It is the very first part with Thom and that bear guy from the CD. For me in that situation it worked great and it seemed to go pretty quickly (time was an issue). I was able to rough it in and then tweak it. I really liked using the dopesheet, especially when I could just type in the dialogue to get the first rough keyframes for all of the words. The tricky part that was actually kind of fun was coming up with wierd alternate words to match the dialogue. But as you have already found the best technique is the one that works for you. Vernon "Sheet! You dope!" Zehr

Blobbies! Blobbies! Blobbies.... Dagnabbit! For my tomato image on the mechanical image contest, I hand placed all of the doggone water droplets... Dagnabbit! Great oogly moogly! Blobbies! I kept thinking there might be an easier way.... Oh! Almost forgot! Great image by the way. Vernon "Blobbies!" Zehr

...32 BIT targa... not but targa... There is no such thing as a 32 but targa... For reflections on the can you could use an environment map using the rotoscope images, or as you said, put a panel in front of the can that stays aligned with the camera using the same images. Good luck fine sir! Vernon "!" Zehr

Hey! Great! So glad you liked my image. I was trying to think of what to replace the can with and there was my character Bob, with his arms out like some kind of action figure... I was wondering about the problems with alpha on a rotoscope so I did a "real" test in AM just to make sure I am not insane.....I HEARD THAT! I would still recommend using an alpha (it does work!) on the rotos only because you can blur the edges to match the image. Using a key color the edges are aliased, hard, and don't match the scene. In the attached image you can see that the edges of the hands are blurred slightly to match the slight out of focusness of the whole image. You wouldn't get that using a key color. If you need help figuring out how to save an alpha let us know here. For some reason people seem to have problems with this. When saving the file out of Photoshop or any other application that supports alpha just make sure the alpha is black for invisible white for opaque, and save as a 32 but TARGA Vernon "I have real work now!" Zehr

Dagnabbit! Where were you 2 years ago! I would have paid hard cash for that drum set!!! I couldn't even find "poly" models of a drum set. Very nicely done! Metal flake works for me! Vernon "VERY different drummer" Zehr

Me again! the idea intrigued me so.... This is just a quick little gif that shows the concept I was talking about in my previous post.

Dagnabbit! Just had another idea! This is a ton of more work but it would be cool to try sometime... Have 2 rotoscopes! One for the background and one for the hands or anything in front of the can. You would have to mask out only the rotoscope with the hands. As a matter of fact this would be no extra work since you are doing that already! It would be a hit on memory with AM since you would have 2 sets of animated rotoscopes of course. Keep a set of totally untouched frames for the background rotoscope (behind the can) create a mask on the second set of rotoscopes for the for the hands in front of the can. This would allow you a little more flexibility. Have 2 camera rotoscopes, one set behind one set in front. Another bonus this would add is that you could have a hand "stand in" model to cast shadows on the can, since this model would be covered by the rotoscope it should work pretty well. If you use the clone tool to paint over a little of what is behind the can on the first rotoscope images this would cover any slight mistakes in compositing. Like I said, this might be a real pain in the arse. Vernon "I keep forgetting my sig!" Zehr