brainmuffin

Thanks for the input, Dave. I think I'm going to add one more spline ring around the shoulder, just to be safe then. That way I should be able to smartskin and cp weight around the 5 pointers.

Here's a look at a model I'm working on. The original sketches in the corner were done by my wife, she has a wonderful drawing style (I think, anyway), that's almost anime, but not quite. The head is coming along nicely, I think, but the areas on the body that concern me are the shoulder area next to the breast (I've highlighted it in red) where there are 4 five point patches in a row. Is this going to be a problem when the shoulder moves? and if so, what can I do to fix it? Also, is the butt going to cause me problems as is? Will I be able to fix them with some smartskinning? And how does it look so far to you? Thanks, Lazlo

Yep, Nancy, that's the game... My favorite is the "Legend of Toon-Fu" genre...

Ken: Looks really great. Now I see what you were thinking about the Heart position. It doesn't look too low anymore.... Rodney: Make sure you bring back enough to share with the rest of the class...

That reminds me of TOON! the cartoon roleplaying game. Somewhere around my house I have most (If not all) of the books for that game, and I think I've played it twice... But the game is filled with rules based directly on the laws of the cartoon world. Like, if you need something, find a mailbox. Write up an order for Acme, Co. and drop it in. In the time it takes to tap your foot a few times and check your watch, it will be delivered right to you!

Rodney, you might want to think about adding some basic rigging/constraint info in TAO A:M. It might not be a bad idea to have certified A:M users now at least a little of how a skeleton goes together...

I might be missing something, but I get the feeling that true metaballs would be difficult or impossible to implement with hash patches. It might be possible to get something that would appear to be the same when rendered as a metaball, similar to the way the boolean cutter works, but getting the geometry to build itself is going to be very difficult.

Some info on "A Perfect Storm" : http://stuffo.howstuffworks.com/perfect-storm2.htm They didn't use particles for ALL of the water, either. The bottom water was done using a deformed plane, using a fluid Dynamics simulation similar to the one Emilio Leroux (Spelling?) is looking into, I believe. And blobbies and spriticles can cover the top water effects quite nicely. And as for meta balls, the only program I've seen users satisfied with the implementation of meta-balls in is z-brush. Most of the time metaball and metashape creatures are difficult to rig and animate, and it's usually only reccomended to use them if you need something reaaly quik that isn't going to move. Z-brush is the exception to that rule.

I was rather intrigued by the Loons, so I just had to make one....( the original illustration just didn't do it for me..) I did it with Photoshop. I didn't like the idea of the "warts", but I thought there should be some sort of scar from a puncture wound, so I went with patches, like an old tire, but after he was done I thought of crossed tape, so I put one on his belly. It doesn't say whether or not they wear clothes, so I didn't give him any. I figure with no genetalia or (There's just no delicate way to say it) buttcrack, he shouldn't really look naked, but I had to give him a belly button. Where else would you stick the airhose?

And adjust the alpha map on the image you used for the tree leaves, they're a little too black around the edges. There's also some odd lines around the tree...

That jellyfish model is really cool! simple, yet highly effective. I love the way you used hair for the tentacles! Mouse ball is really great too. The animation is superb. Catball: if I were directing that shot I'd ask you to move the camera back a little, so that you could have him release the ball in the position where the shot ends now, giving you more time as the ball exits to allow the pwoffessor to complete his flip. Other than that it looks great!

Here's a look at my Pass the Ball entry. It still needs some tweaking to make the ball movement smoother during the "circle pass" it needs to be a bit more circular. Also, when he tosses the ball offscreen, it should be quicker, I think. The final rendering is going to have a volumetric spotlight, too. I might do another one or two if I can come up with the moves and animate it in time. Lazlojuggle1.mov

Hey, Wow, Gerry, you're not far away! About an hour and a half! Ever been to the Rennaisance faire in Tuxedo? Or the Rocky Horror Picture Show in Nyack? (It's not there anymore...) Anyway, the character looks really cool. The lines are very organic. He almost looks like he was made from clay.

And this is how it rendered without multipass mode. There's little dots:

Here's the settings, Charlie. Remember, you'll need the pictures of the various plants, too.

That's the DOF settings I have. The focus is on the tree, and the focus falls off halfway between the tree and the camera. But that's what the multipass blurring looks like, apparently.

Well, not all that epic. It took an hour to render. For some reason, the grass rendered weird unless I rendered it in Multipass mode. There are five dofferent hair emitters (grass, maiden grass, blakeyed susans, clover, and solomon's seal). The images for each emitter were created using Plant Studio 2(which is available for free from http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/PlantStudio/ ) It will export plants as bitmaps that aren't antialiased, so they're perfect for image based hair. (It will also export in several 3d formats, and I've gotten 3d plants into A:M as props, but their surface attributes aren't editable, and they tend to look like they're glowing.) The tree image was rendered in carrara with no antialiasing, and was decaled onto three 6-patch panels that I aranged to give the tree some volume.

Try a gradient for the background. Light blue on the bottom, to navy blue at the top. That should look good with the spotlights.

Sort of a self Caricature, and the ball he'll be manipulating....

I've got ULEAD video studio(it came with my video capture device) and it does desktop capture too. Desktop video capture is perfect for tutorials, it takes so much less time to prepare one than to prepare a text-based one..... I'm also thinking of learning powerpoint, also, since it got magically installed the last time I brought my computer to the shop for repair... Now I just need to be proficient enough with A:M to write some tutorials!

His feet look a little too big, mostly too wide. Other than that he looks great! Now you just need bill the cat, and they can run for president in 2008!

Something looks wrong with the hand to me. It looks like he's got no wrist. It occurs to me that you could've opened your screenshot in photoshop and rotated the arm so it's straight out, it might've cut down on some of the guesswork...

Nonetheless IS a word, and yes, the dent is accidental. A half a dozen CPs got away from me... Vash, don't take my slow progress as an indication of yours, A:M's been kinda sitting untouched on my HD for most of that time.(Blasphemy, I know). Dave, thanks for the advice. I'll keep it in mind when I re-work this head,(She may never get finished, I did it mostly as a modeling exercise) and every time I model a head from now on...

Here's the obligatory Wireframe:

Actually, it's supposed to look like that... I went through Colin's tutorial, but I used front and side rotoscopes of two different women, one chinese, one japanese. (I wanted her to look asian, but of indeterminate origin). The only thing I'm not quite happy with is the ears, other than that this model went swimmingly. I'm still kind of new to A:M, I've had it for a couple of years, but I've been too wrapped up with a couple of other programs to learn, so I still have a lot to study, but I'm looking forward to it.