Bruce Del Porte
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Posts posted by Bruce Del Porte
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I agree with Stuart, Sorenson 3 does a pretty good job with AM and is cross platform, calming the Machead natives. I am finding that the new AM hair greatly boosts file size but S3 handles it pretty well.
Stuart talked about it but don't neglect sound compression if file size is important. I use Qualcomm's Purevoice if the soundtrack is primarily narration and Qdesign Music 2 if it is primarily music. Usually you can cut off the sampling at 22,050kHz. Tweak with your ears.
The complexity of the texturing can greatly impact the quality of results at any given compression setting. This is one of those areas you almost need to experiment on every movie. I also test it on my old computer with a ancient video card. If you want to send a piece to friends and family, not everyone has the supercomputers the people in the AM community have. Tweak with your eyes.
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I had a similar thing with 10.5 although it was for a single frame. I theorized that if I programmed in variation in size, at some point I would get a whopper streak. I just painted it out.
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Did you apply an enforcement key (zero%) at frame 10 by accident?
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What a fun project! The DC turned out great.
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Why the friendly folks at Hash will be glad to help you with that. Maybe try the enlightened marketing guy (Ken).
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Rather than using a set formula, scrub and watch the lips move on your model. Use a mirror and watch your own lips.
If you want an extreme pose you can't achieve with combinations of existing pose sliders, add a new pose.
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You probably should go to AM films to see the range of what is possible. To answer your questions directly;
1. & 3. AM is fairly intuitive to use. Prior experience with a paint program or a 3D CAD is helpful but certainly not mandatory. There is a fairly steep initial learning curve to get started and then you add skills as you practice.
A. Yes, good examples are this month's image winners
B. The video tutorials operate under the premise that you need to walk before you can run. Initially you need to build up your skill set. You will definitely build up to all new images/animations.
C. It's hard to calibrate what you mean by "halfway decent". Look at AM film and the image/animation contests and judge for yourself.
2. Yes, and A. Yes There is no magic, it is a lot of work and it even takes some talent but the software is capable of letting you be as good as you can make yourself.
3. Animation is like golf, an easy skill to learn enough to get started and can take a lifetime to master. Don't underestimate the work involved.
4. Calibrate your expectations here. The CG work for Shrek2, Finding Nemo, Spiderman 2 or your favorite movie cost between $500K-$1M per minute of screen film to produce. That included the planning, storyborarding, modeling, props, texturing, animation, rendering and everything else. A one man studio means you have to do it all. A year if you crank, maybe two for 20 minutes of GOOD film. If you can do 10 seconds in a week, you had a good week. AM is a great piece of software but not a miracle (until we get that make-dragon button).
I've been learning AM for two years, I'm a ways from GOOD.
MHO
B
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I don't think there is any one right way. A lot depends on you mesh and they extremes your are trying to achieve. I've used "How to Rig a Face" with Raf Anzovin and have been pleased with the result. The flaws are generally operator error.
This is an example of a character I rigged from scratch using the Raf technique. It uses a layed muscle pose approach. The only boned movement is the lower jaw opening and closing. It's an old video, you've seen it before.
There was an example of a bone rigged face with a round headed cartoon character not too long ago (I can't find the thread at the moment) that looked interesting. The example video showed a great range of expression. I'm sure someone will post the link.
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Yes, but you can lathe a vertical spline. That gives you a tube. Select the circle CPs that define one end and hit the delete key. Voila, your circle.
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It's not surprising they would target the porn industry for sell a NLE. It is surprising that they would let such a poor image be showcased. Any pornographer with $100K would know the difference. PU
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AM has evolved with a number of new features, for 2004 most notable a terrific new hair engine. You can look at the AM Films site for recent work as well as the Image and Animation Contest entrys for examples of the results of this evolution.
There is still a significant learning curve to getting started and it will takes some effort to learn before you will be able to tell your stories. There are now more resources to aid in learning, notably free video tutorials available on the Hash web site. The old e-mail list has evolved into this forum and nearly every topic gets visited once a month.You can search the forum on any topic or just ask you specific question.
As far as crashing goes, AM has become much more stable, however you still need to have you computer in tip-top shape to realize these improvements. Read the "It crashes all the time" thread on the FAQ forum for tips on optimizing you computer.
good luck!
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Try just dragging and dropping it into the PWS. You may need to reload AM.
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Excellent work everyone! Congratulations to John and all the winners.
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The new film on AM Films "Aesop's Council of Mice" by Matt Rasmussen is a composite.
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Pick your favorite action scene and use it for a rotoscope.
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I've had that happen, usually when there are several highly reflective surfaces with a low incidence angle. AM seems to get lost and it never seems to happen consistently on the same frame. Since it's not absolutely reproducable, I wasn't able to get support interested. Lowering the reflectivity seems to kill it.
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There is a run action file you can study or use on the Hash/Free Models/Actions web page.
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Generally I try not to translate a model in an action. For instance for a walk, I make the legs, body, arm, etc. actions in an action and then translate the model in the chor. That way I can make it cyclic and translate through multiple cycles. To answer your question directly, use the model bone.
For the Rabbit, go to the PWS and unhid the drivers (left most icon). Open the bones folder and under the hips target unhide the left thigh bone. Grab the bone and you are all set.
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I love the videos, great teasers. Were all three done in AM?
A couple of thoughts, I have a fairly fast internet connection, the download times seemed high. Are the videos compressed as well as the could be? It might be a barrier to exhaustive customer browsing. I don't really have a solution. It has been a irritation in general for me, the high quality videos that AM is capable may not become ubiquitous for widespread web downloading until optical fiber makes it the last mile.
Also rhetorically, business wise, can they afford such well produced animations for a large catalog of books? A couple of hundred new book titles a year will consume the equivalent of the output of Pixar and Disney combined
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Many things give you a big hit on render time and usually only when they are visible to the camera. You said "This is happening in only one of 3 cameras in the same scene, weird." What is uniquely visible in that shot. Look for:
Hair
particles (sprites or streaks)
complex materials
reflections
shadows
transparent objects
volumetric effects
look in the Options panel of the render to a file box and see if Reflection, Shadows. or Draw Particles/Hair is checked. If you don't need them turn them off.
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Yes, the sled Santa was supposed to look like he was racing on a rocket sled like the NASA photos from the 60's. It didn't turn out like the vision and I ran out of time. It wasn't like Chrismas would wait so I went with it as-is. The reindeer was the Hash dog model with antlers added and KeeKat's fur.
The whole piece was supposed to be a Far Side style Chrismas card video, sort of my first year as a Hasher final exam. It was probably a year too soon, V11 hair would have been very useful.
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Best wishes for a speedy recovery!
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Yes I know you are. The addition of AM Films, the additional resources for beginners, and now press reviews are superb! I imagine the sales graphs have a nice increasing positive slope.
"Writing" special effect
in (2003-2004)
Posted
Make your sprite emitter 100% transparent with an index of refraction of one.