luckbat

Should you ever decide to do a tutorial of the modeling of this car, you'll make a lot of people very happy.

Oh, no worries, I've got a thick skin. I used "the truth hurts" with a dual meaning in this case, referring mainly to my being caught slacking on the hip bone, but also to your redressing of Dhar's remarks. That should help with distribution, but I don't expect it'll get me funding, though.

It's excellent, though the arm movement feels a bit exaggerated for a touch-sensitive panel. She really stabbed at that door button, too. I'd expect to see a much larger weight shift than the one you've got now. Unless Rose took very small steps to reach the control pad, then turned 90 degrees, stopped, and hit the button, I would expect her to be in mid-stride beside the pad, rather than behind it, when the lights go down. (Unless she needs to read all the buttons, but I assume she doesn't.)

"Ebon: Chapter 1" is likely to be about 6-7 minutes in length, so that works out nicely. I'll be launching that project as soon as I'm done with this one. I still stand by my original assertion that a grim, violent cartoon like Ebon would be all but impossible to sell in the U.S.--not that that's going to stop me from working on it.

Yeowch. The truth hurts. This is so untrue it makes me want to laugh. If one does not have a particular market in mind for a project, and/or are not willing to throw one's self into marketing it, the only place it will ever show will be the creator's living room. Just because you put something out on the market, does not mean that folks will flock to it. More than likely they'll never know it exists. I wasn't going to say anything, not wishing to seem ungracious, but yeah, that's pretty much the way it is. My best-case scenario for Ebon would basically consist of giving episodes away for free on the internet, then maybe selling a few dozen DVDs if it gets popular enough. It's never going to air on TV, and Universal is not going to be buying the rights to make the film version starring Thandie Newton as Ebon. On the plus side, my living room can hold a lot of people. I thought I was. Alonso even complimented me on them. Where's Robcat? He'll sort this out. Agh, busted. I slacked off on animating Monk's waist bone on account of the tight camera framing, but clearly I was fooling no one but myself. Nailed! That's putting it mildly. The hands, like the faces, are for the most part un-keyframed. (I really wanted to get something up on New Year's Day, so...) You and Dearmad seem to be in agreement on this one. Actually, I was thinking they'd curl into a fist during the latter half of the pull. I guess I'll have to try it both ways, and see. Easy enough. Hmm. I just assumed his forearms would kinda bounce off the wall after the impact, but I'll give it a shot. Thanks for being so thorough, Smudge!

That's very kind of you, Slipin. Believe me, nothing would make me happier than being able to turn Ebon into a team effort. For the time being, I'm going to focus on completing this current piece and using it to build interest, though I don't think there's much of a market for non-kids-oriented animation in this country. Once this short is done (I'm guessing around April or so), I'll be posting more information about the expanded Ebon project, and making a pitch for advice and assistance from my fellow Hashers. Thanks for your support, and thanks for slogging through the whole thread!

Quickie update of the previous clip. Here's what's new: 1. Monk now maintains his grip on Ebon's arm for a few frames longer before she pulls free. 2. When kicked, Monk's head snaps downward one frame later. The difference is nearly imperceptible, but I think it's an improvement. 3. I left Monk's hand in an open position as he goes down. More dramatic, no? 4. I added some extra shadowing as Monk hits the wall. This helps anchor him in space a little better. 5. I blended a small bit of a discarded SimCloth simulation into the main cloak choreography. This causes the cloak to billow upwards at the moment of impact, which helps keep Ebon's leg visible longer, and also helps "sell" the kick's power. I haven't yet tried Dearmad's suggestion of speeding up the grab motion, but it's on my list. Shot_12_take_2.mov

http://www.hash.com/htmlHelp/v12.0/v120/composite.htm

It's under Surface -> Diffuse Color.

Background color is set in the Camera properties. But it doesn't make sense to use that for color-keying when you can just use alpha channels.

Colin-- You've seen this thread, right? http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&sh...ndpost&p=119045

Yeah, it's pretty quick. What's supposed to be occurring is: Monk gets Ebon in an armlock, then shifts his left hand to her right arm. Ebon jerks backward, smashing her right shoulder into his chest, She then just as quickly pulls forward, twisting herself around to get into a good kicking position. Monk maintains his right-hand grip as long as he can, but once his arm reaches full extension, he's forced to let go. While I was stepping through the sequence just now, I realized that I missed a contraint glitch on Monk's right IK hand, which makes it look like he simply lets go for no reason. I'm going to re-keyframe this part and hope that it makes the movement easier to read. Stay tuned. It seems like .avi and .mp4 files aren't allowed as attachments anymore. Fortunately, I kept ShaoGuee's original file and have replaced the missing .avi with a new .mov version. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Unfortunately, the other wayward clips may be gone for good, unless Hash still has them. I'll try e-mailing them to see what's up. Yeah, conveying the force of the throw is a delicate balance. (Kattkieru told me he wanted to see impact craters and flying debris!) Any human thrown against a brick wall with enough force to visibly damage the wall is probably not going to be standing back up any time soon, if ever. And yet, I agree that the impact still needs a little "zing." To be honest, since the tiles are simply a decal, I don't know exactly how to distress the wall in the first place. I'm open to any suggestions. Thanks. Right now, the cloak is being lit by the same light as Ebon is, but that leaves it mostly in shadow. When I have more time, I'd like to create a separate light just for the cloak, so I can bring out a bit more detail.

Not to worry. On the finished costume design, they slip into sheathes sewn into the back of the cloak. I'll never stop. This piece is giving me a serious workout, but it's making me a better animator.

Man! Did I really think I'd be done with this project by the end of the year? It didn't seem so unreasonable at the time. Two minutes, six months, what's the problem? The problem, as established in previous posts, was the cloak. Even Pixar knew better than to give The Incredibles capes, but noooooo, I thought I could handle it. Well, guess what? It's been two and a half months since my last post, and all I've got to show for it are five seconds of new stuff. Five. Seconds. To be fair, it wasn't all a nightmare carnival of SimCloth simulation horrors. I did learn some great new techniques along the way. I finally switched to using low-res proxies for my animation, which sped things up considerably. Not because of the improved framerates (although those are nice too), but because the lack of character detail forces me to focus on movement and movement alone. And this next clip is all about the movement. Sure, it's pretty rough. I've done minimal facial/hand animation, and I still have a lot of pass-throughs to iron out. The umbrellas have been temporarily hidden, and volumetrics have been disabled for rendering speed. But I wanted to get something up by the end of the year, so this is it. Enjoy. [attachmentid=12819] Oh, and it won't be two months before the next five-second clip. I promise. shot_12.mov

What do you mean by a group? Like, a Texas-based A:M user group? If you're asking how you can change your own avatar title, you'll need to reach 200 posts for that.

Showoffs.

Looks like you're an 'Apprentice' to me.

You guys are the greatest. That is one of the best A:M animations I've seen. P.S. Dynamic constraints rule!

All right, but you knew what I meant.

I've heard that shadows on hair is a huge render hit. Let us know how it turns out.

Assuming your machine is not, in fact, 320Ghz, could you re-post that processor speed? If it's 3.20Ghz, then 15fps would seem to be a bit on the slow side. If it's 320Mhz, then 15fps is quite reasonable, as Robcat said.

That does indeed sound extremely slow. But it all depends on what you're rendering. Volumetrics? Elaborate lighting? Reflections? Materials? Hair/particles? If the answer is 'no,' it's possible you may be using one or more of these without realizing it. As a test, try turning off shadows, particles and reflections in your render settings to see if that helps. If it doesn't, you may need to post the project file for others to take a look at.

If it's a valid spline, you can select it by clicking on it, and then remove it by hitting 'K.'

Do you know anywhere I can get the special glasses?

Thanks, Rodney. I'll do my best to live up to your expectations. Hmm. Do you mean the whole animation, or just a still?