ddustin

John, Interesting. Do you think there is a way to roll cloth? I regularly need to figure out how to roll and un-roll material. David

Chris, 1. Guess I missed that in your post. 2. It wasn't my intention to insult you, just give an explanation why animators, modellers and riggers were not beating a path to your door. 3. I post jobs in the help wanted forum where I pay for services and might get 9 or 10 applicants. 4. Your request for "photo-real creatures and environments" narrows the field significantly. Just words of advice, not a slap in the face. You can take or leave the advice. Attacking TWO is probably not a good idea either. Your choice. Have a good day. David

Chris, I think I replied the same way to your other post, but here goes. The only way you are going to get volunteers is if you find people meeting the requirements that have an interest in the story or stories of that genre. There are plenty of projects "out there" for people to invest their time in, most notably the TWO movie. The wolf-359 project (Star Trek Battle with the Borg) is an example of a certain type of project where people are willing to volunteer because they have an interest in it. Unfortunately there are few (few is my opinion, not substantiated by any statistical analysis) people thrilled with the "if we make money, you could make money" idea. Good luck. David

Very nice use of maps to show the details. There is some spline peaking visible in the nose area, that can be eliminated (or reduced) by tweaking the bias handles on them. Nice work. David

It's been a while since I posted anything in this area. Here is a clip of a case we have been working on for a long time. The Lawyer had to go off for military duty, so it was on hold. We were not happy with the vehicle interaction from the image perspective we had, so we decided to try a different image. Originally I had modeled the environment from a satellite photo and was able to use it for multiple views in Live action. It was a compromise all around. I decided to model the environment to suit the image, which results in strange looking modeled topography, but looks right in the final product, which leads us to where we are today. The lawyer is back from military duty and we are working on it again. The Accident Reconstructionist and I have a disagreement as to where the truck leaves the far right side of the road (he is on the wrong side of the road). The POI (Point of Impact) is known. The point the animation stops is the POI. I think it looks strange to get the truck over that far, that fast. On a positive note, the lighting looks good and the terrain matches the image (note how the truck comes from behind the hill and there is a mail box in front of it.) There is no driver in the vehicle. Once we agree on the truck path, we'll add the other car and then I get to make debris fly (my favorite part). Critique away ladies and gents!! David [attachmentid=20538] pd_9_14_06small.mpg

Robert, Excellent character work! Are you going to composite the background and interior of the vehicle or is the intention to have it spartan? Don't get me wrong I liked it a lot! Sometimes I miss the artistic sense of things (actually, most times). David

Persistence, determination etc. Talent helps a ton. You have guys like Stian that are modeling Icons in a very short amount of time (but I don't think he sleeps ). I have virtually no artistic talent, but am extremely determined to figure out how to do something. It has taken me about 9 or 10 years to get to where I am today. The curve has been steep at times, but bottom line is you just need to make up your mind to do it (IT is determined by you alone). Keep at it!! David

Dhar, I won't be able to show anything for a while, like maybe till after the case is settled. David I have looked at props but they are still heavy for the quantity we need. This will work with a little more tweaking. Nice sand and grass in that image David

Dhar, The problem comes in where you fly directly over a tree panel (4 patches, cookie cut decal, renders fast) or tree hair. The panels and hair have no depth so you see them as thin lines from overhead. We usually set up a null that some of the tree panels are constrained to aim-roll-at, to keep the illusion. This latest tree has depth to it, so we can fly right over it, looking down. The foliage material from A:M Enhance is what makes it work. I have thought about making a collage of leaves in a tga, with transparency to try as well, because that will render faster than a material. David

I have this thing for wanting realistic trees in my scenes. Ya'll can have your toony trees. We use a lot of panels with cookie cutter decals, and tree hair. A recent case we have is going to require us to fly down the road, past some trees so I thought I would make one using the treez plug-in. The problem was the high patch count and when you put hair leaves on it, My system would chug. So..... I make this tree which only has 700 patches, is 50 feet tall (leavea area a little large), and has leaves. I used the AM enhance Foliage material to create the leaves. It has a way to go but I like it so far. [attachmentid=20403] David

Eric, We had the same issue in a large industrial scene where we had a bunch of lights overhead to simulate factory lighting. In our particular case the render review was indicitive of the final render, so I just chalked it up to one of "those" things, and moved on. David

There were so many other magnificent moments in this piece, that I for one will not offer criticism. Stephen's work is awe inspiring, breath taking and glorious. He has poured his heart and soul into it, and deserves all the accolades we can throw at him. I guess if that means I'm a poor critic.... Oh well........ I'll just have to live with it. We struggle to show a character pushing a button or driving a car in a remotely realistic way and could never (I hate speaking in absolutes, but it is correct here) animate one scene as well as Stephen has his entire clip. Sorry if I sound upset, but this is an excellent work... David

Speaking of Chas.... Where has he been??

Very nice work Bjorn! It's been a while since we saw something from you (other than dissertations)

Excellent tute Will! I don't think I remember seeing that one before.

Been handed a fairly big project at work, so have less time for A:M, plus I'm working on something else in A:M as well... Fortunately, I'm not under any deadline since it's just something I'm putting together for my own eddification... Are you still planning on rendering out that UPS truck as a rotoscope? That way I have something to base my own on without using someone elses model... Was considering a 3DS object, especially since it won't need to animate, but thought I'd at least try modeling it... If you aren't going to animate it, a prop is OK, except it needs to have the doors open. Guess I forgot about the roto, sorry. Will try to do it today sometime. David

Not yet, but it's only a matter of time - I'm really impressed with some of the normal map work some people have produced here. What I mean't was the normal map plugin to make a normal map from geometry. I have fought with ways to create rolls of material that looked good. The normal map plugin worked very well. I created the geometry, made a normal material, rendered it out, then brough it back in as a normal map. David

Yes, and the bump (not normal) comes from the material - I should have exposed more of the various settings for the screen shot. Have you used the normal material plugin? I used it the other day and it worked great. David

Wiz, How are you coming on this? David

Very nice Stuart. Are you saying the normal map (assumption) on the rotor surface does not apply to the boolean hole (good thing I would think)? David

You are correct about the concussive force. I was going to show a secondary explosion under the saucer section, but ran out of the time I allowed myself to play with it. Donate it... Sure. All the explosions can be done in post. They could be layers that you combine in AE or using the A:M composite feature. I would think a couple of chunks flying at the camera would be really cool as well. I have been waiting to see what we could help out with, and explosions are something we like A LOT. David

[attachmentid=19973] Or like this... Excelsior_explode.mpg

Jody, I don't remember if it was in one of the books I read or where exactly I saw it, but I do remember something about animations booleans and unexpected results..... It might have been with a lot earlier version. Nice wireframe! David

Jody, If you use boleans, won't you see the inside of the rotor model? I had always heard that boleans created "unusual" results..... Very nice model BTW, can you post a wireframe? David

What is the end use? If it is going to be looked at closely, then you'll want to model it. If it will be viewed from a distance, you could use something called a transparency decal. A transparency decal is usually a black and white image. The black becomes transparent and the white is visible. You can create one in PhotoShop or even in AM. David