NancyGormezano

thanks for the comments y'all - Robcat: Yes the yarn is an image map - I'll give some thought about "unsquaring" the ends. I was thinking originally of going for the look of cut yarn - as if to suggest someone had actually "sewn/knit him up"... might try using two image maps for emitters so that the strands don't look so regular Johnl: Yes I'm starting to animate him - using dynamics so that the hair moves, as well as giving the red tie dynamic constraints as well - might have some tests to show manana - so far render times have been reasonable (20-30 secs/frame at 640x480) ... Still having problems with grooming - very tricky, scary, tedious - the old adage of 80% of the work takes place in 20% of the time is turning out to be very true of course...it's that remaining tweaky stuff that drives me crazy -

Needs mucho work - but I like the way it's progressing. Been playing around with creating a model with hair, and trying to get something that might have reasonable rendering times for animation - - so I've been keeping the density low (lower than I'd really like) - And hoo-Boy have I been struggling with the grooming (yikes what a spaghetti nest of string!), resorted to fakey lighting, shadows, 1 pass, etc... BUT this image at 640 x480 rendered in 37 secs! I could live with that...(I'm really really impatient) Will be working on cleaning up the face (too confusing - image wise) - fixing the bald spots... comments welcome

Well Beam me up Shaggy Boy !! I always think there's a use for the stuff you do (well... almost always). So just what are you doing there? I like the effect.

I love the drip - beautiful reflections, colors, nice composition, interesting to look at - one thing that bothers me is that the end of the brush with the paint on it (where there is no paint) needs to have a more "bristley" look to be more consistent with the rest of the brush - also there's something funny about how perfect the concentric circles in the paint are - would prefer to see it slightly less regular, maybe slightly off center ?- nice work

Thanks so much John for investigating, at least I know it's not just me - I also came to the conclusion of doing the same workaround for controlling length of hair in a non-linear fashion

Hi John - I downloaded your project & cornc.mov - and was playing around with it - I found I was not able to set the frame number for the cornc.mov movie (or even a simple tga sequence) so that I could choose the length of the hair in a fashion other than straight thru from beginning to end. In other words, I found that I could animate a regular "color" decal (using either a movie, or tga sequence) and could select the frame # in any order I wanted. eg frame no# 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 3, 2, 1 of the movie etc and it would play fine. However when i tried to animate the sequence and use it as a property controlling the length of the hair that the animation (eg cornc.mov) would only play from start to end - could never get it to go in reverse or out of sequence - it would just stay on the last frame - Have you had any luck with doing this for hair?

That's fantastic John! - I love it - I've always wanted to do some "growth" type thingies - thanks for all your ideas (again & again - you provide inspiration)

Excellent transition, works really well - also love the colored lights - How are you doing that

that is one super gorgeous caterpillar - and wonderful motion - love the coloring, and modeling - very appealing

good, fun stuff - excellent mood - draws me in and makes me want to know more about what happens next...

Hi - (Disclaimer: I always prefer stylized, expressionistic or impressionistic images so take the following as a subjective opinion on the backdrop) I actually prefer the oddness of the first backdrop to the second, as it seems more interesting. By oddness I mean the unexpected color - it casts a different mood & suggests a different time of day, (but with perhaps a bit of unwanted pollution in the air?). The blue gradient backdrop suggests a happy, noon time, but is almost a cliche. Perhaps a tad bit more purple? turquoise jewel? in the blue to keep it happy, rather than the greenish cast as in the first eg. like I said - just a personal biased opinion - and only you know the mood you want to create - Nancy

another...

no not me, the only reason I dedicated my animation (Bop the Bozo) to him was that he was coincidently thinking about buying AM and being super active in the forum when I was working on it ... thought he might need some coaxing...however I do live near the wonderkid Zach! - I feel so so old ...

Curlie- q's (huh?) - too tired tonite to figure out different shape trees, and render in chor problem - but wanted to play with leaf images

Now crazy fruit (so excited - hit the wrong button)

crazy fruit

try again - this time jpg (duh!)

me too, me too! (not able to render in chor unfortunately - go boom) Wisteria type wisteria.tga

That is the most amazing, fascinating site - I have added it to my list of favorites... Incredible work! beautiful! Such depth..I could just gush on & on - what a valuable web resource...Thanks so much..Nancy

Thanks y'all for the comments. Glad you enjoyed it. Always a surprise to hear how "twisted" I come across ... I forget that when I'm sitting here, eyes aglow , possessed by the dark spirits I just know are lurking in my computer, ... (could be the reason they don't let me out all that often?)... Nancy

Here's an animation exercise I did to familiarize myself with ver 10.5 - (after coming from 8.5) - boy did I have a lot of habits to break - still needs work - but time to move on - hope you find it amusing...Nancy http://www.intercad-inc.com/nancy/bopthebozo.htm

Thanks Stephen for the reply, and that wonderfully thoughtful, helpful & very understandable description of your technique for working with props/action objects. Lots of very good info. Especially new idea to me was about applying the constraints late in the animating process. Boy am I dealing with this. And boy am I dealing with transferring control without "jumps". Yikes. When I get a bit further, and some courage, perhaps I'll post my wip Since I last posted - I had discovered my silliness by not also using the Orient like constraint as well as translate to (duh - didn't think I needed it as I wasn't trying to change orientation of prop) - and found out what was causing (as well as solution) to some of the problem with using successive actions with the same prop, however there are still problems with using more than 1 action with same prop in the chor, and so I have resorted to just starting a new chor - bit of a pain having to setup the end of the entire scene keyframes into the beginning of the new scene. (wish there was some automatic Command: - like "Start new chor with this frame for all active components") As for animating in an action versus chor for non-repetitive activities, I had developed a habit of setting my keyposes in the action, checking the in-betweening, but not being real picky about the timing. I would then use the ease channel for the action in the chor to work on the more precise timing of the action - lazy way - that way I'm mostly dealing with only 1 channel for the actor, and it's easier to coordinate with the action of other actors in the scene. Also I find it very difficult to animate in the chor with the splines/images of all the other cameras, lights, ground plane, & other actors getting in the way of my view (even using front, side, etc), not to mention it's seems to have a more sluggish computer response, - just found it less distracting and more fluid in the action window. But I should probably rethink my lazy ways... Again thank you so much for your response, I have read & re-read it many times as it contains very relevant, and helpful info for me (and anyone else, I suspect, trying to work with props) - Nancy

Must add my cheers: Absolutely Terrific work! both the model and animation, very, very envious of you both - And now please, please share some technique about animating with props. I am having the most difficult time (ver 10.5o, PC) with action objects and having them stayed "glued" to the character's hand motion - I am doing something very similar with a character trying to hold something in both hands while walking or doing other things (coincindently also trying to manipulate paper as well as other objects). I have tried 1) action object translated to a hand bone, with compensation, without compensation, 2) having the hand bones translated to bones in the prop, again compensate, no compensate. In all cases the prop/hands seem to drift apart with motion, and I end up having to re-position constantly. And it doesn't look all that convincing (as yours is brilliant). Stephen, What is your technique for animating? Do you work in the chor with the prop or in an action? and how did you get them to stay so attached? Did you use kinematic constraints? as well? Another problem I am having is that if I create 2 different actions each containing the same prop, and then drag to the chor, the prop disappears in the 2nd action! Huh? wha? Anyone else experiencing this? Please share the secrets... Thanks - Nancy

Ooo Ooo ... My turn... Just figured out how to EASILY get my character Models on a flat white background, where the groundplane only shows the shadows of the models - without doing shadow buffers, alpha buffers, and recompositing in another program: In the Chor - 1) make the Camera have a Rotoscope that is a plain White square (or any color or any image of your choice) 2) Make the ground plane model be a Front projection Target, Flat shaded, and accept shadows (do NOT say shadows only) Render away, et Voila ! The trick seems to be the ground plane has to be front projection target ... if you just set flat shaded - no shadows show up on the ground. Oh I am sooooo happy. (or perhaps I'm so simple minded, that it took me so long to figure this out with all the bewildering array of options) Nancy

Hi - oh yes - I like like it alot also - very cute - love the background, love the models, color scheme some suggestions, composition wise: the far tree is confusing, appears to be part of the front tree - maybe move it a bit? to break illusion, or change color to darker?, or change camera angle some?. separate the bug a bit more from the background, his silohouette(sp?) gets a bit lost. perhaps add some more foreground interest, or items on tall hill (smaller plants, bugs,)- for some side activities extraneous to the story... "hot spot on mushroom" is a bit shiny, maybe tone down the specularity? As I said very cute..thanks for posting - Nancy