NancyGormezano

If you have decaled your "clipping model" already, then make the "clipping model" front projected (in model options) - and use a camera rotoscope that is all one color, ie the clipping color, or your background color. It will render the model in the background color. EDIT: also make it flat shaded = ON, and recieve shadows = OFF If you haven't decaled, materialed your clipping object, make it the clipping color, and make it flat shaded (in model options)

For the least amount of hand monkeying, and frustration with CFA, try to not have hooks or 5 point patches involving the center or "flip" spline. You will most likely have to fix up those areas manually if you do have them.

I'd like rooftop #25. I am assuming one can use the whole outdoor set as well, as long as one doesn't violate camera pov "as seen from Stewart's room" - can be either zoomed in with binocs or wide angle. I won't do a quickie. I don't really think it's necessary. It will all fit together. There are going to be a zillion styles of characters, situations (ok ..maybe not a zillion, but a few), and if THAT can fit together, editing it together won't be all that big a deal. Eventually will need to know render size, render settings, due date. I intend to render the set once from whatever pov, render size, camera settings, and then use that as a front projected rotoscope onto the buildings. I will not use Ambiant Occlusion for rendering (takes tooo long), but will use fakeao. Everybody's a prima donna. Including me.

Whoa - loved it - very fun to see the timelapse! I would have cheated with using already constructed beveled primitives for some of the parts, and still wouldn't have been able to do it in less than 1 hour, I'm guessing. Now waiting for someone to do the 14 minute (or less) rigging time lapse video (TSM2?) or better yet, the 2008 rig (30 minute? by Mark or ??).

The decal container determines how each of the patches gets mapped to the images (3D to 2D, or xyz to uv coordinates) - the mapping type algorythm can be planar, cylindrical, spherical Each image in any decal container can be a different type, but uses the same mapping as the decal container. The types are color, bump, spec size, etc, etc. You can have multiple images of all the same type, with varying percentages. The last image in the container will take preference if you have, for example, 3 color images, all at 100% Every time you apply the decal container to some patches, you get a new stamp. (All the image types in that container get applied with that stamp) You can stamp a patch with multiple decal containers, each having a different mapping type. The last decal applied will take precedence. So eg, you could decal the dress patches first using cylindrical mapping to cover all the surfaces for a general material color, texture (bump, etc). And then apply another decal, a planar type to just those patches that might need some special detail. The order would be to apply the cylindrical first, then the planar.

The strip that appears without a decal is because ..uh...no decal has been applied to those patches, or more likely was inadvertently removed from those patches. Gala is an old, old model, and the old girl has been around the A:M block many times. Oh yes. My guess is that all the version changes have not been kind to her. If you select one of the patches that appears to be without a decal using the patch select tool (purple thing), and then right click on that patch/remove decals...you will see that no decals are assigned to those patches. You will have to redecal the dress, ie reapply the "pea"? decal (not sure which one). In ver16b, I do not get the option to recall the position for that decal container (planar, looks like the dress was flattened). However you may be able to hide everything but the undecaled strip, with careful positioning, and stamp with the pea container. If you can't get it to your liking, you may have to reflatten the dress, and reapply the map. For a dress like that, if you don't want to go the flatten route, I would suggest use cylindrical mapping, rather than planar, and all patches will get covered easily

I had never heard of any of these before! The first idea that one comes up with (for anything) is usually the most obvious, and not usually the most creative. Demonstrates again to me how imperative it is to brainstorm (by oneself or with coworkers) with as many alternatives as possible, no matter what creative "art" field, or type of technological development one is doing.

I find your "Alice" idea interesting. Who is your target audience? What genre fits it best? Takes place when? where? How much are you interweaving/departing from the original story once you get into Wonderland? There isn't much info. Since it is more developed, are you ready for people to help you flesh it out further? Sounds like you would rather not. At first glance, and given the minimal information, and my biases, I could imagine it firstly as a sophisticated live action film, not aimed at children, and in the thriller/mystery genre. Not necessarily in the Victorian era, nor in England (even tho I'm a sucker for those times, places). I imagine it with lots of character development, slowly, sitting on the edge of seat revealed, and that "Wonderland" & the Chesire cat are hallucinations, metaphors. Wonderland is the world to which Anna retreats because of it's familiarity, and is the mechanism that Anna's doctor (perhaps the Chesire cat) uses to get her to come to terms with whatever awful thing happened, or is about to happen. Perhaps Alice is really evil in this flick? Or Alice has gone missing & is being held hostage in some sicko's "Wonderland"? Or is it an absurd, Albert gorey-ish, sexy animated comedy for college boys with Angelina Jolie look-alikes wielding swords and light sabers battling Jabberwockies? Ogre & Donkey sidekick slapstick for old people? (sure, right). Political satire for the intelligensia? Or a series of twisted tales, aimed to scare the beejeebers outta 5 year olds? Ok Political satire scares everyone. If you get to a point where you feel you really do have a potential live action film script (or even full length animated feature script). I suggest having a look at Amazon Studios. You never know. They are into buying scripts, awarding money in contests, producing films. They may not produce your flick (very long shot), and if they do, they may not produce it how you envisioned it, in the style, nor even how you might recognize it. But you'll get feedback, and the potential for way more big BUCKS (monthly contests), than most other venues. Better than leaving it in a drawer. If I could write a full length film script, that's what I would do. I don't need to say it, but I will: Story is king.

lovely!

I like that!

Wonderful new feature! Well done tutorial! Will make it easier in creating paths for animating models, or special effects moving across rugged, irregular terrain or contours of other models. Love it. Sure to open up many new, yet to be thought of uses. EDIT: Another possibility is to use a "rough 3D roto/proxy model", ie 3D roto built in A:M, composed of unconnected spheres & simple shapes, and then use that to create a more detailed connected spline model.

Maybe they had a special thing going for their horses (the manes)? Love the helmet

terrific style of presentation Matt. Well done! Hmmm...even tho there are still glitches...I thought the reason one might want to use retopo is to make it easier to remodel something done in another app but with hash spline topology. Usually way less dense than other systems? I do not travel back & forth between apps...so I may be missing the point. Would not one want to lay out spline rings for "holes" and allow for 5 pointers? Or is the objective to not have 5 pointers?

In my TechRef (hard copy - real bound book) there is a description of soft body dynamics which describes the "Spring System" (p 181-185). A spring system is created by rt clicking (in chor or action) and choosing new/spring system (consists of springs and masses), of which somehow one constrains a mass to a bone and the bones to springs (use the construction tools that show when in Spring mode). I can create masses, I do not seem to be able to create springs. It also goes on to say "One can also create a spring system by using the Cloth Wizard " (do not think this still exists?). In tech ref - also says "springs/masses" can supply secondary motion to ...pony tails, jowl skin, ear rings, ear lobes, tubby bellies, etc. I would say this system has been superceded by both SIMCLOTH and dynamic constraints - both are much more straight forward to use.

I think they are talking about Cloth there, not real Soft-body Dynamics. Cloth has been used to simulate such things, but it is really not the same thing... That may be referring to the old "spring" system which no longer exists. It had "cloth" settings, and could have been used for other things as well. It worked by associating springs and bones. I never really played with it all that much as it was quite complicated, but the cloth settings worked well enough. Here's Thom as a young butterfly with "spring" type cloth

It's part of the waitress uniform at the cafe

Wonderful! Terrific artwork at your site.

Try playing with FakeAO. It's a very very good alternative to AO with very very fast rendering (adds almost no time). But not sure how well it plays with SSS. It has a different look than AO, but is quite remarkable.

Looks nice, but obviously if you're intending on doing any SSS or shimmer-glitter-glitz, you'll need some lights as well.

Excellent. Love the wings

I like your "hills" matt! And the new animate warning as well!

Ah yesss! of course...silly me.

Oooo..I like! (but I did not recognize?)

nice wispy cloud effects!

A:M creates an alpha channel when you go to render, only if the file type allows it and you have the option turned on (avi does not allow for alpha; tga, png, mov, openexr file types do. I don't think bmp has an alpha channel, but A:M seems to think it does) go to camera/output/buffers The alpha info is included in the file. For each file type it is different how it is stored. In general, the alpha channel contains just values of gray to indicate the opacity of the color data (rgb) channels. All white in the alpha channel data indicates 100% opaque, and all black is 100% transparent. a value inbetween 255 - 0 indicates the percent opaque, eg 128 = 50% opaque. A:M creates opacity data for all models rendered to 2D pixels that occlude the default empty background or camera "sky" area. So if all models occlude the sky, then the alpha channel would be all white. If nothing was rendered then the channel would be all black (empty)