NancyGormezano

MUY Cutetilicious! Um...I meant...That would be nice if I wasn't so sophisticated.

I like your cow! Tres Mooovalous!

Thanks people! I very much appreciate your comments. Sorta. I couldn't find an email on their website to contact them (The Cataracs). They have a facebook page (actually a gazillion fan facebook pages). I did manage to post something at what I believe to be their official page. Talenthouse.com seems to be just a clearing house for all sorts of contest "invites", but they had an email, so I asked them to pass my link to the band. I'm actually relieved that I didn't get to enter, as their requirements for the final product delivery also seemed quite complicated and a lot of work. I didn't expect to win either, as the band is more "edgy and young", and I suspect cutesy, chubby little dollies bouncing around doesn't fit their image. There was something flaky about the whole "contest" thing. At first the prize was advertised to be $1000 gift certificate for Apple products, then it was $1000 on an American Express card. I know I saw a due date of dec 1, at one time (but also specified that it should be in 48 hrs prior). On the 28th I went back to their site and the date had been changed to nov 27. Gak. That's funny, because they are stars! backgrounds courtesy of stealing images from NASA. (HEY! the stars belong to everyone...don't they?...just cause they have that ol' hubble thing...pshaw...my tax dollars...) Those terrific newtonian perfect bouncing lights were a variation on a project that XTAZ (Marcos Rezende) had posted awhile back that I rendered in A:M and then composited in AfterEffects. No there isn't a longer version. I had run out of steam & interest for doing anything longer with this dance routine. A one minute music clip was just about right to get me to "done".

Ok. I needed to get my animation that I had started 1 year ago, off my plate so that I could move on. (Gawd. ONE YEAR AGO???...Are you serious?) One month ago, I noticed there was a music video contest advertised on Talenthouse.com, sponsored by the band The Cataracs, in which they were inviting people to animate to their little ditty "Undercover". The music "sorta" fit with Ida & Lothario's already started dance routine. The music clip was only 1 minute long. I had 45 secs or so already done. I missed the entry date by 1 day (confoooosion on my part, very confooosing due date for their contest which only got 6? entries). Boo Hiss Lame. BUT the VERY good part is that this greased me back into animating, and learning some more (especially with Aftereffects). And even more fortunately, I procrastinated for 2 weeks. So that I really only spent 2 weeks in finishing this. Compression is REALLY crappy. But here is the link to what would have been "final" (as of today): http://vimeo.com/32855337 EDIT: added a still as it looked straight from A:M, then result after AE effects added (screen capture)

d=(gt**2)/2 where d = distance traveled t= time (seconds) g= gravity constant (or acceleration rate) = 32 feet/second squared so no matter what, any object (on the earth) will travel if dropped from any height (no forward velocity), after n secs: 0 sec, distance traveled = 0 feet 1 sec, distance = 16 feet 2 sec, distance = 64 feet 3 sec, distance = 144 feet etc In the non-cartoon universe: How far the object bounces after falling that height depends on the material of the object (eg rubber versus brick), the material of the object it impacts, friction, and initial forward velocity (EDITorial: Use Newton, note the curves it produces if you want strict earthly realism. Otherwise make that bouncy-ball do a dance!)

What good are toons if you can't beat something up and have it live to tell the tale? LOVE IT!

YES - "It's got silly" & "It's got entertaining" tooo! That's more reasons why works so well. I agree: Excellent analysis! Thanks for providing a good checklist for any animation. I'm filing that post to my "animation tips" folder.

That's probably why. Thanks again.

Thanks Mark for taking a look. Even after I set all those drivers in that particular chor back to 0, I still had the problem. I started playing with another chor, and I had the same problem (this chor never had any sound file, and was always resetting to a different length). The problem only went away finally when I fixed my ground plane model (an external file) by deleting that weird null reference to drivers in the model itself.

Okey Dokey. Here's the poop: I had a corrupted ground plane model (had some drivers? null driver? embedded in the model) and somehow the chor length was being determined by the data in this corrupted model. After I fixed that ground plane model (deleted the empty driver) - the chor now will change length as it should. Whew. I don't know how the groundplane got corrupted. Very weird.

I have also found that I cannot change (shorten) a chor length in a chor that never had any sound in it. It seems that there is some setting somewhere that is permanently embedded in the chor file that it uses to get the length. And it seems to stick with the longest length it ever was. Anyone have any ideas as to where to look to get it to reset back to something shorter? I have deleted all keyframes other than at frame 0 for everything. Or at least I think I have. After deleting all keyframes, drivers, etc for everything past frame 0, I save the chor (not project). Then I do new/project, import chor. And the chor length is back to the original long length.

I have a choreography that at one time had a sound file in it (approx 1600 frames worth) I deleted the sound file from chor I deleted all keyframes from the chor - so that the only key frames are on frame 0 and frame 180ish I want to use this chor as a starting chor for subsequent chors as it contains starting models, camera, lights, render settings, etc. I add a new sound file (about 180 frames), change the starting chor length to be 180. I save this chor. When I restart A:M and bring this chor back into A:M, the chor length is still 1600? But there is no sound file, no keyframes past 180. I need to be able to save the chor length correctly in each of my subsequent chors, because each will be of a different length (much less than 1600), and I need the chor to have the correct length because baking hair, newton etc all use the chor length. YUCK. I can not find where it is being set in the text file for the chor? Does anyone know how to edit this? thanks. (32 bit 16b PC, win xp pro) EDIT: I've uploaded the chor file only (no models, etc). Perhaps someone could look at it in a Text editor to show me where the length is being set. I would be very thankful. Chorwithwronglength.zip

Happy Birthday and Many, many, many, many, many more!

FABULOUS! (as usual) great look, characters, & humor!

Can you upload the project? (embed all) - That would be the fastest way to tell why it might not be working.

I like her "Slavic, Germanic" imperfect ideal look. That's what makes her more believable to me. Asymmetry in the modeling, texturing also helps to boost realism.

Another link to explore, which is probably more recent (things have changed a bit) is Holmes' excellent tutorial on light buffers

Well done! One of the better, realistic human heads that I've seen done with A:M. Has a "warmer" feel than most. In general I like the coloring, but the face texturing is a bit strange on the left cheek. I'll assume you're not finished.

I also prefer working with and saving chors. Primarily because I prefer to have more control over saving my individual tweaks and variations on materials, models, actions, chors. I do not like working with projects because when you save a project, it saves everything that has been changed (yikes!). I do lots of tweaking, testing of different combos, and it can be a disaster if I accidently save the project, and I'm not yet satisfied with some component of the project. I save my materials, models, actions, and chors all in separate files, and I will increment and save with a new variation number of the material, model, action, chor (in that order) only when I am really happy with the individual components tweak. I never embed anything while still developing. I might embed all when I am done and want to archive the project in a frozen state.

wonderful!

Perhaps you didn't see my post? or my explanation above your response didn't make sense ? EDIT: OK - I see you didn't see my response - also you don't need to define the relationship between the control bones and the geometry bones as it is already defined for you in the basic setup relationships

The 2001 rig has the same finger setup as the rabbit's. To illustrate, I've unhidden the finger geometry bones for the rabbit's index finger. You would assign cps to your character's finger geometry bones in a similar way as the rabbit's. The control bones are used to "curl" and rotate the fingers, as it's easier than having to animate the individual geometry bones. This is defined in the basic setup relationship, by setting up an "orient like" relationship of the individual "joints" to the control bone.

Congrats!

More good story telling. You must be having a lot of fun with these.

Nice test. I especially like the leopard spots.