NancyGormezano

yup - Rodney pointed to some great images for walking up stairs - the one that instantly jumped out to me was the Muybridge reference

I agree. My feeling is that there is no need for bus to stop, nor for the transition to be long (use motion blur). I also think the clip/set doesn't have to start nor end empty either. difbus.mov

terrific

You need to select "Save As" and navigate to some folder/location on your hard drive. "Save" is trying to save it in the original location on the CD (which is not possible)

Sounds like a wonderful idea! Kill 2 parrots with 1 comic schtick!

Try not using porcelaine material - I believe macs had a problem with that at one time? Model loads for me as well (PC)

I will guess that you would have to turn ON "cast shadows" for the ground plane as well - I'm guessing that the sign may have had only single thickness?

turn on "show bias handles" - the yellow icon thingy next to the world globe thingy

I had to download file first to my HD then I could play it with QT.

Excellent!

Holey Moley!

I believe at one time you stated that you had "The Animators Survival Kit" by Richard Williams? (If not - you should). starting on page 36 (of my edition) is a wonderful introduction to the bouncing ball - and the concepts of spacing and timing. EDIT: Holmes beat me to it

I didn't think that you would be doing all the sets, I thought each participant could do their own, by starting with the one you've done and modify rotos, restyle bench if wanted, add other props. And given what you have, could probably still do that. I wasn't thinking that it required any effort by you. The bus stop could have a sci fi look, abstract, or impressionist, slum style, primitive stone age cave man bus stop look, etc. Any number of looks. The transition could be part of the animation, if desired. You just know John will want to blow something up. The bus transition could still be a cut/fadein/out. I thought that this was being edited together externally. On the other hand by ONLY using 1 fixed set, and it being a story about a particular bus stop, one could still have all sorts of weird and not weird goings on, and the characters could bring their own props.

Very nice set - might be good for the ground to also have a modeled curb in the event character wants to step up/down. Is there a reason why the bus stop has to be the same for each animation? Is there some reason that the background roto couldn't change? as well as the bench, basket, sign, time of day, lighting, render style etc. If the set doesn't change, then its a story about what happens at a particular bus stop. If the set does change it's a story about a journey.

terrific!

Terrific! Chock full of good information presented in a clear, easy to follow way with excellent explanations as to WHY things are done the way they are. Gives a very good foundation for building onto. Bravo!

Fabulous imagery ! very much looking forward to seeing this

Congrats! - Looks like an incredible amount of work - love your characters! very interesting. IMO, the final rendering style (color, textures, lighting) detracts from your wonderful model style. It has an unfinished feel/look for me. But color is very subjective. For next one, if you don't want to bother on lighting, color balance, schemes, texturing, perhaps you might play with a semi-toonish rendering style, perhaps in black and white ? or a monochromatic scheme? Could do something in post processing. It would have a unique look, that might be more consistent with your stylized models, and be more forgiving with less polished animation style as well. You could always add splashes of color (eg rainbow, ruby slippers) for emphasis, surprise. Congrats again to both of you!

Looks good & muddy! The animals are very appealing

Looks terrific - very clever with the luminaires to get specular highlights without lights, & using soft reflections and AO. I must try this. Was it trial and error to determine the placement of the luminaires? or something else ? I notice on the first image (left iphone) I see a line. Is that from the edge of luminaire? It is a little confusing. Did you try a kleig that ONLY has spec ON and not find it satisfactory?

I like the glowing faeries ... and I really admire you for plugging away and having a story to tell Are the glowing faeries supposed to loose their glow so abruptly? That was a little confusing. That looked like a blip in rendering, rather than on purpose? Maybe gradually decrease/increase glow, if on purpose First (2nd, 3rd) time thru, I didn't realize, despite the dialog, that the branch grew into a log because of poor contrast in the log and mucky water. Pehaps change color a little on branch so it is more obvious? When the other guys came in, they walked on the water. Should they be walking on the log? Keep on keepin on!

Trust us - it will! Make sure after you have the decal on your model - that you render with AO = 0.

Nothing wrong with those settings. Looks good. I use: PC win xp pro - core2duo 3.2ghz with 4 gb ram - A:M 15j+ I've never used a Mac - I believe those with Macs do have slower render times. But that seems excessively slow. 2 mins versus 20? especially for such a simple model. If your scene also has other elements - it will only get worse. I believe others report faster renders if they run A:M using a windows OS on the mac. Then they go on to mumbo jumbo something about bootcamp, parallels, tiger, leopard, Himalayan spotted Lynx...Also seems related to mac OS, and which version. Someone more knowledgeable will chime in, I'm sure... If you can't get more reasonable render times for yourself using AO - then you may have to resort to a scheme with z buffered shadows, and/or other trickery. EDIT: here is where to input RGB values - either expand diffuse color, use sliders - or click on color square and input values directly in dialog box

YES you are right - in 15j+ there seems to be a change from previous versions where the processing gets distributed differently - it use to be that it did add more time - I'm doing a 5 pass now - and it looks like it will take approximately the same amount of time as a 1 pass - woo hooooo! just done - 2 mins 8 secs - 5 pass

Definitely for testing: render at smaller sizes - I just edited my previous post because I just noticed that you were rendering at 1280 x 720