NancyGormezano

Thanks peeps - I can not take credit for the original models: The HippoGyraf was used on TWO - originally designed and modeled by Will Sutton, rigged by David Simmons (not sure if also by Mark Skodacek). The Squetchy Ball was by Robert Holmen, for the 1st "Pass the Ball". I've just re-textured and re-hairyized the HG to become "Gung-Ho Fat Boy". For now, I've played with the "ripple waves", and tested out soft reflections on ball. Also changed lighting some (to color white, AI - 50%, instead of from Image). Rodney - I played with moving the camera back - but I prefer it up closer for now. TNT - Yes, I did ballet as a young-un - gave it up when I went to college. It has never left my soul. This clip rendered at 4 pass, 24fps, 1 level reflectivity, soft reflections at 20% quality - total render time = 46 minutes (122 frames, 432x243). Ave 22 secs/frame, ranged from 6-38 secs/frame. Used QTpro to compress to medium mpeg4, double the resolution, and slow the fps LoopSloMedDblsiznormalspeedsize4pass0.mov

Rendered with 1 pass final, at half size, no compression, 121 frames at 24 fps, hair, transparency, 1 level reflection, IBL, AI = 50%, 1 zbuff light. (2-4 secs frame render time). Then slowed animation down using QT pro to 1/2 speed (doubles number of frames), doubled the resolution to 864 x 486, mpeg4 medium quality. hipwatercomp9slo.mov

Mebbe (see Robcat's ball) - depends on how picky you are, and how you want ball to deform. You can always just use the scale manipulator in the chor to fake it.

Wow - thanks y'all for the new comments - much appreciated. Steve - glad you found the documentation on Hair - Do you still need info? I would say I identify more with Bette Midler or Phyliss Diller - rather than the one-and-only Ms. Meticulously & Tastefully Subdued - but now that Big Martha is out of the slammer ...Who knows? Maybe she picked up some creative new tips on making do from the gals... Speaking of Phyliss Diller - here's 2 versions of a Hippogyraf Makeover - that I'm considering using for interacting with Orkerella, as well as maybe having a cameo appearance in "pass the ball". It's a great model (designed, modeled by Will Sutton, rigged by David Simmons). ps. I notice Dagooos also felt the model was a fun one to use. He did a terrific job of animating (as he always does) Here's the scale:

There are many ways to make a ball go squishy-squashy. Here is a squetchy ball that Robcat did at one time. I don't think he would mind me uploading it. At least I hope so. It's a good one to study. Essentially there are 2 poses - 1) to set the pivot point for the squetch action and 2) to do the squetch (using expressions). But I think your idea of trying to figure it out for yourself and let others tag along with you is a good one - so don't peek if that's really what you want to do. Squetchyballver15.mdl

Lotsa very good fun! Great song too. Yee haw!

cute little guy - nicely done - definitely looks like a young-un

I agree with Largento - It worked fine with all different balls - don't limit yourself so much. It doesn't have to be about character animation either - one might choose to do a newton chain reaction simulation initiated by the incoming ball, exploding balls, fireballs, liquid balls, blob balls, flock balls, music note balls, ball lightning, lens flare balls, kitty hair balls and on and on... Last time (2005 - yikes was it that long ago?) there were only 15-16 participants with 21? clips final - people say they're going to participate, and then drop out. I would guess more people would finish if it's just done for fun, and accomodates the interest, skill level of each participant.

I don't think limiting the ball to one choice is necessary (or desireable) - Why would one would want to limit it? I thought it worked very well in the previous effort when the only restrictions were a time limit (5 secs?), frame rate (24 fps) and frame size (720x486 then) and that ball entered from anywhere left and exited right. In between, the sky's the limit. And submit as many clips as you wanted. Use whatever ball you wanted - could transform it within the clip. Stringing together, ordering of the clips, and soundtrack was added later by Will. People could use sound effects if desired (some were left in, others not). No clip was rejected. Even Seven's. One clip got lost accidently. That allowed very interesting combos and interpretations - seemed to work well.

The palette in my home decor uses the subdued tones found in thick layers of "dust" and early pre-rococo dumpster diving. I would prefer the image contest to be called "Clean Nancy's House". Actually - Under the dust - the floors, furniture, walls are white, neutral lights - Color, patterns comes from my paintings (those that aren't stuffed under beds), as well as primitive sculptures, artifacts, fabrics brought back from Africa, Indonesia, South & Central America, etc. OH Yeah, it's colorful. My flower garden also tends toward the riotous, overgrown, overplanted, colorful and wild look. And lawd knows, what kind of esoteric concoction of food I might try and feed unsuspecting guests. Funny...most people are busy when I invite them over...wonder why?... There's 2 different hair materials used: 1) the feathers on the main body/legs of the Ork is driven by a color decal. The varying of lengths and direction combing were done in grooming mode. There is no image emitter (tho - I've tried a variety of images that could also be interesting to use) 2) the feathers on the top of head, wings, tail - all use same hair material - but with 3 different image emitters. All direction, length combing done in grooming mode. Density, lengths and thicknesses were modified in the instance data for the material at the group level, as well as image to use. Although no decal drives the different colors for these - I have done variations where I also use a decal to vary the color of the image emitter. One can get very interesting results.

fun character ! Great for a first. His arms may be a little short, and typically arms/hands are modeled palms down - as it makes it easier to install one of the standard rigs floating around (I think?)

Good golly good goat! Nice modeling. But currently he doesn't look that young - I'm at a lost as to what to suggest to make him appear younger. How young do you want him?. Will have to see the proportions of head/body. Perhaps then he'll look younger. Maybe he needs rounder, fuller face? shorter snout? to look young kiddish.

Weird. I'm wondering did you bring this in from another project? dif version of A:M? Have multiple windows (chor, action) open when modeling? Gerry - phantom folders haven't happened to everyone - but it pops/popped up in some form or another on TWO, SO on occasion. Shelton - Glasses on character look good, he looks like a more thoughtful character - the whole personality changed from how he looked before - I thought he was going to be a schmarmy type guy - now he looks more like a genuine nice mild mannered guy (clark kentish) The image with glasses looks good, but it looks very dark to me (I thought? my monitor was calibrated)...how are you rendering this?

Thanks Peeps - Your comments warm my hardened heart. Thanks John - (John's just thankful he can't recognize his face underneath all those feathers) Steve - Yes, this is done in 15e Myron - L'Orkerella is the current leading contender for "Fairy Tales Can Come True". I've an audition tape of her singing the theme song, recorded last year sometime, done in the key of Bwack Bwack Bwaaaaack.

Your character's face has great personality - if you want to get away from realism a bit - you might consider stylizing the body as well - using exaggerated proportions - eg - skinnier legs, hips or more giant muscles, or longer torso or etc...something unreal which communicates the personality, intelligence, in a caricatured way. As for the ghost groups thing - it's a mystery to most of us - we've all? seen something like it it in various forms. Perhaps ? Delete all the phantom group folders, delete chor. Then save your models immediately (separately - not embedded) - close then restart A:M - bring models back in..still there?

It's been a long long time since I've posted any personal work - and I have now started re-fooling around (got my ver 15 back - woo hoo - me happy camper) - Here's the start of a character that I will probably use in one of the short animations I have in mind to do. The character is a modified Ork model being used in Scarecrow of Oz - designed by Alain Desroucher, modeled by Ken Heslip, rigged by Mark Skodacek, modified, textured, feathered by me. it's not finished. My intent with doing a sequence of short hopefully humorous vignettes is to develop & loosen up my animation style, and get a better grasp on short (1-5 minute) story telling via pantomime, or minimum dialog ... This is just a TEST to see how well hair/feathers will hold up with dynamic constraints on body parts (ver 15e) - This test doesn't have any shadows (2 secs/frame) - but I've been getting really good frame times - 10 secs a frame (4 passes with shadows) on other tests that I've run on this fluffy character. I think L'Orkerella/Orkerello is cute. But she/he's tricky to animate with backward bending legs. Don't watch if ya don't like cute and colorful, rough & dirty dancing animation. OrkerellaLow.mov

wow - that dead guy is gorey goodilicious !

bravo Robert - very clever

Good catch! Jesse

Yah. for an attention grabber - it works well. It communicates POWER. My one critique/thought - which doesn't matter given the intent of the video - is that it feels/looks "composited" - ie flat, with obvious layers - but well done in a stylistic way.

Sweeper is now a standard plug-in of A:M - (you've been in MAC land for way tooooo long, or smoking too much aspartame) In your model 1) create a path 2) create a shape - name the group 3) select path - right click - plugins/wizards/sweeper 4) select shape group to sweep - set other options & bam! For more details: Sweep Me Baby, Sweep me now

Sorry - Will this do? YooHooToob

Oooo...that's looking terrific - perhaps if you want to make him look fiercer, you might see what he looks like if you show more gum ?

EXCELLENT

The color is supposed to show thru - the bump map just makes ...er... bumps - based on the greyscale values - black is indent, white is raised - neutral gray - no bump