John Bigboote

Maybe an obj sequence export- or an MDD export. Both would eliminate all bones and constraints and each frame would be a separate file... I don't know if A:M would import it back in tho... gee- would be great have FBX as an option.

Yes- quite sure it can... my dilemma is- because I come from the A:M world, I have a very limited knowledge or ability at getting models in and out of A:M (primarily out) with textures intact... see- I don't even know if I expressing myself correctly...

UV's are a SERIOUS blidspot in my 3D abilities... I have been 'spoiled' by the ease of A:M decals. I really need to be able to get a hold on this concept as I am doing more and more A:M to Element3D or C4D workflows... didn't I see another feature in 3DCoat where you could quickly build-up a base shape thru some sort of 'blobbies' (nurbs?) that you could then use as a base to start sculping on?

And yet ANOTHER question! I see one of 3D Coats powerfull features is its RETOPO feature... why wouldn't you retopo in 3D coat instead of A:M then? Keeping to 4 and 5 sided poly's as you go...

AND- Do you use or recommend 3DCoat Pro or 3DCoat Amateur? 3DCoat Pro is $379 while Amateur is only $99...?

Ludo- is that gold image above the obj from 3DCoat or is it the retopo'd A:M model?

Thank-You for showing that... the 'on-location' is WAY cool! Is this a permanent museum installation? I like it!

RobCat's 'Al Capone' entry from a few years back is still one of my all-time favorites. Here are some wires of my entries. On the 'Mermaid' image- I regret not using the 'Ocean' plug-in to make a better looking water. The 'Owl' was done very quickly.

Contests are always great and breath a lot of life into our community and should be exploited to the masses for publicity via social-media. Other ideas? How about a 'RENDERING LOOP' animation contest? Winners get included into the V19 rendering module...?

Wow! I came in 33rd place? COOL! Congratulations, Dusan- love the Chicory and Coffee characters and story! WAY TO GO, Arthur! 1st place entry will look great on my V19 splashscreen! We would love to see some of your animations with this character! Great work on the contest, as always- JASON SIMONDS!

"It's like Walt Disney threw-up!" (quote from an old Woody Allen movie.)

Here are some samples of some of my camera trackings, for Belle Tire. These may at easy glance look like a simple track- but look closely you see the 'swim' I mention which is generated from multiple human hands controlling camera POV, zoom, and dolly position on the shoot. These shoots were fun, a crew of about 40-50 including talent and a big-time Detroit director named Dan Hackett calling the shots. After he would get the whole scene lit and choreographed and was ready to roll- he would call in his animation TD (me!) to agree all was fine and make changes as needed. BT_mocap samples.mp4

I have used an old copy of Synth-Eyes in the past... I have it on a CD and run it whenever I need to camera-track. SE has an A:M exporter which is pretty cool in that it makes an A:M project(or was it a chor...?) that you open and see a camera is animated and scene detail(tracking points) are represented as nulls (hundreds of them.) The 'not-so-great' part is that the orientation and scale of this camera/null setup is at some convoluted angle and size... but by taking A:M out of animate mode you can upscale and rotate to something that makes sense... and then as you populate the scene with your A:M models and apply the tracked footage as rotoscope you can see that it is working and adjust as needed, and having the cameras motion as keyframes is nice for tweeking/editing/deleting errant frames or 'off-tracks'. This IS a feature that modern, more supported softwares like C4D or modo are including nowadays, and even Adobe CC After Effects offers 2 effective solutions, AE's camera tracker and mocha is included too- tho neither will export to A:M. People I work with swear mocha is fantastic as a planar tracker, but I haven't had need for it yet beyond AE's tracker. A lot of the recent scenes I've had to do were dolly shots where a camera is on a track and manually moved east to west as a cameraman aims the camera interactively. This creates a mild 'swimming' action. I will animate the character with an approximate camera angle in A:M and then use AE's camera-tracker data to place it in the scene... and then roto and composite/color-correct as needed... and this has worked pretty well for me. I can post some samples of this workflow...

Very cool... we used to call these kind of things a 'kukalora' when I was doing things on a stage... (kookoo-laura) As I remember- we had lots of fun with that word. You could similarly do it the way we would do it back then... animated a sequence in AE or A:M with an alpha channel- place it in front of a klieg light as a layer... out of view of the camera. Then you could play with the kliegs settings for how 'in-focus' you want your effect. For underwater waves... I would go into After-Effects and use the turbulent noise effect- altho what Rob has going looks pretty danged good!

That video is way long... can you pinpoint at about what time the UVing in A:M happens?

Is there an image?

Hi Elm--- I had stopped using the MuHair shader... altho it gives a nice specular and 'pantene' shampoo-commercial look(and a nice rim lite.), sometimes it can be too much. Also- I found that when you activate Muhair or Kayija-Kay shaders, you lose the ability to set the 'BOW' setting in the Hair Emitter dialogue. My findings are that with a BOW of 0 (zero) I get a better collision-detection reaction. I go about getting specualrity the old fashioned way, crank it up in the Hair's surface dialogue, and it can be keyframed along the length of the hair this way... so less specular at the roots and ends... more in the body.

Man- your my hero! I have been stumped by UV's especially as I begin using A:M with other programs... if you are 100% working in A:M from start to render, decals are just fine. I appreciate any and ALL input on UVing and A:M.

WOW! Those are GREAT! 21 entries? Fantastic!

I'd love to see how it plays with a long-hair character!

Yee-Haw! I have my Thank-You email(s) Great work Jason!

I like it! Yeah, the hair is cool- you need to tell us how you did it!

I would be interested in your workflow- if you could elaborate. Pretty cool!

Wow! Very 'Pixar-esque' effect! RSMB is a paid plug-in for AE, right? EDIT_ Looks like it is $90 for basic or $150 for PRO V5... http://revisionfx.com/products/rsmb/after-effects/

very cool!