John Bigboote

Was there bump/displacement maps involved... all that intricate detail in her hat is polygonal?

Do you mean FBX plug-in is to be updated thru Lumberyard... or thru A:M...? If A:M is going to be supporting FBX... well- HUZZAH!!! That's big news!

It would be GREAT to update them. OR- add your own!

APPLAUSE! I like the long-form that internet commercials allow...30 seconds is too short. That is a great usage of A:M... I take it you comped the characters onto the background in AfterEffects? Wow- nice A:M Hair usage... and cloth dynamics on the dress! I loved it, and am off to go watch it again and again! This should be linked to on the A:M Facebook and social medias

I've found other features, like DOF... need a preset in order to carry-over to NetRender. This sounds like a disconnect between the Lens-Flare in A:M and NR, needing a bug report. For the record, A:M's Lens-Flare options and ease-of-use are industry-leading!

Great ad- love the car in the bkgd... is this by the guy who did the Janzen swimsuit ads? In case anyone is wondering- the woman in the image is asking the man 'Where is your swimsuit?'...

I was thinking the other day... like ya doooo.... As Americans we all should know the Amendments to the Constitution. As Christians we all should know the 10 Commandments. As Animators we all should know- BY HEART... the 12 Principles of Animation. I would like to think it would be a question interviewers would ask when hiring prospective animators. I need to memorize this. Thanks for posting, John.

This is one of those 'restart A:M' instances... so- drag the wav into the choreography- Save- close A:M... Open A:M... open the project... audio should play. This has been MY experience at least.

Rodger, it is a process that inevitably leads to animation... pleeeease! (I love it!)

What is the drawback for character work? Here is an example of how I am using A:M E3D... doing an awards show presentation graphics(yawn) and the award calls for a 'gold crown'... clients had nothing designed. I googled 'crown' and one of the 1st images was an ideal design. Using it as reference, in A:M I modelled it and exported as an obj. Import that into AE/E3D and apply a gold texture and adjust the physical attributes, lighting, AO etc. I am working at 1920 X1080 on a fast PC... not going to say it renders 'real-time' but it renders pretty durn close to real time... I just rendered a :10 test loop, it took :14 to render- and that is WITH all the extra compositing and glitzy layers and filters I added in AE... AS FAR AS CHARACTER stuff... I dunno- I guess I say that mostly because I have not tried it too much yet. There would be the issue of exporting the obj sequence... replacing all textures... I am spoiled by A:M, ever try to adjust lights or camera in AE??? It is a terrible, terrible interface. Maybe I'll give it a try again.

I've had some success modelling and animating in AM and exporting obj sequences to Element 3D which lives within After Effects... E3D is a gpu processor... very swift, great effects like SSS and DOF... works great for motion graphics, not so much for character stuff.

Very interesting. Several years ago Vern was making headway in A:M on a ragdoll physics system, and then he disappeared! This guy is taking it even further... Here's an interesting animation with a 'softbody-boneless' human ragdoll: http://sploid.gizmodo.com/seeing-naked-cgi-bodies-fall-on-top-of-each-other-is-so-1753943668?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_facebook&utm_source=gizmodo_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow mildly NSFW

Here's how I formulate the flow for that Superbowl animation, scribble-board!

Another trick I like to do when using the toon shader -rendering to an alpha... in After Effects use the 'Simple Choker' filter with a negative setting to create a thicker outline around the characters shape.

Thanks! Almost 12,000 views for that on Facebook!

Here's another: This one to promote Jet's SuperBowl 'CrunchDown Dance' contest. Features in this include: -Volumetric light above the stadium to emulate light, fog, smoke... -Patch image animation in the stands to emulate a stylized moving crowd... -Tom (A:M Mascot) with a football helmet (found in Contributors Cue) as opposing team players and referees... -BVH Dance action from Mr. Bones for end-zone dance action (I could NEVER animate that!) -Trapcode Particular in After Effects for confetti -Music and sound-effects from Youtube Royalty-Free collection (Clients LOVED the bowling-pin sound effect, funny- you do all this work and one little sound-effect takes the cake!) JetMan_SUPERBOWL_small.mov

I should mention that effect was done in After Effects with the Trapcode Particular Plug-In... Thanks!

I needed a 'cupid' character for my animation idea for Jet's Pizza... didn't have a lot of time. Was considering 2D 'hack' animation... I scribbled a design on paper and noticed my baby Cupid was mostly drawn with circles... which in 3D relate to SPHERES! So I 'sphered' together a very quick baby model, and after adding some details- had a good Cupid. Since I knew the actions I needed were quite limited (shoot an arrow) 13 bones were all I used to throw an impromptu rig for animating him. I am growing fond of using the Gradient material when toon shading, here I placed one on his wings. These Jet's animations I am hoping will continue to come... they wanted 2 for Valentines Day to promote their Heart Shaped Pizza. I have done 5 in all now, and all can be seen on Facebook by searching Jet's Pizza, then videos. The producer I am working with is pushing using animation in the TV commercials- we'll see. There is no budget for audio, so I am raiding the Youtube Royalty Free Music/Audio collection... which is a great resource and grows regularly. ( https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music ) I cut music to length and add sound effects as needed in After Effects. This entire animation took 6 hours to produce. YAY A:M! HSP_Asmall.mov

Good advice. However- REALLY DUMB question... What is a preview icon?

Once in a while as versions pass by and computers and OS's get faster I like to retry AO to see if the render time has improved. First, I made a regular AO image by setting the Choreography to a white Global Ambiance at 80% and the AO to 100% (a lesser % may have rendered faster!) and the result took 1:40 but was quite nice AO. Then I went about recreating that using SSAO and took a while to get the settings right (the default settings give very little AO effect.) The default SSAO took :03 seconds but once I cranked-up to get a 'pushed' AO effect final render time was :20 seconds.

FUN! Great work, William! Question; Do you use any sort of AO in your renders?

Good-looking NOOSE! I am always surprised and a little nervous when I see how well our forum makes weapons!

There is also the Darktree 'simple rope' and 'rope pot' (whatever that is...) material that makes a nice rope texture.

Funny. I suppose since she is so symmetric with her hands that it means she uses both sides of her brain equally...? Terrible placement for the teleprompter... makes me miss the days when a speech giver would hold a piece of paper. I've been noticing a lot of 'hand gesturing' with the Presidential debates... Bernie Sanders hand gestures are hilarious and highly repetitive, but endearing. If you sped-up the Mary Barra video she would look like one of the backup singers behind Diana Ross... BTW- I went to High School with Mrs. Barra at Waterford Mott circa 1980...

Like!