Simon Edmondson

Robert Thank You. What I want to do is to develop some maps to apply to my figures in Happy Families to age them a bit more and to vary the appearances of the faces. I've applied some hair maps I'm after giving them a few more wrinkles ! In other peoples models I've seen, they often have full face maps that appear to be shaped to the faces and applied separately ? regards simon

Following some feedback. I'm applying some more details to the hair areas of my figures. As you may have noticed, mapping is not one of my strengths. Is there a guide to the UV editor and how to us it available that someone could point me to ? thank you simon Working in V17 or V18

Rodney Thank you very much indeed for your detailed feedback. Very much appreciated. I won't answer your points just yet if thats OK (?) as I don't want to colour the thoughts of anyone else who might reply. I'm going to give it a few days to see what other feedback I get from the forum and elsewhere, before starting to readjust. The final scene will need a lot of work when the voices are rerecorded. The end credits will be the same house of cards but doing the thing that inevitably happens regards simon

Almost done. If you have the time, could you cast a critical eye at this and let me know what you think. The final scene is only blocked at the moment as I need to record the dialogue with the right voices. There is only one section with sound. What I would like to find out is, does it hold together visually,without the sound. The sound effects and dialogue will ( I hope ) complete it but I'd like the visuals to do most of the work. So, two questions a. What is the narrative storyline ? b. any errors or faults you can spot that I have missed ? Please be as critical as you feel necessary, don't worry about being negative or impolite. Thank you for your time. simon xhttps://vimeo.com/227532819 Password Fred77

Robert Thank you for your kind offer of help. I found a way round it by filling in the alpha with the same background colour as the cards. I think some of the anomolies are due to misalignment when applying them. I've got a revised version going through now. Regards simon

Working on an opening title sequence while a render goes through. Any critical feedback very welcome indeed. There is a curious problem with the decals. I used png files with a transparent background. Its not consistent. the same card render differently. As you can see, they render slightly differently during the sequence. In some frames, the background behind the letter is clear, in others the alpha channel shows as a tone ? Any suggestions ? simon Cards.mov

Thank you for your help Bobby. Much appreciated. regards simon Pardon my delayed reply, I've been caught up in all sorts of other stuff.

Robert. Thank you. I'm plugging away at the final scene, its going very slowly, hoping to have it at least blocked out by Sunday. The intention is to then post it here, and elsewhere, to see if the narrative coheres visually, before putting the sound to it. regards simon

I am still plugging away at it, honest ! This is a test for the patient monitor in the final scene in the ward after an operation. Trying to get the rest of the animation for this scene done by the end of this week (famous last words) S13 monitor.mov

Nice work Robert

Bobby Thank you. I have Blender but have barely used it. Robert mentioned a way to do it in AM so I was going to try that. I have done some composite work in AM before but not a lot. That's the character you used on your bike ride project isn't it, have you made a film with it ? regards simon

Bobby. Thank you very much for your help. regards simon

Bobby Gosh. Thank you very much. You got a lot better results than me ! I've not tried IBL. Do you know of a good guide for how to do it ? Its too late to try it for this project but I'd like to try it another time. Regards simon

Robert Thank you very much again, very much appreciated. I did try it yesterday, and had a lot of trouble with AM crashing and png files not 'parseing'. I got there eventually, but it was a bit exasperating on the way. I tried it in V18 to try to avoid problems when working normally in V17. Embedded all files as you suggested and followed the instructions you detailed. When I tried to render the test files, using png as the output format, they would render on screen and,when complete, if I closed the render window it would crash AM. Then, when opening the rendered file in photoshop, it flagged a warning saying, it"could not parse the file'. Tried several times, modifying the files accordingly, same result. It eventually worked when the output format was changed to .tga this is the PS'd composite. When rendered without OA this was the result Tried to modify the surface values, but without success. Tried the flat surface option, it worked but, was not the look I wanted. Went back to first settings and used AO which seemed to cure the bleached out look. Render times took a big hit though. Going to try another test. regards simon

Robert. Thank you for your feedback ,here and on FB. I tried the combined in one render but, for an unknown reason the Perry figure ( model modified from Jim Talbot's Sir Nigel model ) came out a lot darker than the other figures. I tried lots of things to even it up but, in the end, went with the composite method. I will have another look. You mention turning all the non toon parts to 0:0:0. Is that in the cho or on the model properties and does that include the two figures in standard render? regards simon

David Thank you for your feedback. I'm still very new to AO so thought to go with best quality for now. I can get on with other things while its working through too ! regards simon This is version with Toon rendered added. Do the wobbly lines distract too much May have to redo to get it right ? The wobbly likes are caused by erasing the 'not needed' toon parts in compositing but, its awkward to get consistent line placement over time. NHF S012A.mov

100 is so I get the best I can but, I can use the time to do other things. One thing I do like about computers is that, while they are doing the grunt work, you can get on with other things. A few years back, I had three machines rendering in the garden shed, while I animated in the living room. It was warmer in there than the house. The joke being I was working about 550 hours a week or more ! regards simon

Robert It seemed to happen when I was trying to do the combined styles in one render, Toon and Standard, when AO was selected, The curious part was that it affected one figure but didn;t seem to affect the other, female figure,. I'll use the render time length to have another look tomorrow. Its taking about 80 mins per frame at the moment.As AO is set to 100% regards simon

Robert Thank you again for your help and feedback. I tried the files you were kind enough to adapt for me. I loved the AO effect and may have to redo the whole thing to get visual consistency ( will leave that for later though) When I rendered them out I got this result. Tried to find out why the Perry figure came out so dark and, in the end decided to render them out as toon to be composited afterwards. Using the time to get on with working out what to do next. regards simon

A moment of oddness Not the intended look but, these are the bits to be composited in the final scene. simon NHF S12Toon.mov

Robert Thank you very much indeed for your help. Very much appreciated. I did post a reply earlier but it seems to be missing. The UK election must be getting to me. I'm trying to follow up with the AO and have written everything down, Digitally and by hand, just in case. I am a big fan of lighting and spend a lot of time watching that in films and TV shows, oftentimes more than the 'content' of the show or film itself. There is a danish TV show, known as "The Killing" in the UK, which was fascinating in that regard and the way it used colour. Although it was filmed in colour most of the scenes would have very little colour in them apart from that of the flesh of the actors, except for one item of intense colour. For example there was an interrogation scene were the main character is in a police room talking to a suspect. They are both dressed in blacks and greys, theres no colour in the room, except for a very Red fire extinquisher and an instruction sticker next to it on the wall. The Lighting was in a film noir style with sharp areas of shadow and light. The X files used to do a simiilar thing were the only colour was in Gillian Anderson's hair and Duchovney's suit. I'm hoping to do some stop frame work in coming weeks to play with lighting and models.. I'll stop there before getting too carried away. Thank you simon

Robert Thank you very much once again. That looks a lot better than mine. Much better sense of desolation. Could you send me the preset you used please ? I didn't know you could do that with the glass. A much better result. I modified the corridor to take out the doors and glass and did a render overnight but I much prefer the look you've got there. Thank you. regards simon Ps Could you remind me of how AO works. You told me a few months ago, I wrote it down but can't find my notes. Sorry about thtat

Gerald Thank you for your help. There is an option called Activity Monitor and that seems to suggest normal life. I followed up Robert's suggestion about render presets by using an earlier one that worked and, it seems to be working. At least, its not crashing. But, the shadows aren't so good. Will have to try some experimenting. Why would the render preset cause the program to crash when one model is included but not others ? regards simon

Robert Thank you very much indeed for your help. Here is the current preset. No multi pass. I'm beginning to wonder if its a hardware problem, but I'm not sufficiently tech savvy to know. regards simon NHF S12.pre