Bendytoons

In the Image property of the decal (in the PWS)you can explicitly keyframe the start and end times of the animated map. Just set a key for frame one at the frame of animation you want it to start playing, and a key for the last frame an appropriate number of frames ahead.

faster expansion, heavier dust, faster dissapation dust10.mov

faster expansion. Movie has the full cycle dust8.mov

Paul & Ken, thanks for comments. Now it is darker, bigger, faster, and differently whirly. Michael- I am trying to avoid volumetrics as much as possible. They are costlier, less contollable, and more prone to look "computery". If I can get the look using spriticles, I think that's the way to go. oh, and tgas are now in the zip dust11.zip dust6.mov

This is fx work I'm doing for TWO, but I wanted to post in the general forum as well to get feedback and share the knowledge. dust.mov dust7.zip

check the forces in the sprite system as well as the ones in the chor.

Is anyone else who has downloaded this having problems with it? I cannot get it to relaod properly, nor can I get it recreated. I tried in v13 and any attempt to tweak fall off of the flock results in a "circularity found" warning. and if I try removing the action from the flock any subsequent attempt to pick that action results in "error #12" danger, danger. I'm puttng rain on hold for a bit while I see if I can figure the flocking issues.

The splashes will not be affected by motion blur. This is because there are five frames of action with nothing between, so frame 65.33 is identical to frame 65 and frame 65.99. Actually the render I posted used was render with a 5 or 3 frame multipass. It blurs the streaks, shadows, and horizon, but not the splashes.

You should be able to suss it out pretty quick by looking at the file, but here's a quick description: 1. The rain streaks are just a Streak particle system. Actually two streak systems. One has a small amount of bounce, and the other is set to die on impact. These systems create all the streaks and all the little streaky bounces. 2. The drops hitting the chair are a flock system. The members of the flock are basically sprites, but I built the model. It is a square patch with a seven frame animated splash cycle. The version I posted actually uses a 90 frame cycle where all the frames but five are black, I later realized you need only one black frame at each end. I created an action for the splash which waits 85 frames and then runs thru the sprite cycle in six. You must show all properties when animating the action because you are animating the Frame setting of the image that is decaled onto the splash sprite, and it is normally hidden. I dropped that action onto the shortcut to splash under the particle system and set the max action offset to 85. Now the flock members animate at random intervals over the full 90 frames. Don't forget to turn all the forces in the flock system and the choreography off. Otherwise the flock will fly away. I turned the Y force to -100 in the streak system so the rain would still fall down. That's it. I think the key here is that the splashes sell the rain drops and vice versa. You see the action of rain falling and you see the action of splashes, and your brain ties it all together into a complete action even though they are unrelated. Ben

I made it invisible. Just click the little eye icon next to it in the pws and you should see it again. The file doesn't work n 13 for me either, and when I try to adjust settings I get a series of realtime rendering errors.

I'm in 12s. I'll try again and report it if it's still repeatable. Thanks

I'm working on rain, and came up with what seemed a clever solution. the rain is streaks, and the splashes on the chair are a flock of rain drops. After much frustration I finally got it working...until I closed and reopened the file. Now only one drop in the flock shows up. I know flocking has been a source of frustration to others, but anyone have advice. Is this just not a playable feature right now? Also anyone ever get Flock Surface constraint to work? I am attaching movie and file rain.mov Rain.zip

That is beautiful.

That's really clever. Are you using a material effector linked to the bucket? Nice start on the effect, btw.

Vern- just that short clip and my internal radio is playing "Powerhouse", pounded out on a xylaphone.

Since the A:M plug-in is based on the Newton Game Dynamics engine, you might take a look at the resources on thier Webpage Though these are not A:M specific, they are Newton specific. The Forum includes a tips and tricks from the masters.

Looks great. Feels heavier. Nice blur.

Nice run cycle. It looks to me like you might bump the whole arm cycle ahead just a frame or two. I had to go double check my Muybridge, but it looks like the arms should just slightly proceed the legs, as if providing the initial thrust. From what I can see you've got them timed exactly with the legs. Also, he is so bulky up top I expect a little more up and down action as his legs react to all that mass. Just my 2c. Ben

...grabs conch shell, with a slightly mad, luddite look... One of my favorite animation tools is..a Dry Erase Marker. You can make any sort of reference line or notation directly on the viewplane (monitor), and "delete it" with the flick of a wrist. ..long live the analog... puts shell down.

I think he's great, but I think the neck is too long and wide for the torso. It is scaled about right for the head, but my take on "bighead" characters is that the neck is more a body part than a head part. 2c Ben

This is nice animation, but I think this looks like a walk because biomechanically it is a walk. The basic mechanical difference between a walk and a run is that a run includes a period where neither foot is in contact with the ground. It's a little hard to tell from the animation, but either you have no airborne frame or just a single one that gets lost.

More fun with bvh. Here's a couple of mo-cap tests. Dance, monkey, dance Monkey in the wind