fae_alba

I have wondered if ad inserts into a short would be viable. You know something like "Oh no my space toilet is plugged" "Try ACME DECLOGGER for all your space toilet needs!" (character grins stupidly at the camera)

Let me re-phrase my last statement but the budgeting estimate issue. It's not really a simple padding of the estimate just to squeeze another buck from the client. It's a estimate born from experience, that no matter how well you estimate, something will invariably come along to blow that number out of the water. A lot of it is the "everyone wants to be an art director" as Largento points out. I could be fairly comfortable with the knowledge that I can complete project "x" in 2 hours, but I also know that when a happily deliver the product, the stakeholder is going to say "that's not what I wanted". So I build that in. Now, also understand that in my world, we bill hourly, for hours worked, not on a fixed price contract (those are considered evil to my consultant ilk) like is being posed here, so perhaps it might not be entirely appropriate a model to use. But the premise is is that a budget needs to take into account somewhat of the unknown. Otherwise you will always come in with a project that is late and over budget. so let's draw this out further: Let's say, as above that we have the concept guy, the modeler and the rigger. They cost us as follows (let's presume that this includes benefits, perks, payroll etc.) concept guy: 10 plunks/hr modeler: 15 plunks/hr rigger: 17 plunks/hr we are going to design, model, and rig one character, and we feel that the concept guy will need 2 hrs, the modeler is going to need 10 hrs, and the rigger needs 5 hrs (all arbitrary of course) that gives us a cost of: concept guy: 2 hrs @ 10 plunks/hr = 1 bazooza modeler: 10 hrs @ 15 plunks/hr = 7.5 bazoozas rigger: 5 hrs @ 17 plunks/hr = 3.75 bazoozas total cost = 12.25 bazoozas. Now as a business, we have determined that we need to make 1.5 times the employees rate per hr worked for each employee in order to keep the lights on. This means that we would quote a cost to the client of concept guy: 2 hrs @ 10 plunks/hr = 20plunks * 1.5 = 30 plunks = 1.5 bazoozas modeler: 10 hrs @ 15 plunks/hr = 150 plunks * 1.5 = 11.25 bazoozas rigger: 5 hrs @ 17 plunks/hr = 85 plunks * 1.5 = 4.25 bazoozas total bid = 17 bazoozas You could view the 1.5 margin as my guestimate bump, since it represents the uplift required to keep things going. A different way to look at it, but I think it means the same thing.

Rodney, you know better than to "assume"! my estimating "bump" if purely an arbitrary "consulatant-ese" number based on years of hard experience! You can use whatever number you want, the point is to budget and plan for the need for the extra time and money.

I can just imagine a wizard/witch reaching out to take a drink from that cup (I see a cup/goblet instead of a vase).

Welcome to the wild and wooly world of project management! Rodney you are right that, in a RAD environment those three tasks could work to a 1:1:1 ratio. And yes, when budgeting you have to consider that the more technical the job skills, the harder it gets to find someone to satisfy those skills, the more expensive they become. From a management side, you have to be able to get more for less (true in all industries), and being able to build a "team spirit" where everyone feels vested in the project will encourage team members to work harder, smarter, faster, and in time perhaps reduce the cost of the project. Also, all the budgeting in the world won't be of any good if the manager is not up to the task of actually managing. My point, is that the exercise of budgeting is really in my mind a best guess. In my world of estimating how much time it would take to code an app is usually the amount of time I think it'll take times 1.65 percent. Building a pad in the guess-timate gives room for that worst case scenario.

Now my first inclination is to go heavier on the modeling and rigging, since the results become the assets of the production. Any mistakes in either results in more time wasted downstream, and lost bazoozas. Of course, if I were to apply this to my forte of software design, the most important aspect of any project is the requirements phase, which defines anything and everything needed to complete the project, and would equate to the Conceptual Design phase here. However, there is another approach of design called RAD, or rapid application design, which is a method of creating an application in stages, with each stage the user sees what is done, then defines the criteria for the next phase. For here that would equate to model, tweek, model some more, until satisfied with the result. I tend to work in this manner. So...with that in mind, I'd distribute my bazoozas in this way: - Conceptual Designs: 2 - Modeling: 4 - Rigging: 4

that's the point of these group projects! Good to hear our madness is paying off.

Heydee ho!

Seriously? Someone else nutty enough to live in Small-Bany??? I'm in Scotia...lovely little Scotia. Actually, I'm in Mt. Marion, about 5 minutes from Woodstock, about 10 from Kingston. I figured Albany might be more recognizable as an overall region. Google maps says I'm about an hour S. of you. Google Maps has been wrong before, though. straight up the thruway...sounds about right..

Nancy, Guilt by association, I always say!

Seriously? Someone else nutty enough to live in Small-Bany??? I'm in Scotia...lovely little Scotia.

I need to second that question....what the hell happened???? And to John, women are always that good looking regardless of when they are from (at least to me!)

you've got plenty of time! get to it.

then your best bet is to only expose the section you are working on. After doing many roofs like yours, I've learned the hard way that no matter how good you are in tarping and tieing down those tarps, a good storm with strong winds will still get under those tarps and ruin the plaster underneath.

3 tarps. Place one down first down the middle, the remaining two for the major coverage that overlap over the first. So if there is a leak where the second two are there is enough coverage from the first to keep the house dry. like so.

So... in collaboration with robcat, I am setting the new and improved deadline for Rear Window submissions to be (drum roll please) September 30, 2012. Plenty of time for those who really really wanted to submit one but thought the couldn't because of time..plenty of time to finish those projects already started.. This is the last extension...promise!

Thanks guys for the good wishes! Planning on doing some splining on my day off, sitting on the back deck an occasional dip in the ol' hot tub...and then when the time is right, a nice bottle of Scotch!

email sent

Let us know when you make it to pupa!

can we have a roll call on were every stands with their projects?

So it works. This is a quick clip with the effect I was looking for. This is from a submission to a video contest from the tech conference I just attended in Orlando. It was meant as a spoof on the CEO of the software company sponsoring the conference (its his image on the cardboard cutout). The intention was for participants to use the cutout to show their daily lives using the software product, much like a traveling gnome sort of thing. I of course had to be different and use A:M to do it. Sad to say it didn't make the grade since it wasn't what they were looking for. But anyway, here is the clip. glow.mov

I can only add my sorrow for your loss...

the difference is that you have the glow property set to off on the model and a group with nothing but the glow property set to on. I had set everything in a group, which didn't work. Setting up my model like yours I can get it to glow. But the last issue with this is how can this then be animated? I can't see how you can access a models group properties from a chor. Thoughts?

Can't give too many specifics since I'm at work right now but I thought I'd get this out there... I was working on a scene last night (v16.0b 64 bit) and had a model with only one group, with the glow surface property set to on. If I do a screen render in the model window the model glows quite nicely. If I drop that model into a chor and render to an avi file, there is sadly no glowing. Anyone know of a quick workaround? What I'm working on doesn't need fancy dancy solutions,is a quick down and dirty bit for the tech conference I'm attending so I'm perfectly willing to lit it slide, but glowing things look nicer than non-glowing so if I could get it to work, I'd be a happy camper.

I'm not close to being done either, but I was waiting for someone else to ask first. I hereby move that we extend the deadline by a month! How about it, Paul? I've already gotten the sense that the deadline was going to slip...too many great things being worked on for it not to. I myself am in the final stages of preparation of a tech conference I'm attending in Orlando the first week of June (anyone nearby look me up at the Gaylord Palms!), so all of me attentions has been spent on preparing an hour long tech presentation. After I get back from that we'll do a status check on where everybody else on their projects and what the next "real" deadline will be. Keep working folks, and fear not the train won't leave the station without you (yet!).