fae_alba

So I've come up with a basic plan . I want to break this up into four small clips, each building on each other. Play one each week until the whole story is told on Christmas Eve. The first is a simple outdoors scene of the north pole, with a blizzard brewing. A couple of challenges already encountered; 1) the look I'm going for is the big storm scenes from Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. With gusts of wind making swirls of snow. I've got a sprite snow storm, with a force making a wind, which works to a point. But I'm lacking those gusts and swirls that I am looking for. 2) Also, in the clip below the workshop has two candy cane pillars. I wanted to decal them to have the swirling stripe like the north pole, but every time I add the same decal to them the stripes end up being horizontal. Annoying to say the least! blizzard_test.mov

John, Thanks! The house was built in 1902, and shows every year of its age, But it's home. I need to come up with a story line before I find this project spiraling out of control and never getting done. I have to keep reminding myself that the reason why the halloween one worked is that it was composed specifically to be viewed through a window, adding a sense of "realism" . So the challenge is to do something that looks like it belongs on a porch. Mark: thanks for the link, I'll check them out for future reference, but I really really want this to be an A:M project.

Trying to find some stock models. At one,point I thought there was a Santa and sleigh kicking around, but can't seem to pin them down. If I can bang Out two or three couple minute animations it ought to make a good show. I'd really love to synchronize a couple of projectors and screens, but I don't have a show controller so maybe next year.

This past halloween I on a whim did a display in my office window using a back projection screen (I never do anything for halloween, but this was fun!). We had crowds of people stopping on the sidewalk to watch a series of 4 videos (purchased from amazon). It got me to thinking that Christmas. My front porch wraps around the side, and would be the perfect place to do this, with the screen between the pillars Instead of shelling out hard earned dollars for someone else's animations, I thought I'd put A:M to work and do my own. This is a first pass of a christmas tree being unveiled by a flying spark. My goal is to match the opening from DIsney of Tinker Bell flying. test_A.avi

I ran into the same issue when working on my entry into the summer contest. Had to clean up the sprite image then tweak the emitter settings. I'd have to go back and check the project file (in sitting in an airport right now) to remember exactly what I had to change though.

Try using an action. Don't know if it will work but worth experimenting. I assemble a lot of my complex props this way.

A slow week for work, plus some boring nights in hotel rooms Got me over the finish line. I even learned a few things along the way, so i am already a winner!

You'll have a tough go against mine!

I think that's a good explanation! Forced perspective. That's how most (not all) buildings in the Magic Kingdom were built (Town Hall was not built that way because it needed to be full size in order to avoid visitors from seeing the Contemporary resort from Main Street.

Here's a character that is so new that the paint is still wet on it! I pulled this guy out of my hat in a few nights of random splining. He even sports a very basic rig and pose sliders for eyes and eyebrows.

Now that was an elegant solution! I will note for anyone following this approach, moving the rope ends in the chor works, but you have to keyframe it as a hold interpolation and simulate the cloth to a frame just before moving the rope bones, otherwise it causes a simulation error. I still need to figure out the best way to get the long ends of the hammock to curve up more than they are though.

I added the custom groups into the hammock, and it did help in that before the ends of the hammock looked odd. Since not part of the sim the position of the edges didn't follow the rest of the hammock. But, now they seem to float away from the ropes tying the whole thing together. Also, I can't seem to get that "brazilian" hammock vibe. you can see the unattached ropes on the closest edge the rig as it is now The "vibe" I'm looking for

Robert, your "super simple" test was what I needed for the light bulb to go off. I think the issue was the boxiness of the proxy I was using. If I mimic your test with vases, I get essentially the same result as you. There will still need to be some mucking about in action and muscle modes to tweek it, but since this is a still that shouldn't be too much of a worry.

And yet another test, this time with a different camera angle and more extreme pose on the "body"

I've been playing with this all afternoon, and came to the same conclusion. Here is the current iteration of the model And a quick render without the proxy body and with the proxy It's getting better. My goal is to get the "sinking into the hammock" feel, with the sides curving up where the body isn't.

Been playing hooky from work (not hard to do on a friday!) and decided to resurrect an old project from about 10 years ago for the summer classics contest. The basic idea is to create a Brazilian style hammock using cloth. I want it to hang loosely, forming itself around the body/shape lying in it. I know I can do it with bones, and shaping in muscle mode in the chor, but where's the fun in that I ask? I've gotten the cloth material on the hammock, and a cloth deflector on the body proxy. But after the cloth sim is run the proxy penetrates the cloth. Add to that it seems that the decal of the hammock disappears, which is really strange. edit...here's a screen grab of the hammock model

I've got three, just depends if I can execute on any of them. I've always approached these contests as a reason to learn a new technique in AM. This time around I have the potential of learning all kinds of nifty things!

Yup. I added bones to the frond mesh to do just that, just didn't adjust them any. Added some more fronds, then drooped them for hopefully a more natural look.

Now see, the simplest of tips makes life a lot easier. Thanks! Experimenting now with assembling the tree in an action. Seems like this might be the way to go. I'm still not entirely happy with how the crown of the tree is looking. It needs more detail that I'm going to have to model in I think.

This is what I have so far. This is assembling the tree and fronds in the chor.

Not nearly as impressive as an Emmy, but hey still proud of it!

I've been trying to come up with an elegant way to model a quasi realistic palm tree. I have a model done that so far only has the trunk and one palm frond modeled. The frond itself is a simple mesh, with an image applied as a cookie cut. I have the trunk and one frond as a single model. The frond has a rig to allow me to position it in a chor as I need depending on the scene. The intention was to then to save off the frond/rig separately, then re-import and position each frond as I need to make a fully leafed out palm tree. The issue I'm bumping up against is that when I import the frond model, then translate it to the position I need it to, the rig doesn't translate with it. I'm not looking forward to having to translate the rig in the bone view as well, since after a number of times that's going to get dicey to keep straight. What strategy could I employ that would streamline/improve this process? frond1.avi frond1.avi

Well I guess I have the excuse I need to get back to a:m!

Needs a twist though. Maybe cyborgs...

I always find it interesting how many folks leave a:m only to come back to it years later. Great to have you all back!