largento

Working on strip #60 today and I have a panel where Flemm is going to get doused with banana creme. Thought I'd play around with achieving it using A:M's fluids. Still mostly guessing with many of the settings, but after some tests, I got something I think will work. Since I'm working with stills, I'll be able to render elements separately and have many frames to choose from for the final. I eventually stumbled on the way to get the fluid to do what I want by constructing an invisible funnel with a trap door. This allows the fluid to build up enough so that when it's released, it gushes down all at once. Some fluid does escape the simple trap door, but that won't be a problem for the still image. Here's the test video. If you scrub through the frames, there's some funny ones. glooptrapdoor.mov

Haha, thanks anyway, Rodney! Stylistically, I like that all of the monkeys are identical except for items they may be wearing... and there is no plan to have recurring monkey characters. The monkeys are a concept rather than a collection of individuals.

Thanks, guys! That's one of the things Flemm struggles with. He thinks monkeys are cute little things and can't quite come to grips with the fact that they aren't friendly... despite the fact that his every encounter with them reinforces that they are evil. :-)

Admiral! Thar be MONKEYS here! :-) Still need to put in some simple facial poses and add some props to individualize the crew of the Monkey Ship, but I'm getting there...

Thanks, Ken! And much thanks for the donation! It is really appreciated and I'm honored that you would do so! You're a great friend!

Wow, today's strip is Part FIFTY of this story! I can't believe I've done that many already! I was plugging numbers into my calendar (which helps when it comes time to upload them to the site, since the file is named for the date, but I also need to know the strip # for the post title) and was just getting overwhelmed seeing how many strips I'm going to have to do to keep up the 5 day a week schedule! March 22nd is when I'll reach 100! By the middle of August, I'll have done more 3D strips than the 2D strips we did in over a year and a half! After a couple of years of doing so many, I might actually get good at doing them. :-)

I'm going to keep churning on The Wannabe Pirates and keep doing 5 strips a week. I'd love to do some other things, but that's pretty much going to eat up all of my time.

Thanks, guys! Now I have to finish the monkey model! I only ever modeled the head and that was a loooong time ago! (December of 2007, according to my files!)

Coming up soon is my first chance to have a sea battle. Flemm is going to come up against some evil monkeys at sea. I think this is going to be a lot of fun. Since my buffer is nearly exhausted, I'm having to model quickly, but I love the fact that with A:M you can model quickly. Here's the model for the Monkey Ship. It's 50% of the size of the Sea Anemone, but where I could, I've incorporated parts from the Sea Anemone. And here's a turnaround... monkeyship.mov

About what, Gene?

Super nice job, Gene. He has a ton of character!

Thanks, HomeSlice! Yes, I'm moved into my sister's house. Hopefully I'll be able to find some work in the next few months and move into a new place. (Fingers crossed!)

Thanks, guys! Ken, there are story reasons as to why it looks like a prison and why Flemm is lit the way he is, but I won't spoil 'em here. :-)

Thanks, Gerry! Gonna' stay positive that it will all work out in the end! The good news is I'm back to work on The Wannabe Pirates and was able to finish next weeks' strips today! I've got a lot of work on my plate and my buffer is now very small, but I'm sure I'll get it back up there eventually. Here's a render from next Friday's strip that I liked...

This is going to be an incredible accomplishment, Stian! Bravo!

Well, moving day is tomorrow and I'm doing the last of the packing. About to dismantle the computer, so I'm going to be offline for a few days. I'm really looking forward to having this all done with. There are a bunch of new models I need to create that I've been putting off because of all this upheaval. Hopefully 2010 is going to be a great year for The Wannabe Pirates! Happy New Year, everybody!

Maybe you could animate the light that's casting the shadows from the title? The lack of movement in that lower area is a little distracting.

Nifty work! I especially like the color lights on the snow! Merry Christmas to you!

Thanks, George! For no reason, a 3D render...

No problem, Mark! The "new" strips start today on The Wannabe Pirates website! This first one is a re-cap...

Looks perfect to these old eyes!

Thanks, David!

Somehow I've missed out on this thread. Nice job, Robert!

Thanks, Mark! Nothing too fancy. For the red, I used a dark red for the diffuse color and a normal red for the specular color. I set the specularity to 800% and the specular intensity to 20%. Then I set the roughness to 80% and the roughness size to 2%. The fur was done with hair. I messed around until I came up with these settings: Worked well enough for my purposes. :-)

Bravo!