3DArtZ

Paul, I have not had a chance to play with the software yet so all of this is me just thinking.... this looks ok, and not to take anything away from Luuk's hard work on his software, but the lip synch just doesnt fly with me. It appears to be mostly just up and down movements of the jaw. No sound forming lip shapes as far as I can tell. Now why is this? Is it the limitations of the software or are the results dependent on how the user sets up the facial bones/smartskin? Mike Fitz www.3dartz.com

It will mess up for no reason??? are you sure about that? you don't get a circularity found message for no reason. there is a relationship problem in the rig. No way for us to find it for you unless we have the actual model to inspect or you can give us more info.... Mike Fitz www.3dartz.com

hey mark, yeah, I used a bump map in the last render I posted. It think it looks ok, and possibly it would be find during animation unless someone stopped the animation and examined the edges and such.

Okay, I'm really about to toss my hands up in the air. I guess I can always use a bump map. here is a quick a render I did with one. Its not bad, but I'd really like to use the displacement map:( http://www.3dartz.com/vids/hdkickerASD1.mov

Homeslice, you lost me for moment! I think its the map and by that I mean, either I'm screwing something up or the gradient tool just isnt able to make a smoothenough transition in that random pixels that are brighter or darker then the majority of the surrounding pixels are getting caught in the toon render as an edge. Is 32 bit the max in photoshop/gimp now a days?(ive tried both)

here is a larger quicktime movie about 900kb http://www.3dartz.com/vids/hdkicker2.mov

Hey Robert, I just did a larger render and the dots still show up. I guess that the toon render picks up the brighter or darker pixels that are in the gradient of the map. Not sure what else to try....

Hi Robert, don't know the ans. to that. I will give a try and let you know.

Okay, here is a the problem in motion. on the map, white being the hiegest point, and 50 percent black being skin level, the dots showup in the blur between the 2 colors. the gradient. anyone have any thoughts how to uniformily smooth this out, as I think that pixels of brighter color in the way photoshop makes the transition in color is to blame?? about 900kb http://www.3dartz.com/vids/kickit12a.mov

Luuk, you are right in that is removes the dots, as any dot shows up with the color of the surface, making them appear to be not there, but I lose the outline around the body on the group part. Let me know if you find anything different. thanks! Mike

Hi Luuk, Ive had the same thought process on that. I've tried up to 300 dpi and down to 30 dpi and they were pretty much the same. also kept it at 72 dpi and make the image h x w up to triple in size. I'm about to give up!!!!! Um, I don't know if they are exactly on a spline or not. how could I tell? I have had all sorts of results with dots all over the place and just a few dots, but there are always dots!

Hey Luuk, the dots appear to be actual toon lines, if I turn off lines the dots go away. as far as them being perfect squares or circles, I can not tell, they are just dots.

Hey guys, following my tests with displacment for folds in clothing, I discovered that no matter how I altered my settings I can not avoid getting these little black dots where the displament map is on the model. I am thinking that the dots are pixels that are brighter then the surrounding pixels in the gradient of the blur that I used on the map and the toon renderer is pickign it up as an edge. is that possible? or is it a compression thing? I've tried both png(profile stripped after ps save) and tga files. any help or suggestions would be appreciated here is an image sowing the problem.

I think that the model looks real good. My only crit at the moment is the skin at the armpits. It's too thick and light would never make it through that skin like it is here... nice work! Mike Fitz www.3dartz.com

Looks fantastic!

Hey Guys, another test I quickly put together this afternoon. The map isn't great, but even with a crummy map the results look pretty good. about 800kb http://www.3dartz.com/vids/MapShirtq4A.mov

I would like to see a little color in that space mist you have, other than the white shade it currently has. but overall, I think that this is a nice piece. Mike Fitz www.3dartz.com

Hey guys, here a new clip. I turned down the max value of the same displacement map. about 800kb http://www.3dartz.com/vids/MapShirtq3A.mov

thanks paul! You certainly could do that, but what I did was basically synch up the Y rotation and the Value of the disp. map so that when the bone would move on the Y rot, the value of the map would change at the same time. Hey Mark, I'm good at that! One could not change the user set value of the map on the fly. You would have to pop back into the relationship and, in my case, change it from 85% to whatever you wanted. Its not really hard or time consuming to that though unless one had a boat load of maps.... which I could see happening. Im sick over that "other" thread:0 Thanks for the info on the maps, will follow that for the next ones.

Is this a question or are you thinking out loud? I added the percentage value of the displacement map to the relationship pipeline in A:M, then I created a new relationship for the y rotation value of the bone I was using. Mike

Hey Mark, long time no speak! I'm not using smartskin here. I'm using a displacement map that has it's value set to the Y rotation of the back bone via relationship. When the back is straight, the value is Zero. when the value is Y -90, the value of the displacement map is set to 85%(could have been 100%, but that was waaay too much.) The map isn't all that great, it was just to serve as a quick run through. Mike Fitz www.3dartz.com

Hey guys, been a while since I've been tinkering around with anything.... this afternoon I wanted to test binding a displacemnt map to a bone to see about adding some folds to clothing... just to get an idea on things... anyways, preliminary resutls... about 800kb sorenson http://www.3dartz.com/vids/MapShirtq2A.mov

Satyajit, that looks so fantastic! is the mountain range a painted object/background image? everything looks so clean and crisp! Mike Fitz www.3dartz.com

well for an "old and crapy action" its pretty good!