JohnArtbox

Model Rotate Mpg(450k) Every once in a while I get an idea and come back to re-evaluate the whole process. The new beta has fixed the face count on obj exports. To get rid of cracks on 5pt patches I open the file in note pad and copy and paste the colour decal. This gives me a model with two identical decals, which allows me to removeall 5point patches from one and use it for displacement. The other decal(which covers the 5pp's) is used for colour, spec and bump. Just as an indication of the geometry, this is my avatar model decalled. All up I surfaced it in about an hour, but it's a pretty rough job. As an old, physical modelmaker, friend once told me, the model's only there to hold the paint . Now I need to look at normal maps from Zbrush, a preliminary test looked promising but had some render flaws .

Just a minor update to this thread. Now that AM imports obj files as props, you can load your zbrush obj models directly into am for stills rendering or use as non-flexible objects. It doesn't help with painting but it is pretty cool. Beneath is a quick test of obj prop import Make sure you merge the UV coordinates when you export your obj files from Zbrush.

Nice looking hero Mike. Looking forward to seeing him in action.

New image. Lots of small changes. Fixed some problem shadow areas on the original and moved some of the stars around. Also add a soft light on the characters, darkened the colour grad on the skydome, and rotated the grad so it wasn't absolutely horizontal. Oh and I faked some volumetric light with a few transparent cylinders with edge gradients And the good news is that the files will be on the new cd.

Just had to rerender an old title as a favour for a friend, so I thought I'd post it here as well. From memory this was my first commercial test of Skycast. The cockatoo and plane are a long-standing combination, the line artwork is the RFDS' original design. Unfortunately, I never got the chance to animate the cockatoo in a substantial way. The titles were donated for use in the RFDS trek documentary. For those who don't know(Probably most of you , the trek is a bunch of 30 year old cars racing around outback Australia and fundraising for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. The bird and the plane were modified from pre-existing models.

I always get a little jump of anticipation when I see you have a new clip. I like it but I think that dance could be exagerated a little more, maybe it's the camera angle that weakens the poses(or maybe that's what the story needs, if so , ignore me ). 25 minutes...whew..that's not a short film. MORE! !

Is the beginning and the end frame of the action the same eg 0 degrees and 360 degrees roll? If so you can set the action to crop the last frame in the chor and it should fix the stutter. Either that or of the action is not repeated, keep the rotation rolling higher eg 0, 360,720, 1080etc. Don't have time to go through the projects unfortunately Good Luck

Cute... and I agree with the others. Good pose animation should be able to convey emotion. I like toy characters, the childlike simplicity go's so well with animation for me. It's a natural fit.

fantastic image and great explanation. ANy chance of a wireframe. I'd just like to see the geometry of the image, especially in the large buildings.

great work grubber...love the car design. And thanks for the download

Thanks all Dearmad: I use multipass and a shaking action to vibrate the cloud model. It's my method of getting that fluffy feeling for clouds. Nancy: I agree... the stars are a couple of star domes(all modelled) I created for an old commercial..and if i'd had time I would have done this. it's just that I did the image in about 4 hours...I'll fix it now

Now the contest is over I can add this to the thread, it's a preliminary set from the short. As Jim Talbot said over on CGTalk, I need to refocus on lighting around the characters and punch them out a bit. I can't believe I'm taking this long

Great looking model. Lke a few of the other posters I always expect a beard. The ravens and the spear/staff(can't remember which at the moment) are the other symbols I think of with Odin...depends on how traditional you want to be. Looking forward to more...

all I see is an image hosted by Tripod gif

Like Dagoos, I think the major weakness is the symmetry of the figure and it's upright nature. They tend to make the figure less dynamic. Adding light and/or highlights would also help. On the image competition front, while Hash seem to discourage identification, how many people can identify which entry is Will Sutton's, or mine. At least a quarter of the entries are identifiable by characters or style. Personally, I quite like the development style of image contest. I think it encourages learning. But it's Hash's competition/choice.

Lovely detail..the texture just needs to be aligned to the different pieces of wood that make the chair and it would look sensational.

Pretty image. Lovely illustrated feel to it.

All the boys are coming back to town Beautiful piece Brian. Absolutely superb.

great cats. I love the yarn fur cat,(that's me being a sucker for designs that are different). The sashay is pretty cool too. Bootcamp sounds like fun, and seems to be getting great results.

The current complete line up. Jack and the wizard are the next two for the update treatment.

Xtaz:yes the second model was to fake leading motion blur Evolved Kapsules for the short. I've switched to built in eyelids and moved toTSM2 rigs for it's squash and stretch. Gotta run and pickup my daughter from school now

Always good Jim. My eyes keep going to her right wrist though, the transition from the jumper sleeve to the wrist band doesn't match the tight torso shape of the jumper. It looks like the arm belongs to a less form-fitting jumper.

This is the render after adding bloom, noise and DOF in post. Also added an ambient gradient material as a subsitute rim light. Thanks Ken/Kyle Kyle PDPro(Project Dogwaffle Pro) is about $90. There's a free version which is pretty good, but I'm not sure if it includes seamless plus. Ken: The original idea was for socketted attachments depending on the task at hand.

congrats Frank, it looks like you're going great guns.

hi all, don't get excited,I'm not starting this again until the Kapsules short is done. But I did get excited about a new technique recently, and since I used the IGOR robot to test it, I thought I'd post the results here. Recently started to explore Project Dogwaffle(paint program) and played with its Seamless Plus plugin, which tiles and cross fades an image to create a seamless tile(takes 5 seconds max ) . I just grabbed a photo of a dumpster, cropped a small tile out and made the tile seamless. Then I made a few variations by changing the paint colours. Then because I was playing I applied it as an image stamp (because I was being lazy and it meant not needing to alter UV's or flatten). This image was literally textured in 10 minutes. I know the purists will say that it introduces false lighting cues(and it does), but I think it's cool....and very very fast. You could even unfold it and use the stamped images as the base for a decal if you wanted. Pancho: it'll take take a while, but you can speed it up using soft shadows. The robot was about 20 min on my p4 2ghz with 3 raytrace lights, reflections set to1 and multipass x 16. you can use skycast with 1 light at 9xmultipass though.