gschumsky

Thanks Gerry!

Patrick: Thanks, I dig 'bots too (have one I built a while back for tradeshows/posh La Jolla parties back when RC entertainment robots were all the rage..yes, major geek alert). This little guy was something I sketched while bored at work one day (along with a few others) and was going to be used originally for the 2003 Siggraph poster contest as a gas station attendant (though rockets and gas don't mix). He ended up being used for the Futures Foundation fundraiser last year in an image where he was serving wine and cheese (it was a wine tasting fundraiser). The head was inspired by this: Flying Saucer TV. Add some side antennae, blue lights, glowing eyes... Jobe: Besides the poster contest, you can see him in the Sci-Fi/Fanatasy contest from this year on the landing pad:Utopia. This is also as a project file on the Extras CD. And he's been used as the mascot for the San Diego Future's Foundation (this year it's a casino theme). Greg

And this one is being used for the posters. The background is a simple rotoscope. The table is a basic plane, angled in front of the robot, and set to be a front-projection map. Greg

Hey gang, Thought I'd post this quick little job I did for the San Diego Future's Foundation upcoming fundraiser. The theme for the evening will be casino themed/Monte Carlo style. The money donated/raised goes to support the Futures Foundation, which takes old computers from corporations, refreshes them, installs new drives, OS, etc. then gives them to schools and families who can't afford computers. This image will be on their invitations. Greg

Nice image Ben. I'd like to see it without radiosity (I dig the B/W look of it by the way, very industrial), and see what your render times/quality would be like. So I'm guessing the odd artifacts at the bottom of the image are the floor you're speaking of? Otherwise, the tiled floor in there is perfect for the composition. Again, nice job. Kinda reminds me of the old ray-trace demo Amiga did in the old, old, old days. Greg

And in case anyone wants to dress up for Halloween, or the next Con.. http://filmswords.com/frazetta/dealerhelm.htm

Frank Frazetta (c'mon Laz, you shoulda known this!!) Anyone in the animation world should know it's the Death Dealer.. I even have a pewter figurine from my old high school, D&D days (yes, I played D&D...is that a surprise??). http://frazetta.ragnarok.no/images/frazetta01.jpg

Hey Shaun. Excellent work. The wave is nice, including the mist coming off the top. The only crit I have is that the water is too clear. A wave would typically churn up stuff from the ocean floor (some sand at least), and the water would be a bit more turbulent, less transparent...though down under the waves might be that clear (if so, I'm grabbing my board and heading down right away!). Maybe add some green to it? This is some guys surfing in Australia.

Actually, works fine on my Mac with QT7, but won't play on my PC at work until I submit a ticket to have the Divx codec installed. Then I have to come up with a reasonable explanation as to why the man-hours need to be expended to install the Divx codec, and why the standard windows media player that's already installed is not good enough for me, but seems to be fine for everyone else here in the cube farm. Welcome to the corporate world.

So, what's a .rar file and what does it need to be played? edit: Okay, so I Googled it and saw what I need. Is there a free version so I can decompress the file?

As great as the shirt is (All your base...funny), I would recommend either Vern's or Patrick's t-shirt designs. Just a thought.

I remember the rose being up on Animation Pit Stop for a while, which I thought was a free-for-all anyway (unless they said in the model info to include any credits).

Nice so far! I'd do the select the area, cut, then paste. That will give you the model part and you can then name it driver door, passenger door, hood, or whatever. Then select the body and mostly the area on it you just copied from, and hide everything else. Next, delete the splines (make sure you break the ones that can be using "k") in that area where you just copied from (again, on the source model). Finally, unhide and slide that part back into place. Or to be more precise, before copying and pasting, in your settings under the units tab, change the paste/extrude to 0. Then after you copy then paste, write down the x,y, and z location of the new model part. After going through the process of deleting the splines on the master model, then select the new part and punch in the numbers. And remember, Porsche is pronounced "Por-sha", not porsh.

Actually, it'd be interesting to see your model hit by a car from behind. I say this because earlier this year (well, every year), a local chiropracter hires a friend of mine to come shoot video of car collisions (the Dr. brings invites a few dozen other chiropracters to come watch). So, we set up about 4 cameras, a grid backdrop, and they do a number of fender benders with live crash test dummies (real people) at different speeds from 5 to 15 mph, collect the data from the car and the probes on the people,etc. The two highlights of the day are a head on collision at 25 mph (people bet on where the two cars will hit), and a car traveling at 45 mph hitting a life-size dummy from behind (we shoot this with a high-speed video camera so it plays back in slo-mo). Yes, long story I know. But your model could end up making you some pretty nice moolah by doing accident simulations.

Nice job Laz. I like the detail of the crates and plant. I would probably add some more "detail" lights (maybe some blue for a night feel?), kinda like Jim Talbot does. Maybe some light coming from down the alley (street lights and shops), as well as overhead (mercury lights), then a bluish cast from the moonlight to punch it up a little. You could even add a light coming from a window that's out of sight (make a quick scrim and put it in front of that light with a yellowish tint. Greg

I thought you might have got it off the net somewhere.... Not every walk has straight legs in it. But they do pop in places. It was just a test of the joints. Also, I forgot to put squash and stretch into the loon. I think it would make a difference. I'd need to study balloons to know what he should exactly move like. As a suggestion for the loons, you could either go with more of a giant soap bubble effect when the float and land, or a weather balloon (vs. a typical balloon from the local party store). The weather balloon has some of the same characteristics of a giant soap bubble, but less fragile.

So, what's a Cog? (Dumb question I know)

I was noticing more of the details on your 'bot, mostly the seam on the tin can head. Impressive robot building skills!

Actually, a while back (about a year or so ago) there was a great example someone posted. They did the 2D work in Flash or Director and saved with alpha channels (each sprite per se), then brought those into AM and used layers as well as planes with the animations mapped to them. The scene was two guys sitting in a cafe, and outside the window behind them was a airliner sitting on a tarmac. The characters, wall and window were 2D. The tables they were at were 3D (and I think the chairs), as was the plane. He then moved the camera through the scene, and out to the plane. Pretty nifty effect.

Nice robot as well. Good use of the metallic yellow (that's always been a cool color) and reflections. Great work!

Yikes! I mean YIKES! Good film and story though.

Nice start Ben. 7 hours ain't too shabby. Took almost 30 to do my scene with all the VW bus balls.. (G4/733). Patrick, the BP scene was the one with the room, window and table, where Brian moved the shot and rendered it with radiosity... Greg

It's about time someone made a model of the big guy in AM! So, will he have all the cool articulated features of the movie version (opening chest, head bubble, etc.), or mostly be the "not a gun" version? Nice detail too, but what's going on with the eyes (remember they're flat and glow yellow, with shutters, well, more like sliding doors, that rotate when they open and close). Yeah, seen the movie more times then I can remember. Now we need a model of Hogarth to sit on his shoulder. Greg

Did you use decals or materials for the texture?

Well, at least it's consistent and moves with the camera. Looks like it may be the image tiling.