gschumsky

This is to anyone whose work belongs to a label, or anyone who had used pre-recorded music from a commercial band that is carried by a label. Now, in the past for some film work, I have used commercial music and had to go through the artists, their label, ascap, and bmi to get written permission to use the music for our production, along with paying a one time fee (or in some cases no fee as long as we listed everything in the credits). So, here's my question. We are doing a videogame. A popular band asked us if they could do music for the game. In this case it would be all new original music that has not been featured on any work they have done for any label. So, the legal part is, do we still need to get permission from their current label to use original music (basically work for hire) from them for the game? They aren't owned by the label, but each of their previous CD's and the music on them is basically owned by the label. And, we really want to put one of their music videos on the game CD as a bonus. So, do we need permission from the band and the label, or just the label, or just the band. Any help from the rest of you who have had to delve into this would be greatly appreciated. Greg

Nice robot. No, I think they mean render a color pass, a shadow pass, a highlight pass, diffused light pass, specular light pass, etc. Then composite it in Photoshop or After Effects (or for real fun if you have the latest CD, try rendering it in different layers (EXR format) with AM 12, then bring it back in and give AM composite a try. It's alpha, but shows a lot of promise. Or if you have PS, then download the free EXR plugin for it. Greg

Hey Paul, Seems that David got this to work pretty well by taking his animation and running it through 12 alpha 9 for the cape (he's doing the main character solo animation) Greg

So, where's the render of the mask?

Hey William, Nice site so far. I like the design you did for the ORCA. Is that live somewhere. A suggestion might be to have links from the work on your site to the actual site itself. I'd like to see it up close. Greg

Heck, I can't wait to see some splineage of the different parts! Are you using boolean cutters or are the holes modeled?? Very nice work so far!

Well, decided to try the QT version on my Mac laptop. I love the last episode "You hit an artery!!". Too funny. Nice work Bob!

I've been trying to view it here at work (on this Dell...) but nothing yet. It's taken 10 minutes so far with the window still saying "connecting...".

So how do you stop a render and keep the image it's rendered so far? If you can fit the whole thing on screen, just hit printscrn and paste into your favorite image editor. Do it before you abort the render though, as A:M seems to occassionally empty the frame buffer and hide the image when you abort a multipass (I wish it didn't). Thanks Brian, That's what I thought, but was kinda hoping there was a place it saved the image as it rendered each pass (it shows up in my images folder in the PWS as it's rendering...). Btw, for any Mac users seeing this, we would use command+shift+3 (that would grab the whole screen), or just for that window, use command+shift+4 (and you can outline the area you want to grab). Greg

Nope, all entries for this go to Steve. Nice image too. Before you had added your lights (nice job btw), I was going to recommend downloading Yves skylight rigs. The add a lot of depth and reality to a scene. Good luck in the contest! Greg

The only things I could suggest would be add a little more light to the foreground (maybe fires or something that could be happening out of frame) so we can see a little more detail on the demon thing. Also, make the eyes glow a little bit, and if you're comfortable with particles, add some smoke and cinders (did you do the smoke tutorial?) floating up closer to the camera to add some depth. Maybe even use the demon skin material here. That should add quite a bit to your image, if you have time.

So how do you stop a render and keep the image it's rendered so far?

Great splinage too! Are you using Yves skylight or the web based one for your lighting?

Amazing.. Question on lighting: Do you guys use a skylight rig, or just place lights as needed and set to diffuse? Greg

Yeah, I'm thinking it might be time to download the latest Divx player for Mac. As far as the piece, I like the part where the plane runs into the frame. Clever.

Nice use of the comic book frames, and the way they interacted (Shaggy in one frame while the other acted as the close-up). But, is Divx supposed to look this bad? Lots and lots of compression artifacts. I've seen Divx on some other sites and it's not this bad, but maybe because I'm on a Mac? I'll have to show this to the guys at Divx (just down the street from work) and see if they know what might be going on. Do you Windows gus get the same quality or better? Greg

First off, nice to see you back in the neighborhood Brian! First Billy, now you. Interesting to see how you'll work with sprites and hair and not doing your usual "I placed each blade of grass by hand" technique. You have a natural talent for this stuff, and even something as "quick" as this shows it. Keep up the great work!

That's the same site I linked to earlier in the thread... They're right down the street from my office...thinking of going by and taking a look around. Maybe have them check out this thread. Btw, the first one they built for auction had a lot of the cool accessories: saw blades that spun, hydraulic lift, periscope, and even a remote bird with a Futaba controller.

You might think about buying the model kit. This might give you some ideas on your model, parts to build, measurements, etc. Or, you can buy one of these!! But the shipping is going to kill you. And they're just down the street from my work...hmmm, no shipping.

Hi Greg, You can get some here: http://www.bvhfiles.com/ The ballet file I think I got here: http://www.e-motek.com/entertainment/downloads/index.html I chose the biovision bvh example file. ( The fourth one down.) There's not a great selection, though. Jim Thanks for the links Jim. I'll have to try some out just for fun. Sevenar: Digital Casting Agency. Hmmm, good idea there. Good idea. Greg

Nice job as usual Jim. You are da man! So, where do you get the bvh files from? Greg

I loved that book when I was a kid, and when we had our own kids, I read it to them too. My 8 year old son still loves it. My favorite scene is the night time scene with all the dogs in the big bed (don't know why), and of course the big tree party. Nice job on the cars. Are you going to make some dogs soon? Greg

Hey, 6 weeks isn't bad considering you had no prior 3D background, and you were learning the software as well. My first foray into AM was back in 1996, using version 4. I had picked up AM to do some work on a national TV spot for a golf company, and they wanted it in eight weeks. That was a whole 'nother program at the time. No IK, no bones, smartskin, lipsync...nothing. First thing was to untrain myself from the work I had done with 3D polygon programs. In AM you had different components where you had to build your model, then cut it apart, then reassemble it in another component. Then you could open up the animation component. What a pain. I had to have 30 penguins for one shot. And, AM rendered slooooowww. So, I had to rent 8 Macs to do the rendering. This is it. So, in other words, I think you did a great job considering your situation.

Made over the weekend??? Man, I'd hate to see what you would accomplish in week. Excellent piece.

I modeled this Bender about 6 months ago. It's what got me back into A:M! That is a great Bender. How'd you do the mouth sound waves?