zandoriastudios
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Posts posted by zandoriastudios
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Not much--even the boabab tree that I showed in an earlier thread was just experimenting... I don't want anyone to jump in just yet--Im going to post a bible for the series, and storyboards so that choices can be made about what can be modeled vs painted. Though I see the need for individual huts and buildings trees to be combined for different locations.
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As part of the 2015 Open Studio plan, I thought that I better throw my sketchbook up here with some concept sketches of some of the locations, props, characters, etc of things upcoming...
One of the main locations is a bar called "The Waterhole" at the Oasis of Lund. There will be a lot of buildings, and set pieces that will be good beginner projects for apprentices to work on (Details to come...).
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I have been a little distracted...I have been focusing on generating some freelance business to keep the lights on. I've been a little depressed too, struggling with the whole "meaning of life, why am i here?" existential angst that all artists go through...[its not just me, right?]
I will get the bootcamp set up in the next week or so--I promise! This will launch an exciting time that I hope will revitalize the Animation:Master community
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Douglas,
I will be happy to mentor you or any of your friends who want to work on the TAR of Zandoria project!
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Here is a tutorial that I just made on finishing 3D printed bronze (using ColorFabb's copperfill). I printed on my Printrbot Simple Metal:
https://zandoria.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/diy-3d-printing-in-bronze/
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Well said, Rodney. I completely agree--A:M is not lacking in features. But A:M does need more users. That's why I keep coming back to the open studio--because people need to see that path as a way to bring their dreams to life.
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I got my email yesterday, downloaded and installed it...didn't have any problems. Nice that even though i bought ZBrush when it was V3, all of the upgrades have been free!
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So..channel is deleted. Having to rebuild it. First episode of TAR of Zandoria is back online. Will have to find all of those Siggraph videos are rebuild the tutorial playlists...
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Holy Crap!!!! I must have deleted it when trying to reconcile the different Google+ accounts!Hello Will, I am a new member and am very interested in seeing your work. However, it seems your links are down. Is the episode viewable somewhere currently?
Chris Conlee
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I think 7 months might be more realistic (for a short)...I don't think you could write a (decent) story in 7 days!
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Muscle-mode animation is good for fixing cloth simulations, adding jiggle, and other finishing touches
I think you have to think of it as one layer building on the other, like a house is built on a foundation...So, if you decide to change the bone assignments and weighting, then of course your smartskins are going to be destroyed. Just like if you decide to remodel the mesh, you will lose textures,weighting,smartskin...One thing builds on top of the last thing...
I try to add fan bones to the hips and shoulders when rigging, to orient like but NOT roll like, to spread the "twist" away from the joint--that seems to be a common joint problem--because though your humerous (upper arm bone) rolls, the flesh at the shoulder doesnt roll as much. So sometimes you could have an intermediate bone for each spline ring coming away from the joint (like at the upper arm) and they all orient exactly like the upper arm bone, but they will each roll at an increasing percentage as they are away from the joint: 0% at the shoulder, 25% next ring, 50% next, 75% last, the next ring is assigned 100% to the upper arm bone.
So that is also weighting the joint (though not at this point using CP weighting)... I have also used ONLY CP weighting, with no fan bones, and let the Mesh pinch when the the bone rolls--then switch to Relationship mode, and add a smartskin reshaping the shoulder at the extreme roll position and at a half-roll position (that creates a pretty smooth smartskin)
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Im looking forward to exploring this! Thanks for all your work, Mack!
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David, I will do that (I already have you written down)! What Im planning is smaller scale than TWO, built around each short, so that it's not such a big commitment. Someone might sign-up on one short and then pass on another without disrupting anything. I am working on the pitch bible right now (to put it into a form that communicates to everyone else what has been rolling around in my head...), then I will post the storyboard for episode 2 and 3.
Steve, it looks like I had multiple Google+ accounts...I think I have it consolidated. I added Chris so I should get the next invite... There is an experiment that I want to do, using his Action objects technique: See if I can build a Newton system (like a chain) on a model using that technique, so that I can simulate it at any time instead of only building it in the choreography....
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I agree with Robcat. Weight the joint first, then smartskin--use that to fine-tune the joint. There is a series of video tutorials here that are in depth (if tedius to watch--as if rigging isnt already tedius!)....
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Awesome--send me the connection info. I think that my Google+ is under zandoria@gmail.com
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Steve, that would be great! I love what you guys did with action objects in a pose to create sets--that was brilliant!
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- Post Pitch Bible with character descriptions and art, to communicate the characters and setting for the benefit of A:M users who are interested in working on the next short.
- Post storyboards for episode 2, episode 3 (more?)
- Create an animator bootcamp thread, similar to what was done on TWO--Ninja Training Camp. Upload the Ninja Pass assets for interested participants to use.
- Recruit crew for episode 2. Crew will have access to all of the TAR of Zandoria assets (I would like to get Hash's help to use the SVN system developed for TWO). I will work out the details of open license that I have discussed previously...We will start with just this crew, building a 2-3 minute short. Participants will have a percentage stake in the rights of the film, and I will disburse any revenue with them.
I have been working full-time on this and freelancing for the past year--I quit my day job at the end of 2013. It has been scary, humbling, exhilerating, depressing, gratifying...I've been all over the map, emotionally. While I was able to create the first short by myself, I also realized that it would have gone faster working with other artists, and it probably would have been better.
I realized that I really have NO CLUE when it comes to distribution, or pitching, or fund raising--or just getting people to watch it for FREE on YouTube! Yet I look at my poster of TAR on the wall, and I know that I can't give up...I've toyed with the idea of trying to do it as a graphic novel, or something easier for a solo artist to pull off, but I think that is just the old fear (of failing...).
I've proven that I can create an animation! True, it isn't as polished as it could be, and I had to cut some corners, But, I did it... I have been in a kind of creative drift since uploading "Marked for Death"... I guess that I just thought that if I finished it, that people would see it and then somehow I would be successful/validated/loved? I dont know..It's kind of crazy. The afterbirthing of a huge project seems to take as long as the delivery!
Now I'm ready to continue, to take it up a notch, to bring my (our) dreams to life. I believe that an open project like TAR of Zandoria is the hope and future for this community of artists and animators. It isnt about just software.. an Open Studio creates the ecosystem for the artists to collaborate, for newbies to aspire to learn, for mentors to coach, for the software to gain subscriptions, There is something in it for YOU, whether you are a modeler, rigger, animator, programmer, or cheerleader!
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very cool!
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I didn't know that Bob animated Fritz the Cat! I was reading the news on AWN, and was amazed by Bob's career. I wish I had spent more time picking his brain about animation....
http://www.awn.com/news/fritz-cat-animator-robert-taylor-dies-70
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Sad to hear.....
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Did the $100,000 ever get disbursed in any way?
I am thinking about an agreement for Zandoria Studios and the TAR of Zandoria series. Since I have no funding up front, I have to figure out how to divide the copyright among what are essentially co-creators of the final product. Whether YouTube royaltys or DVD sales I will have to account for that so that I can make sure everyone recieves their share. Can anyone point me to a suggested model for determining those percentages?
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I think that the real survival and growth of this community is not in attracting new users to the software, or in trying to add more features. What will draw users (subscribers) is the need to learn the tools to be able to work with the software on a group project. I think that Martin saw the "dead end" that animation software was as a business--and the alternative model of creating and owning an intellectual property, of becoming a studio!
The TWO project was initiated to "shake-down" the software on an animated feature. It accomplished that, but also shook apart the community... Now that enough time has passed, I see that that shake up was inevitable, but also that it was necessary. The road-tested version of A:M must become the in-house software for a distributed animation studio(s). As new animators come onboard of projects, they will pick-up and learn the software. Their subscriptions will be paid for by those studios in a commercial project, or by the animators themselves in a group collaboration (where those artists share the copyright to the intellectual property that they create).
The old model was/is a dead end. Subscriptions will sustain a small stream of revenue, but dwindling population of users.... The studio model is the only future. Whether movies, animated series, or games--creating the intellectual property is where the money is. Martin saw that--at the same time he chafed under the feature requests of his studio users, saying that they treated programmers as garage mechanics--He saw that creating a studio (AM Films) was the way forward....
My question is this: What did we learn from that painful experience, that will help guide us forward? Because we MUST move forward.
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Well, Luckbat was a Fellow and a long-time user of A:M... I'm not saying that you should support his project, or agree with him. There were many users of A:M that left the community--and I have to include Martin Hash with them.
But in the end, it is not about choice of software that creates this community. Even though it is the Animation:Master software forum, and we users have that in common, I think that it is the DREAM of creating our own stories that really connects us to our fellow artists and animators.
2015 Plans
in Tar of Zandoria
Posted
When I get overwhelmed looking at the almost infinite number of other artists,better artists, out there...I try to remind myself that it doesn't matter, because whatever it is that I'm going to do, good or bad, is unique to me. No one else is going to do it