zandoriastudios

You are Awesome, Robcat!

I just exported a high-res model out of a choreography and added some more detail to it in ZBrush. There is a new 3D model marketplace called Cults3D where designers are selling model files for 3D printing. I'm hoping this might help me spread some awareness for the TAR of Zandoria project, and maybe some revenue. It seems that as the 3D printers become more ubiquitous, there will be a market for high-quality sculpts and for commission work when everyone gets tired of printing Stanford bunnies and Yoda heads from Thingiverse.... Check it out HERE.

All will be revealed in time.....

http://zandoria.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/landscapes/ Though the terrain could have easily been generated in A:M, I worked on the mesh in a different program that I'm trying to learn.... The thing that I think is worth pointing out here is that the landscape renders are just being used as background rotoscopes. So the only things that I'm really dealing with in the shot is the character(s). Also, I had to make some compromises on the rendering options that I can afford to use...I initially was using a sunlight+global illumination+ambient occlusion+multipass(9x) and my frames took 1-1/2hrs to render @ 1280 x 720. Switching to Z-buffered lights and eliminating AO and global illumination took it down to 2min/frame. Though some of the later frames are over 14minutes (I think this is due to the number of particles still living in the scene...)

Not true. 3D World did a multi-part article on the TWO project, remember? Eggington did a klller review of Animation:master in that magazine... I first heard about A:M in a magazine called "3D Artist"--an article by Raf Anzovin called "Dem Bones". I recently got a plug for TAR of Zandoria in Animation Magazine. All these magazines need content. Creating content that is useful to their readership, or newsworthy, that features your product is guerrilla marketing!

Thanks Mark!

I watched the video--really nice explanation at the end. Is there a 2008 rigged character around to play with? in your notes on the youtube page, you refer to TSM as if it no longer works with A:M, butt that is what I am still using...But this method looks pretty darn simple for installing.

Cool--I hadn't watched the video, so I was just conjecturing...looking forward to seeing it, it seems like a great idea

What if you had the animation rig bones use constraints (aim like 2?) to align with the geometry bones?, then if you adjusted the geometry bones, for a different character, the animation controls would refresh--I realize that would be circular, but maybe an on/off relationship switches from "rigging" where the geometry bones are primary, and "animating" where the control bones are primary.

Jake, I haven't taken it that far, so I don't know how the textures would import on the .obj import... My thought would be to setup UVs in A:M and then export back out to .obj, then use that model in Zbrush to project displacement and turn any polypaint into texture maps (At this point you already have the .mdl in A:M). But that may be an unnecessary step--I will followup...

Definitely agree about storyboards! I think sometimes that can even double as the script if you are working solo (you do need a dialog script for your voice actors...). From the storyboards you can clearly see what has to be built--it is a blueprint for the whole shot. I don't agree on animatics as necessary...it seems like a way to communicate a much bigger VFX shot to a team that might be working on different pieces. But I do think some kind of "story reel" is important--where you can time your storyboards, swap them with real-time renders, and basically build the finished scene as you complete different parts. You are right that you don't have to do it all yourself. If you are the Producer, you've got to line up a team that can fulfill the different roles, and lead them to where you want to go. If I can help you in any way to bring your dream to life, just let me know what you need.

No--NOT a prop! It is patches with Zremesher, it went from 1/2 million polygons to a little more than 6,000 patches!

I'm really liking that Zbrush and A:M play so well together! Here is a quick tutorial going from Zbrush to A:M: http://zandoria.wordpress.com/2013/12/24/642/

Thanks to Animation Magazine for the SWEEET 1/2 page plug for Zandoria Studios!!! Check it out--page 31 in the January issue This really made my week, because this is the week that I finally quit my day job to pursue this full time!

Downloaded last night--looking forward to digging in to it!

great job!!!

It was used in the TWO movie project--I don't know how to go about setting it up for a project of my own, but it would be pretty cool if someone could explain it. It would be nice to try a distributed project with the community using the tool built into A:M

apparently...

I have a nice car, but my wife likes to shop at Dollar Tree (everything in the store is $1).

Well Done!!!

Yes, you can set a target poly count! What would be cool is to be able to bring it in with the UVs and easily use the higher res version to generate displacement. I think I will still be able to do that, but it may take another step... I'm thinking that I could take a textured version from A:M out as an .obj and bring it back into Zbrush and use the high-res details to generate a displacement map. Or maybe TROER might be a way (but it wasn't able to open this one...)

The last udate to Zbrush has an automatic retopology tool that will analyze the sculpt and remesh it to quads. Here is a test using the .obj import in a modeling window:

Oh! Well, good luck with that!

If the bones are driving facial animation, why won't weighting their influence suffice? A bone doesn't have to be snapped to the same position as a CP to move it. A limited number of bones could account for ALL of the CPs in the face (you might even auto weight them).

What if you were using a face rig like ZignTrack on your characters? Since it is, or can be, bone based animation, the facial animation ( or poses) from one character will work on another with the same rig. Just like other actions in A:M.