rago

Thanx to everyone for their replies, The animation was actually my last year's design school thesis, and it took me about 8 months in the making from learning A:M to layout of the story, to the rendering and putting it all together!!! The original format is a DVD PAL version, (yes I'm from Europe, Italy to be precise). Some of you maybe recall my last year's mascott entry with both of the characters, and some questions I had asked on the forum to get some of the effects I wanted in the short! That's why in my credits I thanked everyone on the A:M Forum that was so kind to help! Roberto Rago

Hi guys, if you like check out my first animation on the AM Films site, "Crazy 4 Daisy", and let me know!!!

Merry Christmas to you and all A:M users! PS I love your image, it would've been a winner for the xmas entry!!!

Yeah that's what I think I'll do! Sorry for the tga, just thought that since everybody has A:M and since it was only few K, I lefted that way!!! Thanx

I'm posting an image to let you understand my problem! Note the hair on the character and the reflected hair of the character!!! specchio105.tga

I doubt that I'll have the time to put my hands on it, because of my short I have to hand by the 28th of june for my thesis! But if I do, I'll let you know! The changes anyway all together shouldn't take you more than a couple of hours!

Hi Gerry, I like your character, even though I noticed some uncoerency between the detailed head and the more simple body! I was very well impressed by your sketch and the atmosphere it evocates, and I have a challenge for you: Why don't you try to give the same rendering and sensations to your 3d environment aswell, I think it would be very effective! Let me no!

Yes it is quite different in 10.5 version! Too bad!

The Idea is cool, but I think that you need a few changes! 1) The mouth can be closed, use pose persentage and at 100 close it by moving cp, you will have than the possibility to move it. Use the same technic for the eyelids changing the intermediate frames if the eyelids mesh crosses with the eye mesh. Now he can blink! 2) As I see the animation it seems that the mime isn't rigged, he's too still, just move every 5 frames his body a bit, minor movements, it will make him look alive. 3) when you turn his head you might want to arc the head a bit, so that he doesn't seem possesed by the devil, (exorcist). 4) Use the pose slider technic for the nose, at 100 yo might ant to select the cp before the end an extrude them, and than pull te end ones, this shoud prevent them from overlapping and giving strange render artifacts. 5) You might want to squeeze and stretch the ball so that it will give a more bouncy look! Try these minor adjusments and the result will look a lot better!)

And that would be? I don't think I am understanding what you mean!

No, the character's hair shortens to the point that it looks like it can't manage to get out of the head, plus the ends turn white giving some strange spec highlight!

Yes I think we are getting to the same point, but from two different directions!) Socrates used to say that an image is more effective than 1000 words! Just don't get lost in the lypsinc leaving the acting back, because it works better the opposite way around! I'm sorry but "pssing moments" would have lost all it's poetry with words, the whole story is based on uncomunicability between us humans, and in particular between opposite sex!

Hi seven, I've been reading your quotes, and I have to say that I'm not totally convinced by them! Yes sound is a very important thing in filmography, but this doesn't mean lypsinc, it might be music, it might be sound fx, sometimes words as you like, but these are only a plus to the sensations you want to trasmit with your animation, or your shoots. Not everything speaks, let's say for a case an insect, an alien might speak an unknown language, so that the body and it's acting, (surely enriched by sound), has to do the big part! Let's put it this way: I have a character that has to be very angry and yells f.@ck with a smile on it's face, or with no expression or body movement. On the other hand I have a character not speaking but stumping and making angry faces at me! Which is more effective! You can watch a short named "passing moments" at donphillipsjr.com, not done in A:M, but totally done without lypsinc or words, see how expressive are the two characters and then tell me! As far as expressions I like to use the pose slider percent method, with muscular changes, they are simple don't need rigging, I only use jaw bones, and make good layering. For the eyelids, eyebrows, I use the same method, and to turn the eyes all I do is create a null and make the eyebones aim at it!

Thanx for your help, I think that I'll try your tips and maybe stick with the one that gets clossest to the effect that I want to obtain!!! As soon as I get something done I'll post here to show!!!

So what shall I do, it's an important scene of a short I'm making for my thesis, what are your suggestions, the character is reflecting himself in a cracked and dirty mirror!

A scene of my short shows my character looking into a mirror and making some faces, but I realized that when rendering to file the reflected hair is totally different from the original. This does not happen when I render to screen, and the funny part is that the lenght of the hair is the property most affected! The scene shows a small part of the head from back with the hair like it's supposed to be, but for some reason reflected it's totally different, it hardly comes out of the head!!! It must be some kind of bug or so, can somebody explain and help me resolve this problem!!! I'm using A:M 10.5

The image is not that bad, but with a few minor adjustments it could look a lot better: For example why don't you bend some of the angles of the paper and add some bump to it, in real life paper is never so rigid. Add some noise to the table and walls so that they look less computer cg. The coffee cup's handle is to big, and the cup is over all to thin, for reference look at some Illy coffee cup. Make the light less harsh and increment the shaddow resolution. Try these few changes and compare with your first image, and then let me know!!! Bye.

The lights are exactly the same, same shaddow map, and as far as the rendering it's a render to file with 3x3 antialiasing, and the crates that the lights pass through are really there, to explain they are not like the buzz chor from toy story, but they are far away from the rims that pass through them! So there is really no explanation to me, I've decided to use this difference playing on diverse intensity of the lights and falloff, to make the rays fade and look like a real volumetric effect. Have to say that I can't really get to fancy with the light settings because of the render time, the chor is a set for an animation, and so far it's slightly over a minute which is a good time x frame. Computers are misterious!!!

Hi, I'm working on a chor where light passes through a crate but I can't figure out why two lights that have the same properties, and I mean the same in everything, give such different results! Can anybody solve my clue? Thanx, Rago.

Your work is great, if there was one thing I'd have to point out is that in the beginning I tought that the taller character was some kind of reflection of the smaller one, (maybe it's just me), but it would be so much better if the t-shirts of the two characters were different! For the rest, one of the best clips in A:M I've seen yet!!!

Your work is great, if there was one thing I'd have to point out is that in the beginning I tought that the tallet character was some kind of reflection of the smaller one, (maybe it's just me), but it would be so much better if the t-shirts of the two characters were different! For the rest, one of the best clips in A:M I've seen yet!!!