Drakkheim

ah ok that makes sense. hrm what happens if you change the order of the decals? the second decal works correctly when turned on though, correct? assuming so.. can you animate the opacity of the damage decal to 0% and switch it to 100% when you turn the pose on? or an animated 2 frame decal, frame 1 clean, frame 2 damaged.

So let me make sure ive got this right. the panel of the car that gets smashed has 1 decal already that turns on properly and shows the damage (color map) when you add a second decal as a displacement map and turn it off the patches with the 2nd decal vanish or go transparent. hrm here's a couple suggestions: 1) try not turning off the second decal, just set the displacement to 0 in the uncrumpled pose. 2) try and pinpoint he point of failure.. does it only do this when it's a displacement map? can you get it to work with simpler models, different images, are your images RGB and not CYMK, how about an older revision of this version of AM (im assuming you're using the latest v12) and then there's the icky workaround 3) use 2 models of the car. 1 with each decal set. both doing the same animation then fade them together in post.

You get to do the neatest things. No fair. I think it is possible to animate the magnitude of the cps in the pose, try cranking the magnitude down to something around 5-10 in the damaged pose to make the crinkles have sharper and flatter planes and then maybe a subtle environment map on the truck. to simulate the reflectivity and show off the changes in planes more. Maybe even go as far as to fade in a diffuse and color map on the damaged parts to show the scraping and flaked paint. looking forward to seeing more from ya,. simon [edit: cant type today]

for autmated wallpaper changing I highly reccommend Wallpaper Master. It'll do nifty things like, only change the desktop at startup and then close itself out, change at whatever interval you want, automatically scan a directory to check to see if there are new images to use in the desktop rotation, randomize your wallpaper showlist with no repeats and much more.. I can't live without it.

this is really nice i just hope we get to see the big finale I did notice that perhaps some of the reason that the cg cars seem too clean is that they're too bright compared to the rest of the image. And the blacks are too dark. maybe the red label on the door is a bit too saturated as well. in seg 2 compare the side of the cg white truck to the side of the white van in the background.. [attachmentid=14375] I played with the levels of the photo a bit so the photo's light to dark range fits more with the cg elements [attachmentid=14377] its no where perfect but the cg-ness stands out less.

ooh magic jello mushrooms! very cool Made me think of this for some reason..... so are you running the cloth sim before or after the newton ? Inquiring minds wanna know! -s

Ooh hadnt seen the updates Smudge! Nice work on those textures! Feels a little monochromatic, but then again that's just a matter of taste, and unfortunately most of mine is stuck in my mouth Thanks for the wireframe by the way.

well now that you're a fellow, you're allowed to ask for help im sure there are plenty of people who'd be willing to give you a hand, relighting shots, animating a hand or any of those other little things that draw you time away from getting on with the story.

Hey smudge, Looking forward to seeing your extra polish work on this short. Any chance You can pop up a wireframe of the head? I've been working on an antrho fox and the muzzle and eyes are giving me headaches.

dangit , any mod wanna maybe copy that thread into a non fellows only location? pretty please? Wonderful work soulcage guys, You got some really really nice hair in this.

*applause* well done

Every time time I look at this thread it just keeps getting better and better. any chance of making this into a childrens book? Keep it up !!! -Simon

Well I think the nanites would in general have a hard time surviving the sandstorms. Maybe a larger 'Honda Windowwasherbot LS' series machine may be called for Ooh maybe i need to scratch the windows up some as it would be hard to keep any surface clean. ... Im never going to get this finished :-D

Thanks for the comments guys. Dirt on the tube sounds like a great idea. and yeah the sky is just some quick photshop cloud cookie cutter image made 70% transparent and 90% ambient. I like the idea of maybe some faint daytime stars peeking through in the faint distance, Ill play with that. I modeled only the parts of the tube and building that you can see through the glass (not much at all) Even the back of the building is completely minimal. The entire scene stops just outside the camera's view. It's already waaay patch heavy and I dont want to do work that wont be seen. This has been planned to be a still image since the beginning. If it was an animation I'd have done much much much more conecept art /rough sketches in order to figure out exactly what I needed to create. Doing more work than you need to is a good way to drive yourself insane

updated the 1st post with the latest full size render, added rocks and started on the rocket Moving the rocks into position by hand wasnt as bad as I thought it was gonna be .. maybe ~45 min Made a nice rock texture I'll seperate it out and upload it this evening not sure if i should keep the ship a rocket or more of a 'airplane' orientation... -s

Oooh yeah Sweeper to the rescue again! I can make clusters of rocks with various rotations along a path resulting in clusters of completely differently rotated rocks in different positions! Im off to rockLand!

Thanks for the feedback. Rodney I hadnt thought of that way of placing the rocks, My (newly revised)current thought is to create a single object with 100 rocks, tweak em into various shapes and place them in the model and move them into position in the chor with muscle mode.. that should mke it pretty easy and painless. thanks I've finished the crane and am hammering out some concept art for the ship, since its going to be the focus i wanna get it 'just right'. Here's a WIP render that rendered while i was watching Alien Planet on my tivo, showing the new crane. Its at 1/4 of final resolution, 25 passes for the skylight, total time 1:59:33 Oh Just to pass along what I'm learing while doing this. If you havent played with the 'newish' features of reflections Reflectivity Blend , and Reflective Filter they go a Long way in making glass look more glassy I'm also updating the 1st post with my mental checklist of things to add before calling it done.

I decided to keep puttering with my Mars picture that i had posted in the showcase. And Figured i can always use more feedback At this point Im not sure what to do about the tube road in the back... Im planning on adding a ship on the launchpad and finishing the crane (under construction on the right side) which will probably make the road look more like background rather than the focus of the image. here's a small render of the pic as it stands straight out of the renderer. Any suggestions on how to place a couple hundred various sized rocks in the fore-middle ground? --Simon Ps. and sweeper made making the lattice for the tower a complete breeze! --- To Do Checklist --- DONE Stair Railings DONE Crane DONE Fix O rings on railway STARTED Rocket Ship DONE Glass more transparent less white. DONE Landing Beacons DONE Antenna on Building DONE Loose Rocks Hatch into Building Fuel Storage tanks and refuling tubes. Add scratches to shiny surfaces --- --- --- --- ---

yeah it's all procedural textures. As for the curveyness originally i was planning on having it be curving around a canyon but I got tired of not seeing the ground.. Now i'll probably just put a launchpad in the middle to justify it

OK I admit it, I just had to play with the sweeper plugin. One thing led to another and before I know it, I wind up with this. NOw I just got to add a domed city at the end of the tube , moving cars and a couple more tubes. Oh yeah and spaceships.

Ooooohh animated version of the pickle song!!!!!

bravo! well done! nice change of pace from ninjas, swordfights, spacecraft and monsters. could use a pirate or two (you can never have enough pirates) -s

cool , i like how it's coming along! The difference from the first and last image are really night and day. Keep hashing at it.

WOW! Jaw droppingly entertaining. WOW!! Good work, shame about the contest though you obviously put in a LOT of work. Can we get Figaro in the kitchen next?

whoa that was really cool! will the final version by any chance have a voice over explaining what's going on (aside from looking really cool) ? how long was the render time on those complex shots?