Aminator

I give it four smiles out of four! Very cute. Personally, I think the camera work is fine here. In a fighting/action sequence, crossing the line isn't such a big deal and can even be done on purpose to intentionally give a "fog of war" confusion factor. A little constructive criticism: you do something I always have trouble with, which is timing things on the slow side. Probably half of your shots would play better sped up. What I've started doing when I'm not sure of the timing is to animate something, speed it up until it looks *too* fast, then slow it down a bit. Also, I think it would be cool to start with some heavy, dramatic music to emphasize that the macaroni guy is under attack. Then the swinging music comes on and the contrast makes it even more fun. Thanks for sharing your food fight!

I think you can find help with this on the 10-second club forums, but here's my advice: 1. Render your animation frames to targa files 2. Use whatever editor/compositor you like to assemble to an uncompressed AVI (with sound) 3. Use the free TMPGenc to convert the AVI to MPEG-1. Bypass the Wizard and configure settings directly. To get 1.5MB for 10 seconds, do the math - you need a bit rate of 1500*8/10 kbps = 1200 kpbs. Go to the Video tab and set the proper size (320x240), frame rate (probably 30), rate mode (2-pass VBR), and click the rate mode "Setting" button to set the bit rate. Try average=900 and max=1200.

Hey, thanks for all the kind words, glad you enjoyed it! Especially thanks to Wade, exactly right that I'm fishing for any problem spots. You're right, the lighting is not quite even there. Part of the problem is I'm using A:M hair for the grass, and it looks a lot different from above. I'll see if I can tweak it to match better, and maybe tone down the grass in the low-angle shots.

Nice action, well done, especially for working quickly! Possible tweaks if you wanted to polish it: - do you really want the character the same color as the background? - on the anticipation, maybe move the pelvis forward some so he's not so far off-balance - I think the swing would be snappier and more powerful if he led with his chest rather than hands. So when the body is vertical, the arms would be *behind* his head - I agree with the crowd that the jump at the end should be slower, in fact the whole torso could rotate upward and float a bit, too. - While I'm at it, maybe make the split chunks of wood fly off more energetically...

Just over a year (!) since posting an animatic here, I'm finally close to finished with this short featuring a lonely cricket. I'm hoping to have a final hi-res version ready to submit to Hash for SIGGRAPH, which means it needs to be done Real Soon. Comments and crits of all types would be most appreciated! http://www.digins.com/jack/cricket.mpg (7MB MPEG-1) (fixed link, thanks David!)

Looks great! Nice models and effects. Did you want the roll on the foreground aircraft to be so uneven. Adding some motion blur and maybe a little fog could help increase the realism.

Hmm, where'd that image go! Okay, attachment's not working for me, go here instead... http://www.digins.com/jack/sixpoint.jpg

Why not just this? You might want to break the spline across the lower-left edge of the opening so that the new spline continues the one going down along the ridge. And adjust the CP at the upper end of the new spline so that the patch edges are more square.

Looking good. Maybe the nose could use more distinctiveness?

Number two looks more like a duck. A waggable tail would be a good thing, and some expressive ears.

Looking very hot! Couple suggestions: (1) the ship appears to lose its forward momentum briefly when it hits the ground (2) the camera suddenly drops when the ship hits. But I'd imagine a cameraman following the ship down, a little more centered in the frame, continuing down at the same speed through the time the ship hits (because he's watching the ship, not the ground), then bouncing back up. (3) the camera shake is pretty good, but maybe less roll and more up/down tilt?

Great look! You might play around with fog and/or depth-of-field to help focus the viewer on the main subject. And maybe a little more bluish tint to the main lighting to help with the "nighttime" feel.

Neat stuff - cartoony horror! The lighting is a bit odd in that the shadows suggest a low sun (early morning or low evening) but the coloring and sky is more mid-day blue. I like the dramatic angle on the second shot. If you want an even more exciting still, try posing the dinosaur with one foot in the air.

Really cool look. There's a slight "video game" feel to the effect. I agree that the smoke rises too fast. Was it intentional the way the aircraft penetrates a "focus barrier" and goes from blurry to sharp along its length? But the biggest problem is, with that dramatic fireball on the way down, how are you going to top it with an even bigger explosion when it hits the ground?

I've updated the file after some tweaks (same link as above). Thanks to everyone for the encouragement! Nice. I just might do that!

Thanks, Ross, good suggestion!. I had started out with a cartoony character and decided to add some visual depth with textures, so now the simple head does look a little out-of-place.

Ages ago, I put up an animatic of a short piece featuring a cricket who resorts to modern electronics to improve his chances with the ladies. I've *finally* gotten around to actually animating one shot for this. Any comments or nitpicks at any level - modeling, lighting, animation, etc. - would be very welcome. http://www.digins.com/jack/cwip3.mpg (1MB) I created a reusable "handheld camera shake" action based on Sotiris Gougousis' excellent "Expressions in AM" tutorial; I'd be happy to post that if anyone's interested.

Nice job. The pieces don't quite fit into the scene though, as if they're floating in the air just above the water (vs. floating on the water? ) Maybe some soft shadows would help. And a little depth-of-field might add some drama. (Reasons to render in A:M? )

Done in A:M for JPL/NASA: "Rover Navigation 101" http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/video/animation.html Heavily compressed at 18MB for 5 minutes...