mouseman

Although the economy is difficult, it's probably the best personal situation you could be in to do it. If you wait, the chance will slip away. Even if it doesn't turn out financially the best thing you can do, at least you will be able to say "I did something that was really worthwhile to me", which not many people can honestly say.

Good deal! Congrats!

Also, before leaning down to pick up the ball, his right elbow sort of pops out and then back in. I think it's just one keyframe that has his elbow moving outward farther than it should. Looking *REALLY* good!

Glad to hear! This is an awesome project!

Larry B and I got together a couple of times while he lived here, but he's now back in B.C. Has anyone else in Alberta (specifically Edmonton) shown up on the forums? Let me know!

Between watching Subject 99, The Mountain by frosteternal, Just A Wooden Sword by kit, and The Wannabe Pirates, it feels almost like a mini "golden age" of A:M animation. It's very inspiring seeing you guys persevere and keep working regularly on these projects, putting your heart into them. And the results are quite impressive. The scope of yours is especially impressive, in story line and characters and sets. I know from the work I did on my project that you really have to work animating into your lifestyle, which means sacrificing time that would have been spent on other worthwhile things. One idea for some of the things rusty mentioned is recording reference video of yourself doing the actions. There is a great example of this for .

I think the serialized chapters in larger stories could be very effective, although it is a lot harder to plan and pull off. Ernesttx is doing a good job of it on Subject 99. On TV, I think Babylon 5 was really the first series that had a real story arc with a beginning/middle/end instead of just a rambling storyline with occasional cliffhangers at the end of episodes, and now that is quite normal (although usually it's over one season). But if you can think of a story arc, motivations for each character, and storylines for each character that interact with each other within larger story arcs, you can really draw people in. That's probably beyond what you have in mind, but it's something to think about. It probably lends itself better for dramas.

They all look rather top notch!

I'm visiting Lady Lake, FL this week, which should be driving distance to Ocala. I doubt I'd be able to do anything, but I'll try to respond here if it turns out I can.

A couple of camera moves are a little fast in places, but it's looking good! I can't wait to see it all together.

Looking good! I've tried a marble rollercoaster before, and had some problems. Yours turned out quite well!

Aha! This also makes sense. In any work of this size, there is bound to be problems of this kind. What you have is incredible! It looks like I need to back up and re-do almost all of the rigging when I get the time. I'm sure it will be much quicker the 2nd time.

I know there are problems with CP assignments, but for some areas that are assigned properly, there is extremely weird behavior. Maybe I should just finish the CP assignments and re-post so it will be more clear where the problems are?

Seems to work really well. Good job!

I attempted to rig Lambrina over a few days. The end result has a bunch of problems. I'm not sure where it (or I) went wrong. I know some of the problems are probably my fault. I could have spent more time on assigning CPs to geometry bones and adjusting weighted CPs, but I wanted to see how it would turn out. I also might have fidgeted with some of the sizing of the fingers a little too much. Moving the legs and feet shows nothing that I couldn't fix up with assigning points to bones and setting CP weights given enough time. Seems to work pretty well. The chest is again something that seems okay except for stuff I have to fix with assigning points to bones and CP weights. The more major problems are: Just turning on Arms IK makes it go crazy. Moving the pelvis messes things that whole area. Here are the files in the attached archive: Lambrina.mdl is after the bones have been sized. Lambrina2.mdl is what I was working with for most of the rest of the time. LambrinaExport.mdl is the exported Action. Here are some additional comments on/suggestions for the instructions: Page 21/77: To what purpose? I think this is probably to match the foot, especially when the model is created with its legs straight spread apart or when the feet are not aimed straight forward. Page 24/77: There is no Right Ball Controller Target, only a Right Foot Controller Target and a Right Ball Orient Target. I am going to guess Right Ball Orient Target, since it matches the picture on Page 24. Page 43/77: Does that mean use the middle finger as a guide? Page 62/77: The name of the bone is "Right Hand Carpal Index_Geom". Page 63+64/77: The name of the bone is "Right Index F 1_Geom" Page 70/77:Am I supposed to see anything? The "..." usually means a dialog is supposed to come up. Page 76/77:Do you save the model after that? Lambrina.zip

I basically thought that if it were a good idea, there might be some mutual benefit in rolling it out along with monthly feature/focus articles. (The monthly feature/focus article thing sounds like a really good thing, btw.) However, using the wiki is too big of a can of worms to be thinking about on top of the monthly feature/focus. It's difficult to consider a big change when you're trying to get something else accomplished. (Plus big changes often come across as negative towards existing accomplishments even when they are intended to synthesize the best parts of all that's come before, as in "standing on the shoulders of giants".) Thanks for thinking through the issues and helping me come to that conclusion! I am impressed by your patience! Since it seems like it's not a problem to add content to the wiki either technically or pragmatically, I'd like to try to add some stuff there in a complementary fashion to the existing forums. Baby steps. If people see the merit, it will eventually have a life of its own; if not then it will probably die quietly.

I'm having a hard time seeing this post prioritization as a disadvantage. Is it really a disadvantage if the most popular information stays at the top of the list? I'd love never having to see another "bump" response. The forum system works well for keeping most responded to information at the top, but good reference information falls down. I've always had problems with the forum's search, for some reason. For example, today I had a hard time finding Caroline's NewtonPhysics Cosmic Bowling post. (Turned out it wasn't a post, but just a response in the CosmicBowling post.) It might just be my own problem. Wikis have categories, and there are often general topics that include links to more specific topics that help organize things. Both Sherwood's Forest (what I remember of it) and ARM did a pretty decent job of categorizing. My thought was only that it might make things easier to organize and find with the same or less amount of ongoing work. If the assumption of "same or less amount of work" is wrong, then the cost/benefit equation changes. I have no problem with this as it maintains the integrity of the original post. Can you imagine what would happen if I 'corrected' a tutorial by Yves Poissant? (Well for one thing... I'd have to be very careful!!!) Editing other people's posts is a dangerous proposition. I think I'd prefer to repackage and redistribute. ... A Tutorial Wiki that didn't link into this forum would not work well in my opinion. Most Wikis that I've seen are a different philosophy than Forums. In a Forum, the assumptions are "I said what I said, and I don't want anyone else to say I said otherwise". In a Wiki, it is usually intended as a repository for information. Information is owned by the commons, and is unattributed except for the history. People come in and (even with good intentions) mess things up. But others come in later and fix it. It's a different mindset. I can't answer whether people here would be able to adapt to it, and the only way to know for sure would be to try it. Also, sometimes someone very smart doesn't know how to state something in a way that can be understood; and not every author is a native speaker of English. If we get someone that is annoying, then I think there are features to let admins lock particular pages or restrict users (I don't know what they are). However, that is an additional level of administration, and there are the issues of cost/benefit analysis plus is anyone really willing to do it. I agree that linking between the Wiki and the Forum would be a good thing. When someone created a tutorial in the Wiki, they could post a forum message for discussion and cross-post. (Another option, though, is that the each Wiki page has a discussion page attached to it, but I don't think it's as nice for supporting discussion as a real Forum like this one.) Risking going against some evidence I wrote above ... The Portland Pattern Repository (the fist wiki ever, which was created by Ward Cunningham) often uses the Wiki as a message board, and Ward encourages people to "refactor" posts after they get too big, deleting irrelevant and redundant information and summarizing it. I've never been brave enough to do it, as I've had the same fear you mention. But my fear comes from it being treated like a message board, where people attribute themselves to the things they say.

I got wild and crazy and posted this list of animation lectures/interviews in the wiki.

I got a "You have posted more than the allowed number of quoted blocks of text" message, so I'm formatting my previous comments and Rodney's previous comments as indicated. My turn to apologize for the long post. Both of these approaches linked to tutorials that were hosted elsewhere, which would become stale or broken and out of date. ... Maintaining such sites is usually a labor of love (with emphasis on the labor). Usually that burden is borne by a single person. As you mentioned, life happens, and people can't and won't always be available, and eventually their priorities will change. We need both scalability and succession plans, without a single point of failure. ... Rodney puts a lot of work into organizing tutorials there. The problem with forums is that they are not the ideal structure for holding tutorial information. I'm in an awkward place of disagreeing with you here. Thus far the forum has offered a more permanent place to host tutorials than any other historically. Yes, agreed, it is the most permanent source we have (save the Hash web site). It has some disadvantages, however, that are totally out of your control. 1. Tutorials move down in the list, and older tutorials are difficult to find. 2. You can get around #1 by pinning articles, but you can't pin everything. 3. Search is not the easiest way to find tutorials. 4. Only the original poster (and perhaps a forum admin) can edit a post, make corrections, and add to it. 5. Commentary and information is mingled together in responses, and it's hard to find the information. Dealing with #3 is usually done with index/directory pages (manually maintained) and categories (links to a category page automatically put it in that category, like automatic reverse indexes). I think you've tried to create index posts in the forums in a number of cases. I think we should use the tutorial forum as more of a blog, where Rodney talks about new tutorials that exist, answers questions, etc. ... I agree with everything you say here except I would de-emphasis or remove the word 'new' as well as my role in this space. My knowledge of almost any subject is quickly depleted and error prone at best. The thing is, you have an incredible level of fascination and curiosity about A:M. You care about the community and you know the potential of A:M. I didn't mean to say that you should be creating the new tutorials, but you have to admit, you can't help but comment on new content that people post! It's in your blood! we ARE very interested in people creating new tutorials but what we see historically in tutorials is offered from a special breed of A:M User. ... My advice... before anyone even thinks about requesting a tutorial... contribute something first. It doesn't have to be perfect... it doesn't even have to be correct. It's easy to add a forum post describing what you did to accomplish something, but in a week it will have fallen down in the forum list and be below the fold or on later pages. With a wiki, I think there is a little more feeling of permanence. You're doing something for posterity, especially if it gets categorized and linked in sensibly. Where should the tutorials go? I think they should be hosted in the Wiki. The wiki was originally used for TWO, and is now stale and unused. The TWO wiki is only stale because Martin and I stopped updating it. So, we are to blame. TWO is done for the most part, so it makes sense that the TWO wiki content stops getting updated. It doesn't make sense to update things that don't need updating! I think I'll go out on a limb and suggest if the wiki is used for anything at this time is should be to promote 'Scarecrow of Oz'. I'm not opposed to melding links and information about A:M and its features with SO in the wiki........ Adding SO information to the wiki is probably a separate discussion, but I don't think they are mutually exclusive. Wikis are designed to hold lots of information. We should encourage everyone that creates tutorials to put them there, and announce them in the forum. I'm going to play skeptic here. Bear with me. I mean no slight on A:M users but... the majority of A:M users can't even edit their own forum posts. I'm not sure how many are up to editing a wiki. In favor of the idea... I would guess the knowledge and ability to do such editing increases every day. That's a very good point. But maybe people would get it over time? It is relatively easy to add another sentence or correct spelling on a wiki. If you see how a link is done elsewhere in a post, you should be able to easily add another link. I'm not sure what attachments/file types can be uploaded to the wiki. Many of the images and movies linked in the TWO wiki are hosted here in the forum. Default preferred and blacklisted file types in MediaWiki. Other types merely get a warning. They point out the file to change. Uploading is not as easy, and as you mention there doesn't appear to be the thumbnail feature. One huge benefit is that because tutorials can be hosted in the Wiki, we don't have to worry about the hosting site going away and dying. Also, they can be updated by nearly anyone when they get out of date. There are downsides to wiki maintenance. The primary one is... that infernal maintenance. The main thing is anyone can jump in and fix or add something. And if it is not maintained as well as it should be, we're hopefully no worse off than the forums. The tutorials in the wiki would be a place where we (or a mentor, another idea that is percolating in my brain that may come to light some day) can direct people after they are done with TAoAM. Here I think we've strayed away from the Tutorials area into something else. The idea of a Mentorship program was floated before but its champions have long since faded away. Yes, that's another topic. Like this idea for having tutorials in the wiki, success/failure would all depend on the details. 1. Good Idea? How do we implement... and sustain. This Tutorials forum is not only implemented... its still being maintained. The only issues are the ones I mentioned above. 3. How do we get everything in there? Hey, its your idea. If you don't know..! I think the options are: 1. Just have people put new ideas there. 2. A concerted effort to go through forum posts, get permission from the authors, and copy content over. I've been excited about this idea for a long time What to do when the excitement fades... that's my worry. Lets not create something that no one wants or is interesed in maintaining. (This goes double for the ideas I've suggested!) I agree. Summary I don't think we have enough information to know whether this is a good idea or not. As long as you don't think it's a problem to add non-TWO information to the wiki, maybe we can try coming in the back door, and add some content there to see how it works. I have an idea for some content that could go in the wiki (links to a bunch of videos of, by and about animators). It's not really tutorial information, but it falls along the lines of "wow, this makes me want to animate" or "this tells me how to animate better". Maybe I can write up and post a tutorial (how I did the title screen in my short film). Based on that, we'll see how it goes?

There used to be Sherwood's Forest, then ARM. Both of these approaches linked to tutorials that were hosted elsewhere, which would become stale or broken and out of date. We now have this forum for tutorials, run by Rodney. Rodney puts a lot of work into organizing tutorials there. The problem with forums is that they are not the ideal structure for holding tutorial information. I think we should use the tutorial forum as more of a blog, where Rodney talks about new tutorials that exist, answers questions, etc., and people post requests and suggestions for new tutorials. Each tutorial could be linked to its own thread, as well. Where should the tutorials go? I think they should be hosted in the Wiki. The wiki was originally used for TWO, and is now stale and unused. We should take it over for tutorials. (BTW, is there a single-sign-in for forum and Wiki?) We should encourage everyone that creates tutorials to put them there, and announce them in the forum. Rodney (with help from whoever) can focus on organizing them, categorizing them and creating index pages, etc., and creating "features" highlighting various sections and encouraging discussion. One huge benefit is that because tutorials can be hosted in the Wiki, we don't have to worry about the hosting site going away and dying. Also, they can be updated by nearly anyone when they get out of date. The tutorials in the wiki would be a place where we (or a mentor, another idea that is percolating in my brain that may come to light some day) can direct people after they are done with TAoAM. The Door Is Shut is probably one of the most important tutorials in TAoAM. What are some follow-up tutorials? Two examples stolen from Glen Keane: "An old man struggles to lift himself out of a chair, loses strength, gives up and then falls back into the chair." "A woman at the supermarket is looking the other way, reaches to her shopping cart, and keeps reaching when she doesn't feel it. She looks back, notices it rolling away with her baby, and runs to catch it." The only major problem with the idea is 1. Does everyone think it's a good idea? and 2. Does it fit in with what Hash, Inc. wants to do? and 3. How do we get everything in there? I've been excited about this idea for a long time, and have dropped a couple of small hints to various people, and just thought I'd propose the idea. Anyway, what do you guys think?

I started trying to rig Lambrina from the Extras DVD. Quick question ... she is wearing high-heeled shoes. Should I make the Right Leg INSTALL go to her ankle, and move the Right Foot_Geom bone to match up with it? Should the foot bone be straight up-and-down, or on an angle? My best guess is to keep the Right Foot_Geom straight up-and-down at the base of Right Leg INSTALL and continue to position Right Toes_Geom and Right Ball Orient Target and Right Heel Orient Target as described in the tutorial. The other option would be to pretend the high heels don't exist and pretend the ankle joint is lower than it is, but I'm guessing that would cause problems with control points and trying to rotate the foot.

Katt, you'll be big in Japan!

One visual tweak ... it would be nice to have a different color on the top of the stairs. Maybe just a little darker? It would add a bit of contrast to the castle wall background and give a slightly better sense of place. I came into your thread in the middle, and had a hard time picking up on what was happening, but I'm starting to see the story, and each part you post is more exciting.

Aha! That explains some things! The experience shines through!

As always, the URL is http://www.animace.biz/videoplyr.html. Looking really good. His movements were very fluid! And the story has me hooked!