rossk

Thanks for the compliments. It actually takes suprisingly (at least it seems like it to me) little time to render. I can render out an image where the bird itself is approx 600 pixels wide in about 20 seconds in final render and a little less than 3 seconds in a preview render. Of course there are very few times when the bird would ever be that large in an animation. The hair's density is actually extremely low, which I think is what saves the vast majority of time. You can see some bald spots if you look a bit closer, but they are pretty hard to see unless you are rather close up.

So I created a basic rig for Beany (so called because of the bean shape his body forms). I still need to apply some small amounts of smartskin and whatnot, but in the meantime I threw together a quick walk cycle. During the walk cycle I noticed that the feathers on the bird are changing colours. I'm having the feathers take colour from the "skin" beneathe them, so I think when the skin stretches, the material applied to the skin is shifting which leads to the feather colour change. Is there any way to fix this? Thanks, --Ross walk.mov

Here is a character is that I've been working on for a tiny short. Its a very simple character but I've been using it to try to learn to model and use the hair system. Over the course of the next few days/weeks, I'm hoping to tweak the model some, add a basic skeleton and set of controls, and possibly do an animation test or two in this thread. Suggestions in any area of the process at any time are greatly appreciated, Thanks, --Ross

Luckily with the addition of this thread the forum is no longer evil. Thank goodness I can finally browse in peace again.

I think this might be able to help you out some-- clicky

K, it works fine in V13a5 but not in v12q.

K... I'm confused now So whats the other way of viewing the timeline called? (not the curve, graph, channels editor) Edit: Nope, no red/green/blue lines when I try this. Actually, I have tried it with the curves and in the other view now, and neither works. I've done the move keyframes successfully in the past, so I'm going to try using a different version of A:M quick. Thanks, --Ross

Sorry, the channel editor is the same as the curves editor?

Exercise 18 of "The Art of Animation Master" gives you a brief look into it.

I've been trying to use the Edit->Move Frames-> Scale and Snap to Integers feature to slow down clips of mine, but it seems that this won't work when trying to change the keyframes on the model bone. In fact, I cannot move any of the keyframes on the model bone. Is there something I'm overlooking here or a better way to do this? I basically would like to slow down my movie but keep the keyframes on integers so I may go back and easily edit them. Thanks --Ross

If by "action movement" you mean that it creates whats called a "choreography action", then that is what is supposed to happen. You might also want to make sure that the "animate" button is depressed (its the 'A' in the upper right corner). If you mean that after the cancan action you want to move the skeleton, but it isn't moving, try changing the blend mode (maybe to replace) on the choreography action (under its properties). You could also change the blend mode on the cancan action to blend and set it to 0% when you want to start animating the skeleton in the choreography action. Hope that helps, --Ross

Like the Cubism dog on top Nice job

Wow, these are sweet examples. Loved the OZ map.

...and a "wish new year" to you too :-D

That does seem to render very fast. I'll definately be checking out your project file more indepth to see exactly how you got the cool shape to the leaves and coloring... it almost reminds me a bit of a christmas cactus (i think...). Happy New Years!

Can't say that I can testify to its truthfulness to being a Nimitz class carrier... but it looks great to me.

Woah! You almost made my 2005 end in a heart attack! I kept turning up the volume on my computer to hear if the guy was muttering something... and... well... a certain event in your movie caused me to be a bit startled. Excellent job. Happy New Year!

Wow! That looks really good. Did you use a glass material for the bottle and then apply dirt/smudge decals on top? Oh, also a question-- With the cloudcover in the sky (as the background image shows) would the shadows' edges have a bit of extra softeness?

"When a child tries to climb the wall or compromise the perimeter" Excellent job, very funny!

Nice job. I really liked how much the lighting played into the scene.

Hmm, thats odd. I haven't been really able to pinpoint the cause of the freeze yet... I'll keep messing around with it some and hopefully resolve the issue...

Sounds good, I'll try working on that.. right now my render is freezing again... so looks like I should call it a night for now. Thanks again for the help, --Ross

Any ideas anyone? I'm completely stumped on this... I might just drop this project and focus everything on some other projects I'm doing.

C#7th on the guitar? Looking good... I like the yellow guy (thom or something) going crazy in the back there.

Hey, I've reverted back to an older version of my project before it started freezing. I decided to try to use Robcat's idea about lowering the plane's density as it recedes towards the horizon. Its working quite well for its intending purpose but I'm having problems with the mesh rupturing due to the wave displacement material stretching it too far. The mesh is having this problem most likely (definately) from my shabby splinning techniques... so if someone could give me a hand that would be most excellent. Thanks, --Ross p.s. is there any way to get rid of the bodies on the smiley faces? the bodies seem to be just taking up space without adding any additional message.