robcat2075

I'll add that the white card trick is a real-life photographers technique for getting idealized images of glossy surfaces like cars. It isn't necessarily behind the camera, you put it wherever it gets you the highlights you want, that best reveal the shape of the object. Those giant box lights aren't cheap in the real world. $10,000 and up

The porcelain had a parameter but i don't think the numbers corresponded exactly with this one. 50% gets the smoothest patches in this scheme. This is an overhead view of a 4-spline dome...

Further comparison of Normal Weight settings

Surface Properties have two rarely noticed options: Average Normals, which when ON enables... Normal Weight 0% -100% This seems to control how the surface normal is interpolated from one spline to the next across a patch which affects shading and reflection results. Notice the difference in reflections and specular highlights in these three images. From left to right... Normal Weight 0%, 50 %, 100% OFF and 0% is the A:M default but ON and 50% is the result most like the intended spline shape and will give you smoothest results for most models.

Anything that has Surface properties. So, yes, you can do it in a group if you don't want to do it on the whole model.

Some spline lumpiness can be reduced (presuming there are no other problems) by setting Surface>Average Normals>ON and Normal Weight>50

Here are two PRJs and the render setting presets to use with them... TDAQTest02 NoAO.prj TDAQTestNoAO.pre TDAQTest03 WithAO.prj TDAQTestWithAO.pre In all of these there is a main kleig (Spot) light and a Fill Light. Only the kleig light has shadows. The "Key " light is off. There is a white card behind the camera to make the square reflection on the eggbot body. The card is set to 100% ambient , white The card is set to Cast Shadows OFF and Cast Occlusion OFF The ground is set to cast no reflections. The diffuse Falloff of the Ground is set to less than 100% to make it whiter, however it reduces the appearance of AO on the ground. Fog is used behind the eggbot to blank out the background. The intensity of the lights and shadows is set in the chor. They are different in each version. they should be but not always.

variation...

I'll note that one typically doesn't use both AO and SSAO at the same time. SSAO is a "fake" AO. It can look great and is fast but the parameters must be set very carefully for each scene. The default values are just there so that they are not all zero.

Here's a test with one z-buffered light and one fill light, no AO. 2 seconds Here is a similar setup but with AO. 1 minute 13 seconds.

This would have been a great thing to bring to Live Answer time. I think that lighting is probably very simple. Maybe one very large z-buffered light, maybe AO and maybe a large white card behind the camera to provide the squarish specular highlight on the plastic. I presume the image you show at the top is something the artist provided and not something you rendered in 3DSMax. If it was your render, you could just imitate the lighting in the 3DSMax "chor", right?

I'm not sure I understand the story point being made. Or is this too small a segment for that? The sliding feet bother me but maybe that's intentional?

I have a circular saw and a table saw! A 1950's era Craftsman tablesaw, inherited from dear old dad.

I'm thinking of making stool out of plywood that I can sit on when i practice on my porch. Regular chairs are too short and typically have a rear-ward slant that is uncomfortable. It needs to be something cheap I can leave out there and not worry that it might disappear. I also want it to be adjustable. I'm testing out ideas in A:M with simple shapes. I gave each piece a bone so i can rearrange them in Action 1 to see if I might be able to cut them all from one 2' x 4' piece of plywood. Action 2 is a test of the geometry of a ratchet mechanism for the adjustable seat. RatchetA000.mov Much revision remains to be done, however

If this codec can will make me look 20 years younger, I'm all for it.

After witnessing many episodes moderator-induced calamity on the forums I visit, I definitely appreciate Rodney's calm and thoughtful guidance.

Hooray! I'm glad to hear you are back on track. We expect to see lots of cool work from you now!

Welcome back to A:M!

Update: I haven't forgotten about this, but I will need to clear out a number of non-animation obligations before I can put proper attention to this endeavor. Watch this space for future news!

Nancy has a lot of fans!

That is surely a disappointing series of events have to endure. I had no idea the stakes were so high that people would do such things. None-the-less, it is good to hear from you again!

Welcome back, Martin!

I will grant you that the difference in the way Adobe Photoshop and Adobe After Effects work with alpha channels is a source of frequent confusion.

It looks like the "remove green" has worked well. However, I'll note that if you are adding animation on top of live video you can get the same result without green screen by rendering with an alpha channel.

That's fabulous, Roger! A little urban noise and wheel squeaking would go well with that.