robcat2075

My first guess is that it's a bug that the movie version didn't work.

I believe there's supposed to be some way to make the snapshot be automatically applied back onto the mesh that you snapped. This would eliminate having to manually reposition and apply a wireframe that you will be taking to a paint program for further dev. Have you gotten that to work?

Happy New Year's.... Eve!

We have curved hair, don't we? Maybe they mean faster rendering?

There are many fine images done in A:M similar to those. The people who made those images in yafaray were very careful with their lights to get results they wanted and the same care will be needed in A:M. I'll note that the goal of A:M is not to provide every possible means of CG image production but to provide a set of tools that are easily understood by the artist and genuinely useful for character animation. Extremely complex lighting results are rarely needed for character animation productions. I don't think studios like Pixar or Dreamworks have ever resorted to Photon-mapping, for example, in any of their movies. A:M does do Photon-mapping, btw, but it is time consuming and needs to be carefully managed for great results.

Heavens to Clotheroids! I have no idea, really I just briefly glanced at it. What are they doing that's new? Is it that the cloth tries to maintain an initial shape? Our cloth can do that.

No, it is not possible to directly hook another renderer to A:M A:M can export files that people have used in other renderers but that is an complicated pursuit. I have not done it myself.

Welcome to A:M! I'm sorry about that disappointment. I am the one who is supposed to have those done! My project for the new year is to get those in the can. It is safe to watch the ones that are done, however. For an introduction to modeling there are several good modeling ones in "The Art of Animation:Master" which you can get in pdf form for free. Those are classics that have been getting people started for years. In addition, I did an experimental long-form, very basic preliminary intro to modeling basics which I can't find at the moment, perhaps Rodney can find it?. (New TAoA:M) I also recommend the new-user tuts that are pinned in "Tutorials and Demonstrations"

10 years ago i got the character animation bug. I put this together for the bright New Year of 2005... Those Holiday Memories I'll note that subsequent scientific inquiry has shown that holiday turkeys do not have an especially large amount of tryptophan. Please disregard that portion of the video.

Happy New Year, to you, JackDrama! I haven't seen much Animator Apprentice footage so that is interesting in itself.

And a Happy New Subscription Year to you!

Hey, that's spiffy , Matt! Looks like those two got married!

All you really ever have to do is copy the master0.lic file from your old v17 folder to you new v18 folder.

That sounds like ABBA although I've never heard that one before! Here's my New Year's contribution... Fireworks! fireworksH1000.mov Here's the PRJ ChrysanthemumBoomFireworks08c_sounds.zip

I'll add that Smart skinning is something you might add after you've done CP weighting or Fan-boning and still don't quite have what you want. Sometimes Smartskin is easier to do if you already have the joint mostly fixed with CP weighting or Fan-boning.

Real bear fur isn't just sticking straight out from the skin, it bends over to flow more parallel to the surface. Morcos' anteater on the splash screen is an example of that. You'll need either groom it or use a direction map. I'm not sure you need hair for a cartoon bear, it will make render times quite extensive. But if you want more real hair, experiment on just a square patch first and try different things.

It's not necessarily something you are or aren't. It is something that can be learned. I was going to say something like "there's a reason they have a thousand employees and take two plus years to get one done" but even Pixar and Dreamworks don't always get things done on time... ‘Good Dinosaur’ Delay Leaves Pixar Without 2014 Release The movie may be better for waiting but on a business level it's a catastrophic gaffe that someone is probably having a tough time explaining how they got to this point. It happens to the best of them and you have the advantage of not losing your job over it.

On my monitor I just detect slight blockiness in the shading. I guess there's no dithering in that render?

Speaking of projects not done... I should have had those intro tutorials for A:M done a year ago. I gotta get that done. It has a "scope" problem much as making a film does. How to file a topic down to a size that is doable and yet still communicates useful information.

That's looking good. That will be a cool challenge for Hair. I don't remember that old dog thread of yours at all! That was a good-looking dog too.

Hooray for Nancy! Who is #2? I voted for that one! Thanks to everyone who voted for my Christmas Fruitcake! That was one procedural material that makes the fruits, the bread and the crust all together.

In FK mode, yanking on a CP will not move any CPs that are closer to the root. In regular mode, the whole spline can be affected, even by pulling on the very end CP.

Has nobody won this contest yet?

Thanks, everyone! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I really didn't think I was buying a tuba when i bought that. Here's the story: check out post #4 and #12

The daunting thing about CG is the number of things you have to have "done" before you can "start"