robcat2075

Put it in the main A:M forum, and put the zip directly in the post, not ftp. It's only 20MB, make it easy to find and easy to download. And give it an obvious title like "2012 A:M Forum Collaboration Project"

I was curious about how A:M shifted the camera for the Multipass DOF effect. This is the image of a very bright, very tiny dot far behind the DOF range of the camera with various pass number settings. I would think that cluster near the center of the higher pass versions would not be ideal. The low number passes seem to be the same every time, but the higher ones change a bit with every restart of A:M

My proposal is for two presets, 480p and 720p. 720p would be the encouraged one but people would have the option of 480p if they have limited computing resources. The 480p footage (if any) can be stretched in post and no one will be the wiser.

Sorry, I did not get to voting at all on any of the entries so i didn't get to yours to do any comments, but I'll give you the one that came to me first... avoid "isolated motion". There are other names for it but it's when one body part moves but everything attached to it remains motionless. Like when the guy in front turns his head and his shoulders don't move at all. For some reason that works for Fred Flintstone and stop motion animators get away with it a lot but it almost always looks over-stiff in 3D characters. Having the shoulders help out even just a little bit on that motion would loosen the whole thing up.

Give all the ideas a try and see what works best.

Paul, did you get the email I sent with the video link?

Congratulations again, You're doing well lately!

Another angel gets its wings every time someone figures out a feature in A:M

The shadows-only workflow has changed a little bit since v14, i forget exactly what, but it was available in v14 somehow.

TSM_1_fingers_only.mdl TSM always presents a list of systems that you can choose to not have rigged. Like this...

Here's something to try... delete your current "2 finger" bones and import this model that has only the "2" fingers in it already rigged into your model. This will also import the relationships, which you may have to turn on separately from teh TSM relationship you have now. Or maybe not, I haven't tried. drag the "dummy Hand" to be children of your models "hand". Move and scale the dummies until the geometry finger bones are aligned with your model's mesh, then delete the dummy hands. Attach your mesh to the new "2" finger bones. TSM_2Fingers_only.mdl

If you run Rigger again on your model , do "2left finger" and "2 right finger" appear in the list of things to potentially be rigged?

I'll try to get the orientation video done today then we'll be ready to go i think.

Yes, that can be done. I'd be curious about what was different with the finger that caused it to be skipped.

That is normal behavior for model bones when looking from the camera view (use the translate manipulator to move normally) but the other bones, the ones you see in Skeletal mode, should not do that.

You should be able to open that in V13 or later. You might get a warning, but it should at least open.

that's not a bad start. i can see you are thinking about the problem of showing weight and mass in motion. I agree that he's not getting his weight over his feet soon enough to stand up. When he's pushing off with his right hand he can be leaning farther forward and over his knees. When he's standing up his whole spine can bend to lag behind his hips. A core challenge of all 3D animation is trying to make it not look like a set of parts flying in rigid formation. We look for opportunities to overlap motion so things are not leaving and arriving all at the same time and to not move them in straight lines. For example when he moves his right hand from his knees to the floor, the hand could lag behind the wrist initially. The wrist is moving down in two straight line paths (with a lurch in the middle), an arc that lifts off the knee then around down to the floor would look nicer. When the hand lands it shouldn't all stop at once. You could have the fingers contact first, then spread as the palm pushes down, or have the heel of the palm land first and the fingers flop down a moment later. There's something about that guy's upper arm that bothers me. It has an natural forward bend to it. I'd go into the model and fix that. When he glances to the side at the start, dont' just pivot the head, the shoulders should contribute to that gesture. In Hanna-Barbera animation they can get away with moving a head and leaving everything else locked in place but it looks odd with more realistic characters. If the face isn't rigged yet, at least rig the eyeballs so you can pose them other than straight forward, which is almost always too neutral. Something I'd experiment with is the way his feet react when he's standing. They look a bit too static for all the weight that's being thrown around on top of them. I'd think about having them nudge forward and down when he's shoving his weight against them from behind, like they are getting pushed into the soft carpet.

variation view AuroraB000.mov

Here's a go at the curtain effect... http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...st&p=366288

This isn't quite what Rusty is looking for in his other thread but I'll show it none-the-less... a fly-over of the Aurora curtain effect. Basically two gradient combiners are used to fade out the top and bottom and in the middle is a turbulence combiner, stretched vertically and animated in the chor to move through the mesh of the curtain to give it the undulating look. AuroraE000.mov PRJ done in v17 but it will work in earlier versions Aurora06_animated_flyby.prj

That's a great idea!

Put on your RED-BLUE glasses to see these "Dubois" color anaglyphs. There's almost no ghosting

The view from space looks like a cloud-like material applied to a transparent shell that is slightly larger than the planet surface.

Wow! I didn't think that would work at all! Idea.... maybe you've thought of this already, but if you have credits at the end of your DVD, include everyone who contributed to the Kickstarter. Small type. "Sita Sings the Blues" has such a list at the very end.

Is there something missing from the very beginning? It seems to starting mid-sentence and I'm not sure what we're trying to do there.