robcat2075

Disclaimer: my offer to animate should not be taken as an incitement to quit your day job. Not just yet.

Mine comes in a styrofoam cup that you add hot water too and already has the flavor stuff in it so I can't edit that out. But fortunately it only has 47% of daily sodium ration.

What knockers! (I just noticed those)

Those look fabulous!

Is there something dangerous about ramen? I just bought a box.

Hey Will, I don't have any money to Kickstart you but i can contribute something useful... if you can use it, I'll do one minute of animation for "Tar of Zandoria" There are some strings attached... - it needs to be a contiguous, self-contained scene, not scattered shots, so even if the rest of the movie doesn't get done I have something watchable. - i have to like the scene and the audio track. - I'd prefer something without dialog - the scene's other assets, like the set, are done, so even if the rest of the movie doesn't get finished, I can at least render out my part and it will look done. - the characters need to be appropriately rigged for what needs to be done. - I can show my work at any time to anyone. I don't have to keep it under wraps until the movie is finished - I tend to work erratically on things like this, with long periods of no visible progress. You're fine with that. - other conditions I haven't thought of yet.

But other people seem to like what you are doing with it. Don't undervalue that. "Director of Design and Engineering" What is your day like?

If you need this now, I'd suggest doing one normal render to get the reflections and then another with the object gone and swap the alpha channel from the second render into the first render. The second render could be done quickly with lights off and other things to speed up the render since you only want the alpha channel.

Regular 5 should already do 5-pointers

When you see a big city shot in a movie, a CG movie, they typically make the least geometry they can get away with and put good textures on it to suggest the detail and only on the sides that will be seen. If the camera needs to move in close to something that will be built with more detail. They do that because their software isn't infinite either and they need to get the shot done in a reasonable amount of time and human cost. A:M can do those sort of shots if you can. Your good discretion in modeling and talent in texturing will be essential to do shots like that.

If you can control the reflection and/or specularity of the flake portion of the combiner, you could probably get a good sparkle from that. In my bump map version, you can. the "sharpness" on the Glossy shader affects how quickly a glint goes on and off, and "Specular Intensity" controls the brightness. So a pretty fair spectrum of effects could be had with this technique. In the original at the top, the bright spots are always bright from any angle so they didn't "glitter".

Indeed, just a few weeks ago the question came up. Here's my "sparkle" and there are some other solutions farther down the thread... http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...st&p=361539

I kind of like your idea of making it all "clay". What would that look like for "wood"? What would Ardman do?

Try some stuff, see what you get. Remaking one of those boards with more splines should be about a 5 minute task. Try things. Experiment.

I was thinking the top one but the other look interesting too.. What sort of a texture are you planning to put on these boards?

yeah. maybe 2 or three in the middle. And then nudge a few of the CPs around so they're not so straight.

He's lookin' solid!

There's also an "export only triangles" option in there so maybe that's a way to solve the five-pointer problem, if it is a problem.

Good news.... A:M already can export OBJ sequences. in the Chor window>Plugins>Export>OBJ and make yer choices...

Sounds like something to AMReport. Have all the V16s done this or just the current v16b ? Include a "Good" result and a "bad" result

Well, I see that OBJ export is ostensibly available by in the chor window. Let us know...

Creepy critter!

Do you have interns?* Teach one to export the Chor as an MDL, advance one frame and do it again. Then teach him to import the MDLs and export them as OBJ and to do it again. Test this out yourself on a short stretch to see if it works as you imagine. *(note: use of interns in this manner is not actually legal. Perhaps you have "production assistants")

How many frames do you need to do?

Yup, better. I'd be tempted to experiment with having more splines along the length of the planks so i could make the edges slightly wavier... not so perfectly rectangular.