robcat2075

A fine looking head! My impulse would be to remove some splines in the cheeks, but it's your face to rig, not mine.

http://www.sgross.com/plugins/plugin4/index.html it isn't actually random, but if you make a whacky path for it to work with it might appear random

Someone better put their hand on the steering wheel or there's no telling where they'll end up.

Cool plane. I see a collision with the Hindenburg in it's future. Oh the humanity! I recall a magazine cartoon of a plane that looked similar. It had people at tables on the wings with waiters walking around serving dinner.

What he said. And... start small. Try making one shot first . Find out what it takes you to model, texture and animate one shot. Then you'll have a better idea of how feasible it is. A talented artist will be an asset. It's hard to imagine one today with NO computer skills. I think a committed novice will need at least a year to become comfortable with the various tasks involved. A:M is an inexpensive way to give it a shot and certainly has the tools you need.

Let's all do the Hop

Try importing it from your CD>Data>Materials>Geometry folder. Use porcelain sparingly. It's better to add it to your model after you have made it as smooth as you can manually.

Those tools will reappear when you have some mesh selected AND select "Distortion" mode (curvy wireframe box next to the Thom icon)

Basically, you right-click on the modeling window and creat a new ON/OFF pose and make your constraints there. My "simplest IK leg" tut includes that process. http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...st&p=206902

A:M has the font wizard to make 3D letters, and you could also make some text in a paint program and import that as a rotoscope, but your MovieMaker is probably the most efficient for regular titles and credits.

I hope this housecleaning doesn't mean you're giving up on the stuff you've been working on recently here. The glimpses we've gotten look fabulous.

When bones overlap each other clicking on the tip of the bone is the best way to select it. However, if you need to rotate the bone hit R after you select it and use the XYZ rotate manipulator that appears for better control rather than dragging the tip.

looks cool. will look forward to see some footage.

More successful than I expected. Can you render a wireframe of the animation too?

The "Stereoscopic AniJam" incorporated such an idea and will be appearing in the upcoming MiniMovie Contest #5; keep your eyes peeled to see it. Watch all the entries, of course.

Just say it's a water cannon and you'll be done.

Actually, the black is what the alpha channel is allowing to appear in those areas... nothing. If you want to see the alpha channel load a frame as a targa into Photoshop and look at the channels.

The pivot point for the model (the black bone) would normally be at 0,0,0 of the modeling space. If your model is not constructed around 0,0,0 the pivot point woud appear outside it. Also if you had moved the black bone while in bones mode that would move the pivot point. you can go in to bones mode in your model andmove the black bone to any point in your model. You may have to click on the background to make it appear.

That must be one of those ergonomic tamborines they make for old gypsies suffering from tambourine elbow.

For a gusher of blood, "blobbies" particles might ideal. They actually glob together when they collide. But you have to be patient with them, they take a very long time to render.

It sounds like a live action movie (your cats) with an animated character (the alien) composited into it? I'd suggest picking out ONE shot and doing it to completion first. What you learn along the way will help you greatly in planning your other shots. I agree with Dhar's assessment, but I'd modify it like this... Great story + great animation = box office failure, Exec who greenlit it is gone and new Exec too busy to promote it (Iron Giant) Great story + bad animation = cult classic (Heavy Metal) Great animation + bad story = Almost anything by the nine old men after Walt died. Bad story + bad animation = Hoodwinked II, coming to a theater near you.

Here's a simple cycling action with repeat ON and set to 5. It doesn't speed up the action, it plays it 5 times at normal speed. No path needed. Stride length is OFF too. RepeatingAction.zip

Hey, that's a creature Ray Harryhausen would be proud of! Looks fabulous.

Basically you drag a selection box around them and slide them. By coincidence I just made a small tut that addresses moving keyframes around on the timeline PoseToPoseH.mov (you'll need to have QT7 installed to see it)

The limitation of a kleig light is it is like a spotlight... it has a cone shape. It's tough to make a kleig light big enough to convincingly cover a large landscape shot like this and not see the edge of the cone. But try it, you may find an arrangement that works for your situation.