wedgeeguy

Hello ... You could also play around with the "roughness" and "roughness scale" under the "surface" properties. This will help to break up the color with what appears to be a surface displacement. Not sure if this is what you might also mean by "weathering". The included image should also help to explain. Bruce

Paul .. Lots of great stuff to look at. Congratulations! Bruce

Really nice work Michael .... Bruce

This is how I do my shorts .... 1) Come up with a story or an idea for a short ... This includes the script, characters, props, type of scenes you might need. 2) Start creating (on paper) what these things characters, props, scenes might look like. 3) Record any dialog you might need. 4) Storyboard your idea (on paper nothing real fancy) the camera angles, character facial expressions, timing. 5) Model, texture, and rig the character(s) taking into account your character's design, what facial expressions they will need, how they will move (rigging). 6) Model the props and scenes. 7) Start animating. 8) Render the animation. Personally I would render the animations as individual TGA files and then combine later inside a separate editing program. But A:M can also render out MOV files if you don't have any editing software. A:M can also double as a basic editing tool if needed. 9) Load the TGA files into a editing program ... add your dialog ... sound effects .. music ... titles/credits ... any screen fades or wipes ... then save out as a compressed movie file ... AVI, MOV, MPEG ... this will depend on your editing program. 10) Sit back and enjoy. Of course along the way you will bang your head against the wall, pull out handfuls of hair, curse at the monitor, lose sleep, and wonder why the heck you are doing this .... but in the end you will have something that YOU created and can be proud of. Don't worry though because the experience you gain from creating it can be applied to your next great short thus making that one even better. Good luck! Bruce (the wedgee guy) www.pencilwedgees.com

Thanks everyone for taking the time to take a look. I appreciate all the comments and I am glad that everyone seems to have enjoyed it. Rodney - No, I don't think that I am going to re-render with hair although it would probably look pretty good. All in all I am happy with the way it turned out. As promised, I am attaching one of the mice to this post. It is created in version 12w so it should also be usable in versions higher then that. The mouse is fully rigged with basic pose sliders but I did remove the decals used for the "hair" though. The TGA image files used for the decals weigh in at about 19MB. I know it was probably overkill for what I did with them but I wanted to make sure that I retained the detail of the hair when the camera was doing a closeup. Please feel free to do whatever you wish with this model without any restrictions. If anyone does come up with something neat using the model then please let me know so that I can take a look. Mouse_Bare.mdl Hopefully attaching a model file will work through the board here .... Whelp, it looks like it does ... Yay! Again thanks for the comments ... Now I need to get with Ken Baer and see about adding it to A:M Films. Much appreciated everyone .... Bruce

"Little Ditty" has now been completed! I have posted a mini version from my website that all of you are invited to come and eyeball if you like. Thanks again for all the kind words and encouragement and I hope that everyone gets a kick out of it. "Little Ditty" Size: 12Mb. (quick loading) Codec: Sorenson 3 (Quicktime 5? or greater) Video Size: 320 x 200 Direct link: "http://www.pencilwedgees.com/playmovie-LittleDitty.html" Time to create from scratch: About 3 months Please let me know if anyone has any problems viewing this movie. Thanks for taking a look ... Bruce (the wedgeeguy)

GoodGuy20K ... Again thanks for the offer. I just settled on going ahead and rendering with just the decals. Once everything is completed, if you like, I can post one of the mice to the boards and you can do whatever you like with them .. ummm? ... of course within the guidelines of the SPCA. Martin ... Thanks for the advice about mowing lawns to make a couple of extra bucks for an upgrade. That idea sure beats the heck out of my current method of raising extra cash ... giving sponge baths at the local old folks home for a quarter. Currently I am in rendering limbo while stuff is being created but everything is looking good so far. More to follow ... Bruce (the wedgeeguy)

Thanks again everyone for the kind words. I have started the rendering process but unfortunately without using hair. It looks like the bulk of the animation is going to take around 30 hours (1400 frames) rendering at 720 X 486 resolution. About 1:20 minutes per frame ... that's not bad. All the editing is pretty much completed so it's just a matter of rendering out the frames (as TGA files of course). Goodguy20K ... Thanks for your offer to help with the hair. You are correct in that more recent versions of A:M are faster in rendering hair. I tried adding hair back to just one of the mice and did some test renders. Under version 12 it took 5:24 minutes to render one frame. Under version 13 (same rendered frame) was cut back to 4:36 minutes. So there definitely was a speed increase. Sorry but I don't have version 14 to test to see if even that version is faster. All in all I will be satisfied with using the decals instead of hair ... But again thanks for the kind offer. Dhar - I guess the music is a jazz influence but I'm no musical maestro. More to follow ... Bruce

Thanks everyone for taking a look and leaving your comments. I will announce when I get everything completed. Ken - I think our mouses might be cousins Martin - Sorry but no hair this time. I did experiment with using hair on the bodies but the render time per frame was just a little longer then what I wanted to wait. I did use the hair to create the image for the decals though and that worked really well. Maybe on the next animation? Thanks again everyone .... Bruce

Hey Everybody ... I have been working on a short animation called "Little Ditty". It's about three mice that play in a jazz band. I'm still tweaking a few things and will hopefully have the completed animation ready within a week or two. But until then, I hope that you will enjoy a couple of stills from the movie. Thanks for taking a look ... Bruce (the wedgeeguy)

Fuchur: Thanks for taking a look. I appreciate your comments. KurryKid: The models, rendering, special effects, and of course the actual animation was done with Animation Master(version 11.1). I did use Paint Shop Pro for some of the static graphics ... a music program ... and editing was all done separately. Thanks for taking a look! Bruce the "wedgeeguy"

Greg thanks for the comments. I'm also a fan of Jimmy Neutron so I consider that a compliment.

First let me thank everyone who has commented on my animation. I know that sometimes the large file sizes turn people off so I am especially grateful for those of you who took the time to view it. Drakkheim: Thanks for leaving your comment. It took about 6 months to complete the animation although it did feel at times like it was a decade. I agree that the voice talent we are working with are the best! They did make my job a lot easier. Nancy: Comments coming from such a visually talented artist like yourself is an honor. Thank you! The timing and pace of a story is at times just as hard as creating the animation itself. Plus it is just as important. I know that I need to work on that. Hopefully I will get better with practice. Thanks again for taking a look. Rodney: Thank you for taking a look and for your insight. I think your suggestion of not mentioning the ages of the characters is a great idea! Let the kids imagine that they are the ones they are seeing on the screen. I never thought of that. Again the quality of the voices was just pure luck on my part. The voice actors are from all over the United States and Canada. Everything was done through e-mail and none of the actors really had any idea what the other actor's lines sounded like. So I think it is pretty amazing that everything blended together so well ... who knew that something like that would actually work. Also Rodney no apology is necessary. I wouldn't expect anyone to link the animations that I have done with my strange moniker. Like I mentioned to you before, the name comes from my old cartoon strip called "Pencil Wedgees". I guess I should set the record straight that I do not tour the country giving random people "wedgies" ... well there was that one time but learned my lesson after having to complete my community service. Thanks again Rodney for your help. Chad: Thank you. I too hope that the kids will love it as well as the educators. There still is a long way to go but it looks like we may be on the right track. Thanks! Anders: I appreciate your comments. I must admit that I had to do a little brushing up on my knowledge of Astronomy. Although Dick (the mastermind) kept me on track with the details. I too hope that this is a winner.

Hello Everyone ... I thought I would share a new animation that I have created. It is for an educational project in development called "Astronomy 101" and is geared towards ages 8-11. The movie clip is called "The Introduction" and ...well ... "introduces" most of the cast as well as the background story . Please visit and take a look if you can. I am especially interested in some feedback from those of you with kids in that age catagory (8-11). Please excuse some of the "cheesy" graphics and special effects ... but I think it is still watchable. EDIT: Opps ... I had the wrong ages in the original post. Ages 8-11 are the target. Thanks to everyone for your time ... website: http://www.pencilwedgees.com/movies.html movie name: "Astronomy 101 ... The Introduction" movie size: 48 Mb running time: 13 minutes codec: Sorenson 3 email: astronomy101@clearwire.net Bruce Monahan the "wedgeeguy"

KenH has the correct answer. Opps!

Hiya Serg ... Nice job with the animation! I was wondering when someone would do a song/animation about the almighty sausage ... and now it has come true. All I can hope for now is that someone will finally do an operetta about the baked ham. Seriously though ... I enjoyed it ... thanks! Bruce