oakchas

You could make a bump map in PS, and apply it as a decal of the "bump" type in the flyout in the properties of the decal in the PWS. I assume the jacket is a felt like material? I have a bump from the fedora I modeled a while back I can upload it for you tomorrow if you like.

You are doing great! Ear lobes (or at least the lower ear attachment) are a little funky looking.

Yes to bug shaken (not stirred)! Still wish the screeches were higher pitched, bot otherwise sound/music is good. One little crit.. you can't tell after the flashes if the bug has moved or not, but the first bug with screeching shows a bit of mo blur... and I would expect the bug to be still at that point.

Greg, It took 12 seconds for me for the cloth sim to open. As it started playing, it was stuttering so I pressed stop and waited a few minutes for it to load ahead. It then played fine. It took 5 seconds for the "demo" demo to load the opening screen. it did not play right away, but after a few additional seconds, I started it by pressing the play button. it started playing, but stutteringly. so I waited for it to load more. I'm on a 3.4 GHz Pentium 4, MS I.E explorer 6, Windows xp home sp 2, on slow DSL (256) And Greg, I love how you can make running AM appear so easy! It really is like the magic you do! When you get behind the keyboard, magic happens! Thanks for the vids!

Dhar, I think you're right. Final resolution being the resolution he will use in the contest looks like wide screen HDTV, or could be close to panavision. Where before the view was cropped a bit. If I recall correctly, Russel was pushing his computer to its limits (memory wise) so rendering the final scene in layers, one layer at a time, is an economical way (memory wise) to render a scene, where it is composited (each layer merged into one in photshop or A:M s own compositor. The grey background will be transparent. In the shadow pass, the darker than the background greys will be slightly less transparent than the mid grey background. He could also have done a specularity pass, which would have had lighter shades of grey towards white, being less transparent and obscuring what was below with white specularity. At least I think that's a fair explanation... not as good as what Yves would do... but passable (maybe)

Creative... Here's a link I found on the ARM... linky, click me! look in the tutorials section of Learning Animation Master for more. Hope this helps... else post your graphic as I mentioned.. and tell us what you want to do with it.

You asked: I am a new user of A:M and I'm having trouble importing Illustrator files into A:M. I have done this: plugins> wizard> AI> then browse to my file, adjust the settings, but nothing happens. Can you guys give me a hand? what are you trying to import into A:M? The AI wizard is mostly for importing AI vector files into A:M in order to make them 3D. It will extrude a shape created in AI, but it will not take an AI graphic that appears to be 3D and make it 3D... (if that makes any sense( Post the graphic here as a jpg, and expand on what you want to do with it.

Well, i got part of it right! whooda thunk a pig squeal? Bat echo location.. cool, something else I wooden a thunk of! You did a lot of work on that SFX...

Pretty close... on the voice... I don't have my editing software yet... but I'm looking for a sound... Curtis, your's sounds like a (prey)bird call with machinegun fire clicks...

Mike, Overall, I really like what I've seen so far... looking (again) from a consumer/viewer standpoint. I dont' see anything that I can critique. That is not to say anybody else is wrong... just that I don't have enough experience tearing stuff apart and searching for the little flaws that don't make it work. And the cloak rigging... WOWOWW whew! that haddabe a lot of work! I really want to see that move! (I don't see enough of it in the animatic) I like the characters so far, and the toonline/anime style... I hope I can do as well.

Cory, I agree with Ken, That should show in the HASH booth! It looks great! I like the musculature/tendons showing at the joints (though they look a bit tubular rather than sinewy especially at the fingers)! Sound would be "more greater!" I'm thinking something high pitched rather than low growl... Something like fingernails on a chalkboard; a screeching (makes you shiver) kind of sound... everybody hates that noise, and it sends chills to most folks where a sinister lion's growl-like sound is overused. Man, I hope I can do as well when I start work on my monsters. good GREAT stuff, keep it up!

Thanks for that info. I'm using a Tga with alpha. as I will have a bump map for the indentations caused by the key hitting the paper. I went back in to reapply, and A:M crashed. On restart, the Decal was all there after reloading it. Go figure. I'm on 12.0 v+ But, I'm gonna have to do something more to make it appear crisp and clean as text from a typewriter would anyway

Well, I'm modeling 1:1 ratio. I've modeled a sheet of typing paper (8.5X11") (wow, exciting isn't it?) I have text to go on the paper as though typed. the decal is cut off on the sides (only half of a line shows up) and the text doesn't reach to the middle of the page across when in the graphics program. So A:M's decaler is making the decal larger than it is and not getting all of it. My settings in the graphics program are to build the sheet 8.5 X11" at 200 DPI resolution... is the resolution too high? is that what's doing it? I realize that for PC video 72-90dpi is prolly sufficient. but I was kinda hoping for higher res for poster printing later.. I can post pix if that would help

Thanks for all the detail Noah. Alot of newbies (and heck, me too) would like A:M (or any other program) to produce that quality level of video by pushing a button and having it "happen". 6 months of work for a very nice video short. If you have talent and have practiced to begin with... So, you can't buy any program and render a wonderful little short in 15 minutes. Heck, you spent half of a school (or work) week just working on "very crude" storyboards that weren't based on a totally new story or concept. But, if your story needs to be told, and you really have the desire to do it; it can be done. And, A:M will do a stellar job of it for you. Frankly, it will probably do it better (easier, more intuitively, and definitely less expensively) than most of the other programs right out of the box.

Make certain you have the latest quicktime player and allow active x.

I enjoyed it... lots of Terminator types.. Great action! stuff blowing up! tentacles! girls! fun!

Man, that's nice... His back plate seems to deform a bit when he's lunging... It could just be the lighting. He's a wicked one, though, and I like how he moves, and the general feel of him.

But... Wasn't there a problem with the 2001 rig with the Knight, and perhaps KeeKat? I 'member when I was doing TAOA:M excercises (the chorus line and It's a pitch) that at least Knight's Right leg went all wonky on me.... That doesn't answer the question, I know. But IIRC, there was a problem, and it was either the rig or the Knight... everybody had problems with it.. there was a fix, but darned if I rmember what it was. It may have been as simple as downloading the rig from Hash or a different Knight....

short answer... no Long answer: Learn the workarounds for lighitng, texturing, and all the high computational cost items in your movie. Learn compositing, many times it can be less computationally expensive to render out seperate layers and put them back together in post. Buy a render farm and hash with net render. Realize this: Pixar's movies took up to a day (or longer) per frame to render, on average. There's a lot to learn in this animation business.

Waheed, I'm really impresesd with your ability to get the look of the light lenses accurately with bumps. Also, it may be accurate (from the car's actual lights), but the tail/brake light lens (red) seems to be too "unprismatic" no breaks in the straight lines. Great job! I really like how you did the car model with so few splines... I'm still tending to use A:M like some sort of a spline based poly modeler to get complex curvature.

okay, so those are tats on her... well, you know... apparently the ink got on her teeth and some in her thumb/forefinger web... She's a bit eerie in some way. Not that I don't like her... just a bit off kilter somehow... something about her says "don't trust me much"...

Standard "T" pose would look better for this character I voted can't decide because without context there is no "better," they're both great. Depends on the genre.

That's something else! Looks great! A:M has certainly come far! To say nothing of your modeling, which looks really great, too!

Serg, That's very... ANIMATED! More antic than the GABA stuff. Foreign advertising methods, compared to U.S., are really interesting. Thank you for sharing.

Thanks Mike, Rodney... I'm trying. Very trying (I'm told)! I'll attempt reworking it. The extrusion method is a bit tougher because of the cut out for the strikers in the top of the case... and the cutout where the keyplate rests... that's why I was using R.Reynold's method. The three point method makes a beautiful compound curve. But, where it ends in a straight line(i.e. where the top of the case meets the bottom of the case) it creates problems for me. Add into that mix, when I try to break a point and delete it I'm getting realtime render errors and A:M closes... Frustration! But I shall overcome! Swing low, sweet chariot!