williamgaylord

Since I am working overtime on my "real" job, I don't have time for serious animation projects these days. So I thought I'd try a simple project to teach myself a bit about compositing in AM. I have some video footage shot out the passenger window of my car and thought I might composite this with a flying Shaggy, as though he were flying along side the car like Superman. Simple animation project that could be done in the course of a day or so. The attached image shows how simple the green screen setup is. I've created a simple green screen behind Shaggy and will animate him bobbing and weaving in the air as though he were flying. Then I'll composite this with the video footage. Here are the challenging bits: 1) I'd like to give him a cape of dynamic cloth and use dynamics to animate it. This will likely be the most challenging aspect. 2) I'll simulate shadows falling on Shaggy with a cookie-cut template. I'll animate it to pass by and then recycle to simulate shadows of trees to match the surrounding lighting. Lighting in general is always a challenge when you are trying to make it match the video. If anybody has experience with using cloth dynamics on super hero capes I'd certainly appreciate any advice. Any advice or tutorials on compositing will be much appreciated, too. Thanks! Bill Gaylord

Wow! You have 7 of these in your building? Dale Chihuly's work as well I assume (pretty distinctive style). I've taken dozens of photos of his work while it was on display at the Botanical Gardens in Atlanta. I think your model works quite well for this sort of thing. Bill G

Looks like a glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly (photo attached). Nice work! Bill Gaylord

Nice work! About the dialation, though, when the eyelid closes, the pupil would dialate. Then when the lid opens the pupil will be wide, then narrow with more light entering the eye. It's working the other way 'round in your animation. Overall, great work! Bill Gaylord

I just see two main things. First, a mature goat's snout is longer and (more important) is very level and lined up with its forhead. In other words the top from the nose to the horns is straight, and the horns even continue that line. The other thing I notice is that the body needs more of a slender look (though a mountain goat is usually much stockier than a domestic goat) and is perhaps a bit more cylindrical (not so tapered). Also, in a profile the top of the trunk and the legs should pretty much fit into a square if the legs are proportioned right. On the whole, it looks great! Bill Gaylord

Interesting new character, Colin! Sort of a "Clydesdale" satir. Will he have horns? Head and/or facial hair? Animal ears? Menacing teeth? Bill Gaylord

Wow! Love your furniture designs! Very distinctive style you have going there. And yes, I like the clawed feet, too. Somehow the furniture looks like it was made by an otherworldly being trying, but not quite succeeding at making it look like "normal" stylish furniture in the human world. Sort of like the Munsters or the Adam's Family trying to fit into modern suburbia... Nice work! Bill Gaylord

You are quite welcome! Bill "Van Gogh" Gaylord

In case you might be interested, I've posted more realistic ears for anybody who is interested. Ears are pretty difficult to model, so I've offered both human and pointy elven (or orkish) ears. Great work Patrick! Ears! Bill Gaylord

This is great! Glad to see this subject being revisited. The "on face" controls are interesting, Mark. Do you find this more convenient when you are animating the whole character in a scene? I would think doing the lip sync and other facial animation would be easier in general if the controls were tied to the camera view. That way you can animate the face directly from the camera view to make sure it reads well from that angle. Either way, using nulls for face controls strikes me as a wonderfully intuitive and efficient way to control the facial animation. Bill Gaylord

OK! Changed my vacation plans just so I could join the group on Saturday. How's that for dedication! We just decided to leave a couple of days earlier to go to Chattanooga. (We plan to visit the new wing of the Tennessee Aquarium, amoung other things.) Bill Gaylord

OK, I'd like to be there, but I'm likely to be in Chattanooga, TN, on vacation with my family! How ironic--I'll probably pass William Sutton on the way. Bill Gaylord

I take it you prefer fuzzy characters. I like your pipe cleaner family! Look forward to seeing their story. Bill Gaylord

Maybe I'm missing something, but I thought you can only render a single camera view (shot) at a time, anyway, so the total render time should be the same. The setup time seems like the main issue if I am understanding this. I think maybe some planning ahead of time could save you some work and still give you multiple shots for interesting flexibility in post production editing. First a storyboard, followed by an animatic made of single frame renders. You can get a really good sense of the lighting and camera angles (and even story flow) without a lot of render time. Can you not copy a choreography and edit the camera and lighting for a new shot? Then store the choreography in a separate folder? Bill Gaylord

The frog bone warrior is really shaping up! You can read a good condensed version of the story of Jason and the Argonauts here: Jason and the Argonauts Your frog bone warrior reminded me of a certain scene of the 1963 movie of the same name. Ray Harryhausen did the animations in the movie. The scene is where the king of Colchis, Aeetes scatters the teeth of the Hydra, which spring up as bone warriors that attack Jason and his crew. Well worth renting the movie! Bill Gaylord

He would be great in a "Muppet" Jason and the Argonauts! Kermit as Jason, fighting the frog bone warriors! Great character design! Bill Gaylord

That looks great! Especially with the photo overlays of grass and rock. Sort of expect to see the corner of a table and the hand that's turning it... I like the look of it. Did you have specific plans for it or is it just an experiment? Bill Gaylord

Thanks! You are very generous! I like the "string of beads" style of the design. Bill Gaylord

Looking really fine! I really like the style of the tin man especially. Wonderful design. The loon jumping does have more of the feel of a small "bal-loon" jumping. Some acceleration is missing in the arc of the jump, like it is impeded by air friction. And as suggested by Jamajica, a delayed action of the "blubber" on take-off and landing might give it more of a sense of mass, too...or you could add some sort of wave-like jiggling in flight to make it look more like a large balloon or bubble like Greg suggested. Waves in a large soap bubble behave a lot like waves in a small pool or a tub. Bill Gaylord

Just a bit more interesting, but nothing to brag about yet. I want to keep it simple and direct, but interesting and memorable at the same time. Bill Gaylord

Love this little guy! You have a real knack for design, from the overall form right down to the little details. Look forward to seeing more of this "doodle". Bill Gaylord

I'm working on the logo design for one of my trademarks. Surprisingly, had more trouble with the border piece than I did assembling all the lettering! All kinds of squirrely behavior with bias. Not sure why. Anyway, here is what I have so far. It will be a lot more interesting once I add the art deco style decorative elements. Any comments or suggestions will be welcome. I'll likely have some questions to ask about why I might have had trouble with bias handles moving around unexpectedly. For now, I need to get some rest. Bill Gaylord zzzzzzzzzzz...

Yes, please! Bill Gaylord

That's really cool! For clouds it might need to be a lot slower, but looks like it would work quite nicely. As it is (expecially the first movie) it reminds me of something I saw on Star Trek. Bill Gaylord

I usually build a trunk with a few branches as the base model. I then build a branch model and then save it a few times to make a handful of branches I tweak to make them look different. Each of these has its growth control reduced to a percentage pose slider. I rename them as well. Then I bring the models into a choreography to assemble a tree using multiple copies each of the branch models. It assembles as the spline paths that guide the growth, each branch part growing at the proper time, which I adjust in the timeline. Now, if there is a way to save the fully assembled tree from the chor and have it work as a single model, that would be almost as good as the iterative idea! I have heard of action objects, but don't know how they work. My impression was that they were sort of like proxy models that can hold constraints, relationships, etc., so they can be applied to other models. Tell me more. Thanks! Bill Gaylord Bill Gaylord