Gerry

thanks folks! I have a newer version of this, but all I did was change the colors a bit. I don't want to post *every* freakin variation so I'm going to wait to post something that's a real step forward. No pun intended.

Great work, Will, though it seems like he would have a more "lumbering" walk. the model, textures and detail are really terrific.

It already does that. Don't you get "tool tips" when you hover over a bone, model or null?

This is looking kind of sluggish. I need to play with the keyframes to get a bit more sass into these dance steps but I think it's a good start. Ultimately the geckos will all have different coloration and there will be a lot more of them. GeckoDanceTest07_h264.mov

Or like this...

Here's one more of the street scene, with a little more texturing. Also replaced the left palm tree with a better one using hair for the leaves.

Wow, I just finished my first test ever with SimCloth and I must say I'm impressed! This is just after playing with it for an hour and a half or so, starting with the "Wave the Flag" exercise in TaoA:M. SkirtClothTest01_h264.mov

I'm playing around with cloth today for my big dance number. Got to teach a flouncy skirt to rhumba!

One more before I head home. Holmes you read my mind. I'll be doing some hand painted decals to enhance the "painted" look I'm after, and even thought about using the sky from the color sketch you can see in the animatic I've got on YouTube... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nxNEeKBrWQ There will be a lot more done on this before it's finished.

Uh oh, looks like the paperclips are mutating. I knew it would happen eventually.

Thanks Paul, it's nice to be back working on it again.

Here's one of the street scenes I've been working on.

Wow, this is great! I've built many things of this sort and this is by far the clearest and easiest way to see the various steps, way better than the printed sheet that comes with these projects. Good luck with it.

And here's the young couple now.

I know, it was shocking to me too! I'm still getting used to the idea.

I've been doing a lot of organizing and pre-production work on this project. I've completed a shot list, including whether each shot will be 2D, 3D, a combination, or a re-use (some imagery will be repeating), a list of models I need to create and whether they're sets, props, or characters, and next I think I will be creating a full-length animatic. Also making progress on the two main characters (a boy and a girl, natch!) and developing better character designs with a more pronounced silhouette. I'd been struggling with the girl character, both in her design and the kind of dress I've been imagining, and doing a lot of sketching, which wasn't going well. Then last night I had an intuition that I should look at some of the dresses in the film of "West Side Story" (the entire film is available on YouTube in short segments!) and lo and behold, I discovered that Rita Moreno's dress and dance in the "America" number was EXACTLY what I'd been imagining for the last two years I've been working on this! So, problem solved. I'll be doing a short dance sequence for the girl and I'll be using that movie sequence for inspiration. I've committed to completing a certain amount of work on this project over the course of the coming year but I've been slammed at the day job for the last three months, one fire drill after another. It seems to be slowing down at the moment so I was able to get some preliminary work done on this over the weekend. I'll try to post some sketches this week.

This is all gorgeous but you've got it going by way too fast. let us look at this stuff! The time lapse could be at least twice as long; this is a luxurious setting, the camera should linger on it a little. Same for the post demo, slower would be better.

This is the music video project I mentioned in the other thread. I've got an animatic of the first verse on YouTube from back in July, but I guess I never posted a link here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nxNEeKBrWQ

Many happy returns Gene, but seriously, are all those birthday people really over 100? Is there some glitch in the forum software that assigns birthdates to folks who dont list them??

An Euler interpolation allows things to rotate more than 360 degrees. Set a beginning and ending point for a rotation, right click on the Rotate settings in the pws, and select "Euler". Now you can rotate an object 5000 degrees if you want, in other words, it will spin from the starting keyframe to the ending keyframe. Extremely handy, but probably not for a tank turret (though it depends on the tank I guess!)

Looks like today's Dennis Borruso's birthday, and the big four-oh to boot, so have a happy one! He's more active over on another forum and I've posted there as well.

Thanks everyone. Here's the official presentation on the company website: http://www.visualexllc.com/vlexholiday2010...010Holiday.html

Thanks Nancy! The wizardry is all Holmes, I just set the keyframes!

Sorry I have been unable to post any progress reports but this year's animation was done on the fly and there are some rough patches that I pretty much have to live with. I'm sorely tempted to go back to this after the holidays and get it right but you know how that goes! Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas! Final_quality_render_h264.mov

There's a novel? I wasn't aware of that.