Gerry

Here's the final state before we sent it off to the client yesterday.

Thanks Stian! It's a regular render composited with a toon render in Photoshop. Also rendered at a pretty high res (1920x1440) with a toon line of .5 which gives it a nice crispness. Some of the colors have changed and I rendered it in two poses, with the left array of bottles turned so we see their front. I'll post updates from work tomorrow. Gerry

Actually I guess it is a WIP cause It keeps coming back to me for changes! thanks for your comments, peeps!

Here's a small piece I just completed for my day job, a schematic model of a plug-in room deodorizer. Started last Thursday and finished it today. Not technically a WIP since it's finished but I thought you'd like to see it.

NIce start and very crisp look! Your client should be happy! Particles coming off with the drilling shouldn't be too hard. A particle system will do it. If you need to show the teeth wearing down you could do an action in muscle mode and just move the cp's.

HI Caroline- I was gonna post a response but before I did I clicked over to the rigging forum and saw for the first time your Gala rigging thread. But I got as far as the link to the Mechadelphia rigging tute and I am completely blown away! This is not only inspiring but exactly what I need to learn before I do one more thing in my rigging attempts. I'll look at the settings you're talking about. I tried to create a pose from the action where I created the constraints for the cog joints, but it had no effect on them. I think I need to go back to the version before I put in the cogs (or realistically, to the version before I put in the bones!) and take it from the top. The TSM install is pretty straightforward and I think I'll get it closer on the second attempt. Thanks for your comments. Gerry

That's a good question since I'm trying to duplicate a comic panel. Maybe I will as this progresses!

Okay, here's a very rough first draft, lots still to do, but I wanted to put something up for comments. I'm pretty happy with the cave wall background though I still need to work on the colors and other fine tuning. Also, as I mentioned the rigging is misbehaving but in this view you can't see how the elbows are crimped.

I was pretty careful in putting in the fan bones and following the TSM instructions. But when I move the controller bones in the chor (the ones left visible after the rigger is run) the fan bones stay frozen. I'll take another run at it today or tomorrow.

I've run into similar problems with TSM2. Should I be doing the same thing, i.e., turning off the IK setups before creating the cog joint constraints?

I downloaded and ran the great Setup Machine from Anzovin and the install went pretty smoothly I must say! I'm having one problem though, in that I set up a bunch of cog joints in the elbows, knees and finger joints, but they don't work in the chor. I created them all in one action, the constraints are still present in the PWS, but they're all rigid when I try to animate. Do they need to be turned on or activated somehow? Otherwise it's a very promising start. Gerry

Just the step by step for the shield is a tutorial in itself! Great work!

Thanks, case. I'm continuing to experiment with textures and materials. I also need to do something about all that yellow! It looks like he's wearing rain gear!

Here's a render with some quick coloring and materials. Next I'm going to do some decaling and texturing. And the helmet should be dark blue, not yellow, but I'll fix that in the decaling stage. Croaker_rotate02_h264.mov

Well if you can tell that the pixels get smooshy your eyesight isn't as bad as you think it is!

He Vern, this might help. I just learned a new Mac trick yesterday: hold down the Control key while scrolling with your scroll wheel, and THE WHOLE FREAKIN DESKTOP ZOOMS! Scroll the other way and it goes back to 100%. And Largento, great, great tutorials, nice design and nice use of a comic book approach. I only just found this thread today. Gerry

Here's a rotation of the finished model. Now onto the color and texture! Croaker_rotate_h264.mov

It's not clear which direction we're traveling in, forward or backward. The distant mesas in one shot are moving one way, the cactus in another. It's also not clear why the power lines in the distance on the right are parallel to the horizon. Shouldn't they be along the road we're on to maybe enhance the perspective? The darkness is a problem but I can see it clearly enough, at least for a crit! Keep posting!

Wow, that's a nice textures site! Apparently the Mayang's free textures site has been shut down and I started jonesin' for textures as soon as I found out!

I have no comments other than to say it looks like you're onto something. Nice look, poppy techno sound, nothin' wrong with that!

That's my mantra.

I agree, Robcat. I had some trouble getting it lit just right. I don't know what it was. I'm on v15c and still getting used to some things. I had a rim light turned all the way to white and 100% brightness and it still looked like it was in shadow. The .mov I posted was about the fourth render and I wanted to post something before I quit, but I'm not happy with it. I also need to do some decaling and not settle for just textures. And thanks Rodney! I'm trying not to think about the rigging. That's what always bites me in the butt at the end and if I dwell on it I'm afraid it will all come crashing down! I was just reading about TSM being made available for free for A:M, and after all the time I've spent trying to get my head around the squetch rig it freaked me out a tiny bit, that I'd have to go back and learn something new from scratch. I want more than anything to see these characters move, too. But for now I'm just focused on the modeling. Gerry

Here's a beauty shot of the stinger. Still needs some work on the detail, the textures, the color, the... the... well, everything! stinger_beautyshot.mov

Dang! I wanna drive it!

Yeah, really nice as usual! Very nice look with the AE compositing.