Gerry

My thought from the very beginning of this thread was, "Is it an interesting story?" So far I haven't seen anything about that.

Thanks for the comments! I would be happy to do a quick tutorial on the render technique if there's interest. It's pretty straightforward, but I think sometimes I take my photoshop skills for granted. I'll try to post something in the next week or so.

Wow, all nice work and very inspiring! I really like the deliberateness of the pacing. It's almost dreamlike.

Nice looking artwork!

Hey Flash - Click over to Victor Navone's blog. His current post is EXTREMELY RELEVANT to your animation and he goes into great detail about a lot of the points Rodney is making. http://www.navone.org/blogger/ And while you're at it, click on his link to the Wikipedia entry on the 12 principles of animation, and think about how to incorporate as many of them into your animation as possible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_basic_prin...es_of_animation

Thanks Rusty, that's a big help! I still need to find out about the library on the Mac. As I said, the PC version has the full Hash library installed, but for some reason I don't have the same resources available on the Mac version. If the libraries are stored outside the app folder it's probably that the libraries were installed by previous versions and the new version just knows where to look. My Mac is brand new and doesn't have any previous versions installed, so (I'm thinking) no libs.

That's a feature I'm unfamiliar with. I should probably look into it.

Hi Eric- That's a nice start but it needs more weight throughout, and the way the bag swings it seems to slow down a little stiffly at the low point of the swing. But great modeling and textures, and a nice sight gag!

I have the annual download version of v15 on both my work PC and my home Mac. But the PC version has the full library, with all the geometric solids, primitives, etc. but the Mac version has only a brief version with six character models (and items in other categories, I mainly mention the models library just as an example). I also wanted to add materials (or other items) to the library, or start my own I guess, but looking around in the app folder I can't seem to locate either the existing libraries or a place to put additions. The Library item in the Data folder is only 4kb so I know that ain't it! While poking around in there I also became curious about the existence of the dictionary. What function does it serve?

I'm only seeing this for the first time too! Nice look and style. All I can add is that at the outset, spending extra time on beveling is always time well spent! Looking forward to seeing some animation.

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!