Gerry

Here's another question...In refining the various elements I'm applying the company logo directly to the ornament. I hadn't done this before because I was unable to "flatten" properly. Well I've finally figured out flattening, however I am unable to apply the decal directly in the action window. I'm only able to place the image as a rotoscope. there doesn't seem to be an option for using an image as a decal in an action window. Any help gratefully accepted.

Got some wacky hair behavior in this render. I'm comparing the settings for the pine needles, which look fine, to the settings for the gold garland. So far I haven't found any significant differences, but this is my first time using hair materials. As usual, comments and advice welcome!

Thanks, Dhar. the first scene is rendering over the weekend at the office so I'll see then if the hair materials are behaving. I'm also super eager to incorporate all Bruce's comments when I go back in on Monday.

Bruce - Your crit was so unbelievably thorough and gracious I don't know what to say but thank you. All your comments will all be considered carefully and I'm sure I'll end up taking most, and probably all, of your suggestions. I came back on here to post the following wireframe test of the complete movie. Feel free to comment! Gerry

Really nice simple idea and characters that I think everyone will "get" immediately. Good test with the dog, too!

Well Mike, I've been watching the weather and I'm on the fence about driving all that way in a downpour. I've also solved my "exploding Christmas ornament" (see my WIP thread) so at the moment I don't need the help I'd asked for. so this is an unqualified "maybe". Sorry to wuss out. I'll check here later tonight and see what the tally looks like. Gerry

Here's a wireframe test render of the last scene of this animation. Still working on some details and timing. I exploded the ornament manually. It seems a little sluggish on impact. Comments welcome.

That's a great help, Bruce. Thanks!

Here's a wireframe test of the first scene. I haven't put the pine needles material on the tree yet, and the yellow "rope" on the tree branches will likewise have a silver, garland-like hair material. I'm putting the hair materials on last because they slow things down somewhat, but otherwise I'm happy with the way the hair is working as this is my first time using it. [attachmentid=21579]

I'll definitely be there Luckbat. Maybe not in costume though. Unless I can come dressed as myself. EDIT.. I've got a conflict that day so I'll be a little late, like 1:30 or so.

Good point Rod. I tried to get fancy when making the individual word models but in the chor I can see that it's not working. I had in mind to have each one have a simple featherlike bend. But I like your suggestion to have them flatten out as they land.

Yep, Targas render fine. I rendered out a 20 frame sequence. here's one.

Bruce - not sure how I check what codec at the rendering stage. If you can tell me how I can check it pretty quick. I'll try a targa sequence and import into QT to see if that works. thanks, Gerry

I've started some tests for this animated Holiday Greeting for my company. The render I'm posting is a very preliminary test and I'm posting it because there's quite a bit of pixelation in the ornament at bottom right. I've tried rendering both as QT and AVI, and gone as high as nine passes to try to remedy it. Also changed my driver from Open GL to Direct3D v8, and nothing's helped. Comments appreciated! Gerry

Well, the concrete floor of the platform is an image I created in Photoshop. I started with a photo of concrete but tweaked it quite a bit. Everything else in the scene is just procedural materials. I'm glad you like it!

Thanks everyone for your comments! Case, not sure what your question is. Which metal exactly? Rob, yup, I need to get some secondary motion going. Unfortunately I tried rigging the character "on the cheap" and it's comin back to bite me! I had to take a break from the rigging so I worked on the meatball and camera work. Dhar, sorry, but don't expect the story to make much sense. It's more of a blackout sketch than a story and I didn't want to get bogged down in character motivation etc. this is mostly an exercise in silliness. I know there are premade rigs but the whole reason I started this project was to learn more about the nuts and bolts of rigging so I'm doing it myself. Of course this approach has its drawbacks. Yesterday I pitched an idea to my boss for our company's animated Holiday greeting and got the go-ahead, so I need to put this project aside again. But the Holiday animation will of course be in AM. I hope to be posting some stuff on this shortly.

Here's a beauty shot of the meatball. Well, "beauty" may be overstating it, but...anyone hungry?

Nice character design, and lots of personality!

Here's another test I did of the meatball of the title (In case you were wondering). this is rough. I want to work on the lighting and camera motion but I'm pretty happy with the procedural "meatball" material I created.

I'm penciling it in. We'll see as the date gets closer but I like the idea.

Here's a closeup render of the same sequence. the modeling problems are a little more apparent here, with some creasing around the mouth and lumpiness in the shoulders. I also want to get the eyes moving as well as some secondary movement in the antennae.

Here's another test. I had to recreate the subway platform since I seemed to have deleted the earlier model, but it needed work anyway. This chor is pretty much just for testing. There's some foot slippage though it's not apparent at this distance, but in most respects I'm happy with this so far. Comments please! Gerry

Nice style to these two. Even this still is expressive.

Hey Dennis, thanks for the tip, that helped me out too! Lori, nice work. I tried this exercise from the book and couldn't find the knee controller, so never got very far with this one. Where are you in NC? We just recently moved back to NY after trying Chartlotte for two years. It just wasn't our speed but we met some nice folks down there.

Believe it or not I'm still working on this. Had some false starts with rigging but now I've got him set up for the most part. As I told Luckbat at our last NYUG meeting, I'm rigging from scratch as a learning experience, and boy am I learning.