Gerry

Lots of character in this guy! Are you gonna do the mouth with an animated decal? I've always liked that approach for cartoony "bigfoot" characters like this.

Outstanding stuff, great dancing and music! Makes me want to go to Arkansas and pick up trash to a rockin' beat!

Wow, Dhar. Can't believe I'm only seeing this now! Not only one of the best uses I've seen of one of AM's stock models, but a great use of a "funny animal" character to tell a heart-tugging story. Great direction and camera work, great cutting, great treatment of the musical solos.

Yeah, that looks good for me.

Thanks for your comments and suggestions, Luuk and onemanshort. We're looking at those options. I didn't know about the defaults in Outlook though. That could be a problem. I think we will definitely be including a link in the email along with the embedded video. My boss wants very much for this to be a seamless delivery but I know some folks will fall between the cracks.

Thanks Bruce, your help was invaluable. We're thinking of embedding it in a .swf or html formatted email. And I think it may make sense to include a link for those who can't see it in the email window.

Paul, that's a great suggestion but I've got strict orders! This has been discussed in the office and sending a link or requiring anything other than simply seeing it in the email window just won't fly. So that's what I'm dealing with. Glad you liked it though. Gerry

Here's a final render of the company holiday greeting I had in the WIP forum. This render uses the h.264 codec so you may need QT player 7 to see it. Turn on your speakers! This is what we still need to accomplish: Keep it at good quality but at or about 3megs; be able to email it in a format that won't be blocked by firewalls (my boss is concerned that many of the law firms who are our customers have firewalls that block .mov files but not .avi files. I'm not sure if this is true or not but it's how she feels) settle on a format that is viewable by as many people as possible (therefore h.264 maybe a problem). enable it to play right in the email pane. All comments and suggestions are welcome!

Yeah, I was wondering the same thing about the render quality. There are some minor quibbles like Silver Surfer's forward knee being a little lumpy in the wrong places, but overall these are all beautiful and stylish models. Let's see some renders that equal the quality of the work!

Yves, this is really great information and a clear, concise breakdown of these various qualities. Thanks!

Thanks mt, I'll try that. I was also looking at Colin's excellent hair tute at http://www.colins-loft.net/CoopHair.html and I can see there are a lot more settings and options than I was aware of. I highly recommend it. 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