Gerry

yeah, a good looking character. Do you have plans for how you're going to animate the eyes? I look forward to the texturing etc. Also like the three-headed rotation!

Nice! I could see this really coming alive with some more work on the figure's moves. A little anticipation and bounce in the right places would make it pop.

Yeah, very cool! I can see a lot of possibilities for this idea. Show us more as it develops.

Dhar- I wrote up some of my compression experiments in the WIP thread at http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17228 But for this smaller version I used Video compression at low quality, and for audio I used a setting called AMR Narrowband set for:Sample rate: 8.000 khz, Mono, and Bit rate 12 kbps. The audio settings I was just winging, that's why I think I could get it smaller. I don't yet know enough about it. I find that Video compression worked the best for sheer crunching of file size while keeping it not-horrible to look at!

This is the movie I needed render help on a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately it's still large, 13megs, but it's two minutes and has sound. I could probably get it smaller, maybe with better audio compression. There are a number of rough edges but considering the circumstances I'm pretty happy with it. I may tweak it a little and re-render it for the reel but for now this is it. However crits are welcome. ISD Games promo movie

I vote for running for the ice cream man! Dimos, your comments and crits are really valuable and helpful to read. It's great to see a WIP like this, the comments made, and the results put into use.

Pixar - nice work! I would crit this but you're miles ahead of me in character work. the side view shows great progress. Love the head bobbing. Maybe the tail bounce could be a tad more fluid, but overall really excellent.

David - nice work! I can appreciate your having to fill 55 seconds. Does the cab need to fill with water so quickly? Were the windows open? I also agree with Pixar's comments. Just a few devil's advocate questions. I think the sequence is clear and, having done litigation graphics myself, persuasive. Gerry

I've just returned from our trade show and the animation was very well received. Some compression info for those interested: I started out with the movie in three separate .mov segments, each about 250megs. David had rendered these with Sorensen 3 compression. I had earlier installed the Windows version of QuickTime 7 (just released days ago) because of some unrelated errors I was getting trying to export from Flash, and I have to say the Windows version still needs work. Both trying to consolidate the three sections either as a self-contained file or as a reference file choked QT, and trying to export with additional compression did the same. Version 7 just didn't seem up to handling such large files. I found and downloaded QT version 6 which worked way better. I was able to export the files using Video compression at medium quality, and got the 250meg files down to between 70 and 100 megs. Some loss of quality but not what you would expect given the file sizes. There was some sign of "pixel crunching" on the plasma screens (I'm sure there's a technical term for this effect where about every twenty lines or so there's a break in say, a diagonal line on screen where a pixel is interpolated out. I'm not explaining this very well, but it's like where a website image is forced into a space smaller than itself.) but it was the sort of thing that only I would notice. I was still tweaking the movie Sunday morning, and we flew out Sunday afternoon. David's help was invaluable and I highly recommend his services. I've also promised that next time I'll give him more than twenty minutes' notice.

Bryan- Very wild teddybear picture! Did you do the background figures and/or motion blur in Photoshop? Or is this strictly an AM job?

That's an interesting link, Pengy. but you're right, it doesn't really say much about audio. Will look at it a bit further. Also could use recommendations on the laptop that will be feeding this to the plasmas. Is speed strictly a question of raw processor speed? Any video gizmos that would make a difference?

Well David is doing a great job on the render. It should be done sometime tomorrow. I posted my desperate request about 10:30 Tuesday night before leaving the office. I got home within about 15 minutes, and David's email response was waiting for me! Hashers and the Hash Forums rock! The one thing I still need to do is add the soundtrack. I know QT can be a workhorse I'm just a little nervous that a file this size might choke it. One alternative I've considered would be to import the .mov file into a Flash movie and put the sound on a separate layer. Unfortunately we don't have the kind of software at work this kind of project requires. I am definitely open to suggestions. Gerry

Jandals - I tried that exact thing and when I assembled the finished mov it was about 14 seconds short! Don't ask me why.

Hi David- I just responded to your email. I can stretch the deadline till saturday if need be. This is a two-minute movie, 24fps. It will be shown on two 42" plasma screens, screen res of 852-480. For time savings I've been rendering half size, 452x240. If you're capable of rendering full size in this time frame that would just be gravy! Here's what's happened so far: I've tried rendering sections of the movie as .mov files in about 700 frame chunks. For that size I get an est. render time of, say, 8 hours. They chug along just great for six hours or so, then crap out. Apparently the app just quits. (This seems to happen when I stop watching the render, not that I'm superstitious!) Of course nothing's left of the .mov file. I did render a full set of targa's, then realized I had nothing powerful enough to compile them beyond QuickTime Pro, which is not really adequate. In any case I've tweaked the animation since, so the targa's are outdated. I also tried, just before I left the office this evening, to render an .avi file. About three frames in I got an error message that an .avi codec couldn't utilize a 24 bit image in one of my decals, then the app quit. I've been using the OpenGL driver. The last thing I tried before I left the office was to try a render using the Direct3D V8 driver, so that's running overnight. I'm attaching a still of the movie. It's basically a fly-around of a series of slot machines showing our games playing. thanks David!

I've been working on a three minute short for our booth at a trade show next week. My attempts at rendering have all failed, both rendering a QT movie and Targa files. I'm open to suggestions at least in theory but time is extremely short. I'm going to set up a render to an .avi file and let it run overnight. Tomorrow morning I'll know if it's been successful. But I need a backup plan. My back is seriously to the wall and if anyone with rendering facilities can help out a fellow hasher in his time of need, this is the time! I'm flying out of Charlotte NC Sunday night the 11th but I need to have it in time to finish up the sound. It's now 10pm Tuesday in Charlotte. I can overnight files on a cd tomorrow. Let me know gang! Gerry

Looks like there's some weird lumpiness going on with her left leg ( i.e. the one on our right). Nothing a little cp pulling couldn't cure though.

I love the purse material, Nancy! Great job all around. I too want to see her move.

Vern - nice work and great use of toon lines.

Um, can you ask a simpler question?

Animation Master ROCKS! This is the first time I've dropped sound into a project and it is awesome! I've ditched the copyrighted music and found a classical clip (Hayden I think) that is not only perfect but lends itself to syncing the action just great. One of the concerns was creating a soundtrack that can be listened to more or less continuously for a three day show without driving people to insanity. I'll be posting another wip in the next day or so. Hopefully smaller than 5mb.

Yeah, really great before-and-after effect with the lighting in these two takes. It's looking awesome! I'm looking forward to more.

Well there goes my prize! Thanks for the comments folks. Last night I made up a long list of tweaks to do on this, including for a number of things commented on. I tried to crunch it smaller, will work on that for the next go-round. Yep nancy, the symbols are all specific to our games, lots of cherries and sevens and coins. I worked further last night on the sound and have opted for now to use some short clips of copyrighted stuff. I need to look into fair use regs on this. This is a one-off presentation for a three-day event, and will probably not be seen after the trade show so I'm definitely in a grey area. If anyone has info or links re: using music I would appreciate hearing about it. We've been putting up some Flash versions of the games on our website at http://www.isdgames.com/htdocs/public.html if you really want to see more. Gerry

Hey if there's a record here for the highest number of views with zero responses I may be a serious contender for....D'OHH!

Here's a rough render of a the first two scenes of a movie I'm creating for our booth at a trade show in Vegas next month. I've been working here as the one-man art department since January and we'll have a couple of big plasma screens showing this piece along with some demonstrations of game play. I've got a rough sound track for the first scene here but it's not included at the moment. I want to get the timing better. This piece is going MUCH smoother than a thing I was working on a few weeks ago. There was something buggy with that piece that I kind of figured out with the help of Noel at AM Reports, but ultimately we decided on a hand-animated approach instead of 3D so it got put aside. Phew! The timing on this piece still needs some work but I would be interested in any crits that would help me shine it up a little. It's a 5MB QuickTime movie. ISDgames movie Gerry

Yeah John, that's a great little test! Do more!