ernesttx

Thanks, JavierP. I've searched the forums for 'unwrap' and quite a few threads came up about unwrapping and UV stuff. I read through William Sutton's tutorial on his blog. Very informative. Of course, it's William, so that's a given. hehe I guess my confusion came about from doing it all wrong to begin with. For me, I always thought of 'Decaling' as a seperate operation on each unwrapped mesh. That is to say, I would select a group, hide others, do an unwrap action and then import picture to decal and then apply it. I would do this for each group. Thereby having multiple pictures for different decaling. I kept seeing how others were doing it with 1 picture. I am now starting to see how it is done. That was the one big thing that was keeping me from doing more realistic characters. I'm learning. As, I've only really done cell shaded. Look forward to having some insight into your workflow. Thanks.

I've not done any UV unwrapping. I would be interested in knowing if there are some helpful tuts or tech refernces to this. I am thinking of adding more detail to some of my models for another project that I have in the works. This seems to be along the lines of being able to do that. I've seen Robcat's cylinder unwrap in the other posts, but how to get the full unwrapping as in your picture, JavierP? Most interested. Thanks.

Well, plodding along. Still without electricity. So, I've moved the laptop to the kitchen table. Martin would be proud.

Production has been delayed a little bit with a recent electrical problem in my room. I believe some wiring has gone out and I have no power. It's an older house, and some of the wiring is screwy. At one point, light switches were turning on lights in other rooms. hehe But, hopefully, it will be fixed when I get home today. (fingers crossed). Also, I had some hard drive issues. Technology and modern living benefits sometimes don't feel like advances. Makes you appreciate them more when you don't have them. Maybe I should break out the pencils and paper.

Thanks Gerry. It's good to be back. I should have Episode 9 up on the weekend. Also, Ill be putting an online production diary of creating an animated series/movie while I bring my next episode to reality. So, anyone wanting to follow along and see what it takes me to get through a production, feel free to peek over my shoulder.

Oh, I wasn't fretting. I know I've been MIA for a while. Just had to revamp my efforts and recharge the batteries. I'll be putting more energy into my projects from here on out. Just a rough patch, a mind augmentation and re-focusing going on on this end of things. hehe Let the animating begin!

*** Oh my, I've been sanctioned to the Archives. hehe Well, hopefully, I can get things back on track. As of today, I have updated my website again. As well, Episode 9 will be coming at the end of this week. In addition, I plan to bring 2 new series to the site. Also, if you wish to contribute to Animace and help continue the series, I have a few gifts for those charitable souls. hope everyone is doing well, and getting ready for a new year. Ernest www.animace.biz

Oh. Thanks Homeslice. I will do that.

After several months of development, I have finally finished the new website design. It will allow for quicker upload and showcase for animations, as well as, hopefully better quality of video. Working on trying to get the video player and selection system in place was the biggest hurdle. Now that the website is out of the way, I have resumed production on Episode 9. I have about 2 minutes of it finished. Also, several other video projects are finished that will free up more time for animating. I hope the new site is a bit easier to navigate and enjoy. Thank you all for being patient and all the words of encouragement. Ok, back to animating. www.animace.biz

Thanks, Gerry. Met with the client the other day, he loved the video and booked me for next year at triple the cost. so, the episode had to be put on back burner for bit. But, not forgotten. Oh, SXSW was crazy mad.

I have a few paying projects in the works right now, so, I'm running a bit late on posting these couple of pictures for the upcoming episode. I'm wrapping up a video to DVD project and I have a music video animation in the development stage. I should hopefully be getting this episode out within the next 2 weeks. Stay tuned and hope everyone enjoys.

greetings all, no i haven't left the planet hehe got several irons in the fire right now. SXSW is in town in austin and trying to see it all. i'm posting from downtown convention center at the moment. lots to do and see here. also, getting ready to update the website and take it a bit further. all in all the future looks bright. episode 9 is under way as well. i'll post some pics soon. so stay tuned.

Thanks Rodney. I try to make them entertaining given the time that I have to make each one. In response to your earlier post about line work, it's all A:M. I just tweak the settings a bit to make'em look like I want hehe.

Oh I didn't take it as being a negative Paul

Oh, thanks for the comments everyone. The AM community is so great and such a valuable resource not only for questions and tips, but for feedback and thoughts and ideas. Rusty: Thanks for those words. The opening sequence of Episode 8 is quite nice, you might have to wake the wife for a listen. hehe And I agree with your criticisms. I enjoy getting feedback and I agree that my walk cycles need work and the small gestures would add to the characters. I do save all the scenes (I've got DVDs full of all the episodes' projects) and it allows me to go back and change things. For example, on all of Subject 99's run scenes in the warehouse, I originally had a different, weaker run action that I didn't like. Over time, I created a run cycle that I did like. With AM, I just open the scene, import new action and drag and drop on the model, and voila, new run cycle just works. Having reusable actions and characters with same rig setup makes making changes a breeze. Thank you, Martin Mouseman: Thank you as well. Animating is a way of life. You have to dedicate time to doing it. But, it's also being aware when you're not animating. When I'm out and about, I observe people, watch them, how they move, different characteristics, gestures, body types, etc. And thanks for the link to the Horton video. What a great example of using reference footage! Quite inspiring. The only thing I have to comment about that is the difference in tone of my series. For lively animated characters (such as Horton) I would want to do gesturing and posing such as that. For my series, I'm going for a different tone, almost like a film noir movie from the 40's or 50's. But, I hope to add a bit more life into my characters as time allows. I do want to do something more lively as the next series, so, keep watching. Paul: Machine? hehe perhaps and yes, it's a one man project, just lil o' me and my laptop.

Hehe I'm there. Anytime.

Sorry for the delay. I had to take some time off and go enjoy life in Vegas for a week. It's one of those trips that injects life back into life. With all that is happening in the US and economy and the world, I needed to recharge my batteries. It worked. I have so many ideas now that I want to incorporate into my website and animations and Subject 99. I'm back with passion for my art where my passion was getting a bit low. Trying to figure out what to do with the website and how to make a living from what I really love doing. I will have Episode 8 up very soon (as I practically have it finished, just a few enhancements) and hopefully incorporate some changes into the website. I feel going forward, I will have to integrate my own forum on my website; because I will be showcasing various animations and videos other than Subject 99 and I don't feel that I should take advantage of Martin's generousity of hosting Subject 99 on Hash's forum for people to discuss other animations that are showcased. I am looking into how to do that on my site as I type this. I'll have to see what is the best possible solution to this. Have no fear, this is what I love and enjoy doing, so I'm not going anywhere. Just going to try to change the world of animation a bit more.

Updated first post to reflect new production pictures for everyone. I'll include them here as well. Since, the story is vital to this series, I am concentrating mostly on that. Due to less hours to work on the episode each week, I want to make sure that each episode carries the story along. Introducing new characters and how they interact and what they bring to the story is also a big concern. All in all, I should have the next episode out by Sunday, Feb. 1, 2009.

just another update picture for those tuning in:

Thanks HomeSlice. I agree that's it's the little things in a presentation that make it more enjoyable. Kewl, Gerry. Yes, in newer editions of Flash, there are built in components to deal with video players that make it easier. I am using Flash MX. There are no built in controls and building from scratch is a must.

Thanks, Rodney. I'm sure the code is not pretty to programmers. hehe When it comes to slinging code together, I use a weed whacker.

Just an update for everyone. I've been concentrating on website admin stuff as of late, and today I finally accomplished getting the Volume control on the video player page. It has been tough trying to create something that you have little experience with. But suffice it to say, that is one less item on my large To Do List for the series. I have just a couple of other items that I want to add to the video player (scrub bar and time display). But, those can come later. The volume issue had the highest priority. On to animating again.

Kewl, I'll try that in a bit. Working on another shot at the moment. I just love this forum.

Thanks Gerry. In lieu of looking for a loop option, I just made the image sequence 180 frames. hehe I'm with you on the AS thing. I know a bit and unfortunately I have only Flash MX before all the fancy gizmo stuff. Maybe some day I'll upgrade.

Does anyone know if I can repeat or loop a set of imported sequenced images? For example, I have a sequence of images 0 - 72. I have them decaled on a model. My shot is about 180 frames long. I would like the images 0 - 72 to loop or repeat at least 3 times to cover the 180 frames for the shot. Can this be done? I looked in the properties of the images, but do not see a repeat or loop option. Thanks in advance.