tobinjim

Let's all be very honest in answer this question: How many times did you have to watch it before you noticed her arms go through the purple headdress on several occassions?

can't view your site, as there's a coding error somewhere in your browser check on frameset compatibility. My browser, Safari 1.2.3 handles frames fine, but your site is apparently trying a redirect to http://grandal.net:84 doesn't have port 84 open. The result is a white page, and an error ("Can't connect to host http://grandal.net:84"). But good luck with whatever you're working on!

Ken: Go read the April 2004 Scientific American article, "Tyranny of Choice"

Looking super silky smooth now! I'm not sure I'd worry any more about the actions. We're all too focused on such minute things in a short clip. My wife and children have watched it and not one of them has caught nor felt any unsmoothness! You had written earlier about about 20 extra frames of preroll to give Kevin some time at the lecturn. If you were to do that (or longer) from a camera angle that gave us some sense of the audience he's addressing, then we'd have some visual anchors for where his eye movements fixate. My personal choice would be the camera pulling forward in the space between the shoulders of two people (if that's appropriate for you scene), such that the shoulders are very out of focus because depth-of-field is centered on Kevin. It'd be short and subtle. I sure wish I could animate emotion the way you do! Is there a bio-wet chip I need to buy for my brain stem?

This is such a good piece it feels wrong to nitpick on it! There's one combination of eye and head movement that seems repeated... less so in the latter versions. Right at the "like this" which follows "try your patience" his eyes move up and to his right the same way they did just a little bit earlier. I think what caught my eye was the uniformity of the movement both times. Since there's less of it in the more recent versions, I'd guess you see it too and are tweaking it out. That said, this is awesome work.

Very cool! Since you're compositing, you might consider duplicating the grayscale and offsetting it about 3 frames to give a ghostly trail behind him. Perhaps this would be cliche-ic, but if one of the lights passed through the wall just shortly after Thom did, you could end up with that "pop" of light that so much sci-fi uses to indicate removal of the paranormal from the scene.

William, that's amazing. So well defined, and yet so economical on splineage. What's next? <hoping the answer is: Jessica Lange?

It's hot out here at LegoDude's college summer camp, so I made this little fan to keep him cool. Set the movie to loop and you too can stay cool! (Unfortunately for LegoDude, when the conference ends, and he goes on stage to close things down, he's going to be melting in the heat, lose his footing, and get sucked into the fan... sort of a LegoDude meets Mr. Bill ending to a fun debut of LegoDude! ) If anyone wants the project, I'd be happy to share. Need to zip together a package so you'd get the decals (cookie cutter and transparency map). This represents about two hours of work, so things like on/off knob and (d'oh!) electrical cord are left to you to do! For my needs this fan is 'good enough' for the size and focus of the closing piece. CoolMeOff.mov

Hi all, Thought I'd share my first public animation with a purpose! This is a short opener for a conference I'm helping with next week. LegoDude walks across the campus and enters the arts building (20 seconds; top frame is towards the end of that), then he enters the auditorium and walks down the aisle (a walk cycle down auditorium steps was fun!), climbs up onto the stage, then waves each arm to open each side of curtains (second image). After the curtains are open and the opening slide is onscreen behind him, LegoDude takes a bow (three different cameras capture this moment) -- last image. Thanks for the help of all those who worked with me on the walk cycle learning. Jim P.S. I would post the animation, but I haven't come up with a good compromise between file size and lossy compression of what is some highly detailed imagery.

OR he was so insane that he was didn't comprehend what just happened. Then the gun took control of his hand and started shooting. So many iterations. That's rich! You could see his other hand coming over to grasp the gun hand, trying to regain control... at which point the inevitible struggle ensues as the gun hand begins to slowly, inexorably turn upwards towards his head... Oh wait, that's been done before. Nevermind.

Yup: Cool, eh? Now you can start making cracks in the ground that swallow up whole groups of bad guys! Oh, sorry, in your world it'd be bad robots

Can't "mad" be taken in the sense of "insane" or at least a little odd? This animation was about a video-game generation of shadow boxing. How many awards did some of those great old comedic routines about shadow boxing garner? I was laughing the whole way through! Watch it again and consider it in the light of NOT angry but CRAZY! In that context, I don't think the caveman should have ducked on that first shot at him -- he was living his on little fantasy and didn't expect real-world interaction! So I suppose if the charcter was meant to be mad in the crazy sense, we should have been given more visual clues (the crazed look, etc.) to clear up the confusion. But I'm still going to go watch it some more and keep chuckling!

Cute! The one in the middle has nice lag in the bill movement. Did you animate that by hand or is that a lag property or some secondary motion?

John, are those capsules playing soccer? I ask because I was just reviewing the pictures I took tonight of my daughter's soccer game, and I can't help but notice the similarities... hmm... where's that one photo.....

That's not a blink! She's batting her eyes at me! The longer I drag the playhead back and forth through the first quarter of the .mov, the longer she bats her eyes at me! I like it! (Is her head mostly grey, or is that shadow behind her face? Very nice... thanks for sharing... now back to my/your adoring lady friend....

Ernesto! Great job! Particularly loved the anticipation as the silvery character turned. Looks like he's losing his head, though... might want to have a talk with him about watching where he's going

Parlo! Great new character -- and the other comments are right on: Instant appeal. I have to say I like his modeled or painted hair back at the beginning better. It looked more Muppetish to me. The new hair looks like the face is a mask in front of a smaller head that actually has hair Will you be animating him in Muppet style, using wire guide poles? Bravo!!

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Xtaz, what can I say that others haven't? That's really nice, and a lot of fun to see it all come together. For the next boost of "jump around the house with exhuberation" render it in DV, dump it to a DV mini-camcorder, and go watch it on your TV! Somehow that just makes it so much more "real" than watching for the 4,000th time on your computer! If I had a 5-hour trip away from the computer planned, I might rerender with: 1) Slower camera dolly 2) Smaller leaves on those trees on the streets 3) Less of an ashen look (unless the story line is life returning to normal after the neighborhood volcano erupted a day or two ago!) Keep up the great work! And thanks for sharing: Doing so keeps the inspiration going! Jim

Those are gorgeous -- from the choices of colors to the lighting and all that rich detail. Just one question: Is she a friend of his, 'cause in that first image you posted, she ought to be worried that his arm might tire and drop that mace-thing on her head! Show us more!

I love it! Where'd the idea for the Xpando-matic Disco Tractor-Trailer come from? Pure genius. But is it using a percentage pose slider for narrow parking spaces? What's up with the left side of the vest right before he kneels down and sprouts the afro? Back to watching it some more...

Do you think applying the decals as bump maps would give the definition you're looking for? I think it would help place the specular highlights properly. Hi Zack, First I should be more clear: At the top of the neck the area that is the color of puddy is what I was referring too. If that's a blonde wood, some grain there would give the detail that says "real" -- much like the simulated grain in the darker wood of the main neck facia (fret board? I'm not a musician). A bump map wouldn't be expected, at least as far as I know. What I have seen of such guitars is that they tend to have a very high gloss finish applied and buffed to a brilliant shine. As an amatuer woodworker I can tell you that visually it's quite obvious when the shine and luster is coming from above the underlying wood, and that detail is what tells our eye we're seeing the real deal. You know from handling raw wood that it's anything but shiny, and from seeing a dining room table (ancient Pledge commercials come to mind) that "furniture" is highly polished but the wood grain is distinct below. And while I'm on this soapbox, don't let wood grain wrap around three or more edges without significantly changing the width of the grain lines. Mother Nature doesn't do this, so you shouldn't either. In a department store, "furniture" that has veneer on it will have the same grain on the top and the sides, and the lack of end-grain is a dead give away of the quality of furniture you're buying. I'll bet a close examination of your guitar will reveal the same grain patterns. Keep up the great work!

Nice! Lot's of imagery there, particularly in the apple. Looked more like a magazine cover than a T-shirt design, but then out here a T-shirt is considered adorned if it says something witty like "I'm with stupid -->"

Good looking guitar, Zack! Perhaps a little definition of wood grain would give a touch of realism. But I do have to say it looks so perfect I'd expect to see those little styrofoam balls adhering due to static electricity... it obviously just came out of the packaging. So alongside the amp, through in the box, plastic wrap, styrofoam and the white gloves you wore unpacking it to keep finger prints off! That way you can lay the strap on the floor because "some assembly required"

Good looking lady! Personally, I liked her red lipstick, as the later lip color looked like tongue color! Those teeth are amazing... can I find them in a jar somewhere for reusability: