Shelton

Next up is the hot dog cart. Here is a shot of the beginning. Steve

Help What is the best way to place characters in the bus? To get him into place took me forever and I am still not happy. Also what is the best way to place lights on the bus? Got the wipers on the bus. Got to rig the bus. I hope to see how Mark rigged the trucks Steve busgeorge.mov

Very nice Gene!

Mark Do you setup info to rig an auto? Steve

I am trying to place lights in the action for the bus. Is there a trick to this as I can not get the lights to turn on in the action or chor Steve

Here is the shot of the bus spline corruption. Not sure what caused it. Notice under the second window from rearof the bus the black dots. These dos are evident all along this spline on both sides (copy/flip/attached). If I remove this spline the entire model distorts. I restore this spline and all is well except for the blemishes during the render. I like who the mesh turned out on the grills Steve

Thanks the only thing is the advertising panels and a couple of decals on the tires and she is done. Steve Ran into some corruption of the model. and so to cover it I am placing the adverts on the bus.

Just about finished. Steve busfive.mov

I could not stop. All the seats are in and now I have to paint. I have decided on paint scheme and hope to have it done this weekend. Ready to start on the next guy in the short. Steve

Here is a shot before the paint to give a reference Steve

Thanks for the comments. I have to paint the bus and put in the grill and ac unit on top. After that I am finished. Steve

I have been sick for several days and have not felt like doing much. Had a few minutes this evening and finished the rear end. Rendered these shots and found several mistakes. corners on the back front doors hanging, etc. I will complete these items but as little time as the bus will be on screen, i am not going to kill myself finishing a detailing it out, which would be fun. I will keep this project around and visit it later. Good news is I found some help with the short. Voices, texturing, music and several other things I will not have to kill myself to complete. Here are the pics Steve

Here is an update. Getting close to painting the bus and calling it done. Got both sides now completed and doors in place. I keep forgetting how little time the shot of the bus will be on screen. Steve

Thanks Rodney This was one of the ways I was thinking about. I had invisioned making a copy of the chor and deleting what I don't need. All the machines in the farm have plenty of memory and speed but still I was test rendering two characters plus a prop and AM crashed saying out of memory. So I knew it was time to think how I was going to render the short. I will keep you up to date. Steve

In another thread I had a hardware hiccup and well I had to do somethings over on the bus. Got it back to a state before I copy/flip/attach. Here is an update, Steve

Is there a plugin or add on that allows you to print the PWS and its contents? For example I have a character with several decals and maps and settings that I would like to save in print form. I am saving all this information to prevent data loss. I have backups on several machines and back up drives but I am old fashion and would love to create a notebook with all the characters and sets and props information. Steve

Thank you guys for all the comments. Wealth of knowledge here. I am still a long ways away from that point. Just wanted to make sure I was not killing my efforts. Steve

Thanks guys excellent help. I have worked with several compositing programs for years and will be using them to complete the short. All the stuff I have done in the past has been one or two characters with very limited backgrounds. Thanks so much as this has been a big concern while I was on vacation. I found myself thinking of how to do this or that and laying our the shot, I probably was not much fun to be around. Steve

Ok this will show my limited knowledge of AM and animating with AM. Some of the models for the short I am working on have 2500 patches all the way to 5500. There will be up to 7 characters in a scene at a time. There will also be a city scene with several buildings most of the items will be props as it were but still I can see a large patch count in the chor. So my questions are as follows. In other programs you can render layers at a time. Does AM have that capablility? For example, as the girls walks down the street she will only interact with the sidewalk and street with her shadows. can she be rendered from the chor and then other elements rendered seperately? I have not tried it yet but I guess I could render the set/scene first with all the characters inactive. Then rendered each segment of the chor as active that I need and turn off the already rendered items. Then I could take each one of the renderings and add them into a video editing program such as Premiere, Vegas Video, etc and the render the movie from there. Is this a way to by pass the large patch counts? I was looking at the TWO files and a large number the renderings I worked on, the file set up was already completed by Steve Sappington. Any thoughts would be helpful on how to set up the scenes, chor Steve

Here is the shot of the completed front of the bus. I have the sides nearly completed and will be begin the back later tonight. Steve

I am back at it and trying to create a mirror on the bus. I want to see the refelections in the mirror, I can see the glass reflecting toward the windshield but if I go at an angle to see to the rear it only shows a dark color or no reflection at all. What type of settings should I have on the surface? Steve

Thanks Gene and David. Well all the family gets here tomorrow so I will not have much time the next 7 days. May have some time late tonight but if not see you when I return. Steve

Bus 3/4 and I am done for tonight Steve

Well could not stop. Took my laptop and started the bus. Here is the start with wireframe Steve

It is hard to stay away from the forums even while you are way. Thanks guys! Steve