OdinsEye2k

I know that when I "uh oh" in my chair (my best explainer for when I'm falling back), I kind of flap my arms either looking for something to hold onto or trying and shift my balance forward again. I don't know if the arm thing would be the way to go, but I just seem to think of some kind of jerky movement at the moment of realization and then consignment (as he just tries to hold on).

I love the kind of snowboarder's "whoa, dude, that was awesome" take when the kid realizes he's okay at the end. To go with John's other hand note, I would ask about one small detail - would it help add a little tension to have the fingers claw into the planet (like guardrail before a fall)? Or maybe arch the arms like he's either spazing or trying to pull back up? It's such a nitpick with the rest of the piece though. I'm sure that the kid has the exact same expression I have when I rock too far back in my chair and panic.

Sounds like 'Abby Normal' type stuff to me. Maybe a follow-on for the sci-fi/fantasy contest?

Nice details in there as well! I recognize all the dispensers and things from high-school biology class! You're missing the Jacob's ladder, though.... I mean, how else are kids supposed to practice their mad scientist cackle?

You mean like the dividing of firmament from the earth? Could be a pretty good vision.

D Josepth - I have always been partial to making swooshes and other such features 'kinetic' - meaning that it fades from the beginning to the end. But it does sometimes look amateurish when I do it, so use this advice with caution. BTW - Companion thread is open in Rants. And John, yes, that article on the "Tsinami" is indeed quite sick.

Well, after reading what's available on the nets and your description, I can say that the place certainly looks interesting. I may even visit sometime to heighten my own scientific training sometime if it proves to be of sufficient quality. Sounds like a neat place for the U of Kentucky (if they have a good biology program) to send some students to sharpen their mettles as well. Maybe I'll have to see about the commentary on ICR's similar project in California and see if I can dig up any good stuff from talk origins for a Rant. To be honest with you, it's really, really hard to not be queasy when I see projects like this.

It would be cool to see this in another perspective. The balrog really doesn't look all that threatening to me at the moment - even in a comical sense. The models themselves are, yet again, pretty darned cool.

One animation idea I could think of would be the finger of God sweeping through that blue and touching the point where the Earth is, and then have a flash of light bring the world into being. Maybe a subtle halo around the planet as the 'afterglow' of this event in the still version... That being said, can I please ask what a 'Creation Museum' would have in it? There can't be any exhibits explaining how creation works (I wouldn't think, because there is no plausable mechanism to use). Or is it more of a devotional, looking for ways to connect with God through the original event of creation?

Whoops - guess not when I look more closely. I just saw bare conduit plus wires and thought broken or unscrewed conduit. My bad.

And never trust an artist to draw anything metal correctly Shouldn't the conduit have the spare wires poking out of the top rather than the sides (if it's supposed to show a work in progress)? Or is the conduit slotted? In that case, I would add a little black gasket or two to ensure that those sharp edges don't strip out the wire.

Trust me, I wouldn't do it unless absolutely necessary. The only reason I conjectured on such a thing was a query from another user where 5-pointers were absolutely outlawed. However, the reason for the dangling CP is to try and get the curvature of the "bad" 3rd spline to match up with the other two "good" splines running through the patch. Note the second picture is actually how Hash internally does it's thing - but I think there is a little bit of extra black magic thrown in to keep things smooth nowadays. I remember back in 8.5 - you could always tell a 5-point patch by the telltale triangle that the creasing spline would cause.

Guess I pooched that one. Let's try again.

Here's my picture of how to deal with a 5-pointer. Note that the spline running through the corner terminates in a CP not attached to any others, the "dangling CP" that has left common memory: Refer to http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6213 for the rest of the discussion if you've ignored the 'ignore me' topic.

Hey all, Since I've kind of already tipped my hand by showing an animatic, I thought I would share my progress 8 seconds in. As my schedule ramps up, I may decide to cut and run after the first scene (30 secs) is finished, rather than go for the special effects finale at the end of the big rant. Vegeta here is plenty ticked off throughout the sequence to fit the topic. I've been trying to nail down a lot of the skinning issues, and I'm not sure if the face needs more expression (there will be facial close-ups later to concentrate on, and in the framing, I don't know if details can be spotted). Let me know what you think: http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gtg724n/lighttest.mov

Allen, Do you have any higher resolution pics of Arnold's face? Maybe it's the lighting too but something about the images makes my eyes get caught somewhere between focusing and blurring out (with or without my reading glasses). You catch him pretty well in the trademark poses, though.

Holy cow that's scary! Inspired by the Lost Souls of Doom 3? Was that the Z-brush import test you were working on? If so, could you post a wireframe of the head and possibly highlight some areas that need work? Thanks, Bjorn

Well, after leaving this totally off to the side for a month, I finally get enough time to get my Typical Male model dressed for his first performance. I just need to apply the Cog bones to the shirt CP's and he's ready to roll Not sure whether or not I'll get around to adding textures to his pants and other such niceties... maybe once the animation is done:

Just a little speculation I had this morning, and I was hoping you could answer it, John. The one thing everyone bags on in AM is modeling (although a lot of the animating power would be lost if splines left the picture in my opinion) and possibly even texturing. But, looking at Z-brush's capabilities, it looks like it's still possible to bypass the 'big boys' of 3d entirely. Something like: Z-brush -> AM -> 3d party renderer How easy have you found the Z-brush -> AM link so far, and have you experimented with Zbrush's built-in modeler yet?

Yeah - I tried a few compressors, but everything seemed to really throw off the timing of the animatic - I tried to match a few of the sound effects and moments of dialogue to transition to different things. DivX really messed it up, as did Cinepak. Of course, I also think a lot of the codecs on my computer are a little on the messed up side. Compression is something that I'm noticing a major need to work on getting down - any recommendations along with H.261? What tends to be your codec of choice for a wide audience? Anyways, anime, yes. Dragonball Z, actually (it's kind of like cotton candy, you know it's crap but you partake every once in a while anyways).

Since I enjoyed the most recent contest, I thought I would try a 'proper' entry, meaning that I have reference material and build an animatic, etc. Really try to go through as much of the established process as I can handle. So, to start out with, my animatic: http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gtg724n/animatic.zip Please let me know what you think. It's about a minute and a half long, but I do at least have my Typical Male to try and start out with. Since the subject is 'mad,' there's one character I immediately thought of - I just needed to find an appropriate rant time.

CP Weights allow you to arbitrarily set the strength of a bone's influence on a CP. In the classic example of a cylinder being bent like an elbow, you could either use a fan bone with two Orient Likes at the same strength to the two elbow bones. With CP Weights, you would just set the strength of each of the two bones' influences on the center ring to 50%. This used to be an off-line plugin by Philip Leavens, but has now been integrated into the main Hashcode: http://www.clipsandscripts.com/tutorials/amWeights/index.htm http://www.hash.com/am2004/Modeling/CP%20Weights/index.htm I had assumed that since you seemed to be a Maya guy originally that you would have seen this already, but then we know all about what assumptions do....

There's always CP weights as well, now that that's been integrated into Hash. Might buy that intermediate bone number down.

What does it look like without the decal? The prog may have some potential, but the joining between head and skull looks like it's making bad polygon-type choices. On the other hand, the low spline version would be a useful start (after replacing the ear).

Just wanted to chime in during a render and say that this is great work. Tres Mega Man, right down to the pose in Javier's latest drawing. Are those big leggings going to be jump jets or just something to support the weight of other equipment she has?