nerrazzi

Hey, I like that man! Very smooth surfaces to be so patch heavy. Quick question, why did you use that many patches to build the mustang? Seems like you could have gotten away with it using no more than 5500-6000 patches. EDIT: Oh wait, I re-read your original post, was this model from a CAD program?

Rodney, that was a great idea to add the DOF, I actually tried to do that in the first place in A:M but I can't ever get the desired results... didn't think about using PS. I really don't want to build everything in A:M, more interested in tell a story. Yeah, to me it makes him stand out from the environment a bit as well, almost the best of both worlds in terms of 2 & 3D... John Bigboote: I got a broken link when I went to play the clip but I remember checkin' that out some months back when A:M Films was relatively new. I saw the Jeep Treo at the Cobo 2004 North American International Auto Show in Detroit. It's an impressive little vehicle, lots of room inside.

thanks everyone for taking the time out to reply... this project is built around the story of Moses in the book of Exodus, a kid's video of sorts with splashes of grown-up humor. I'm using ants as a break away from the traditional "people" look and to make it a bit more interesting for the kids. There's also the look of the background that has me concerned... my wife doesn't like it and I'm at the *50/50 rock either way* point. But it has to do with the water color feel of the buildings and distant mountains etc... She say's that it's like Picasso meets post modern contemorary. I think that it's okay for distant objects and/or props and the coloring look to be good as decals on closer objects. What are your thoughts?

Now here's a still of the same guy at a larger rez. I tend to lean more towards no lines but there's something about having the lines there that makes it look interesting....

Here's no lines... no_lines.mov

Before I start my final rendering of this project I'm working on, I'd thought I'd see what some of you think about toon lines, with or without.... I've noticed that smaller resolutions yield not-so-great results while larger rez images or movies bring more precise results concerning the toon lines that is. This file contains my character with toon lines. (line bias set to 700.) with_lines.mov

Alright, I've been pokin' around with it some and here's what I've come up with. I don't know... looks more like chocolate almost. soupy.mov

quicktime... almost looks like rubber if you loop it. stomp.mov

Here's an example of what I'm talking about with the consistancy...

I'm working on a project that involves my character standing in place, sloshing the mud using his feet & legs. In the pic, you can see that I've used five bones to manipulate the surface of the mud. The four bones lying horizontally are all constrained to "aim at" the fifth center vertical bone with the "scale to reach" selection checked. It's also translated to an additional bone I've added to the characters calf region. Now when I move the characters leg up, the surface of the mud follows but it's consistancy looks more like glue than mud. I'm considering adding an additional bone to the "mud" model and assigning a "dynamic constraint" to it to give it a bit more "looseness. Does anyone have any other ideas or suggestions that would help this surface's texture consistancy?

Hey I like that man! So are the little "Kapsule" men going to pilot it? Make little kapsule space guys and give 'em little fish bowl helmets maybe...? Nice work! I do have one question. I love the "look" of the objects using your lighting app. but the shadows on the floor seem like there's too many, you know what I mean? Is there a way to reduce that sort of thing, maybe diffuse the shadows a bit or perhaps blur them some? It's a very nice film look almost, makes it seem as though they are real physical models captured using a dv cam.

See... I had no idea you could do this type of work. That face is flawless, quite possibly the smoothest, most accurate face I've seen pulled out of A:M period.

Yves, this model is reeeally great! The skin is smooth and the anatomy is very articulate, it's clear that you've paid due attention to the muscular structure. A fine job exellent, excellent work...

Alamdv or artbeats. although artbeats is really pricy, they do have the best explosions. I "think" there is a series of explosion .tga's of the hash cd, you might want to check it out. Come to think of it, if you're doing a large battle scene a program called Chrominator could help you with a lot of compositing & garbage mattes, (cut down on some of that rendering) here's one example: Here's one that will help you create the hologram effect.

man..., you sure are busy crankin'em out aren't cha? Hey, how are you building these models anyway? Are you guessing as to what the dimensions are or do you have "The Essential Guide to Vehicles & Vessels" from Bill Smith? ...wait, none of the newer star wars stuff is in that edition.... I've noticed that you're creating a lot of the battlefield vehicles & artillery, I really can't wait to see what you've got planned. You saw what Lucas did, there was a lot of dust and blaster fire and explosions not to mention all the droids & jedi fighting... when's the expected release date and where will we be able to see the premiere? last question: how are you planning on doing the explosions? are you going to use A:M or artbeats or alamdv... Thought I'd share these pics... check out these models of 3PO & R2 I did a year ago... 3PO isn't rigged but R2 is... I wanted to make R2 break dance but never got around to doing it.

hehe, that's funny... Love the model. Lip sync is right on target, great work...

You know I just thought, using a pose slider to control a bump map say for a vein in someone's forehead during an arm wrestling match... I can see that big ole vein pop right out of the center of this head.

Yip, easy enough... After your decal is applied to your model... 1. Create a New Pose 2. Locate your actions folder, then the "Shortcut to your model" folder, this is under your actions folder... 3. To the right of the "Shortcut to model" there should be a little white "thing" with a red "X" on it... click that red X. 4. The Groups, Relationships, Drivers and all that jazz will appear, you want the "Decals" folder. 5. Click the little plus (+) sign to the right of the decals folder and expand it until you get to the "Images" folder. 6. Click the small triangle next to the picture icon of your decal. You're going to need your Pose Slider window open now. (View> Pose Sliders) 7. With the pose slider set to the 100% postion, set the percentage value of your bump map to 100%, now move the slider down to 0% and set the percentage value to 0%. Move the slider back & forth and see if the percentage value is changing with it. Should work fine now... render different values to check your work.

Excellent work! Looks like you've mastered the hooks & 5 point patches and you've managed to create an ear... a lot of folks still have challenges with creating ears, nicely done though. One crit... I can tell that you're from a poly app. because of the way you connected a spline in the attachment. I'm pretty sure that'll produce unwanted artifacts when you go to animate any head movement. You may want to create a 5pp and head it off with a hook so that there are no potential problems later. But great work, can't wait to see your future projects.

whoa... thanks Yves... Yeah, car tutorials are pretty scarce, guess i have to do a car tut now Well, it's between a 1979 VW Rabbit or a Ford Focus... I'm thinking of doing the Ford because those cars are pretty simple in design and a lot newer. Besides, I can't find those rabbit blueprints anywhere on my hard drive... it would have been nice to give it a few dings and then add rust decals to the rear quarter panel to give it a bit of authenticity but we'll make do with the ford I guess. We'll begin as soon as I finish this project I'm working on.

<choke> that's great Rodger! I hearby pronounce you... King of the Classics great work.....

Sweet, here it is... BMW.zip

....and i do appreciate yall's comments... i wonder if anyone would be interested in an online car modeling tutorial? i don't know, if enough people are i'd be willing to try and chugg one out.... just the body you realize... maybe a ford focus or something small & not too tough

thanks Yves, yeah I removed my website a while back, didn't really care for that particular webhost... I would post the model here for anyone to download but I don't think it would work and it's probably against the rules anyhow.... i wouldn't know i never read the rules anyway if anybody wants to poke around with that BMW, email me and i'll try and get it out to you...

That looks sweet but I've got to ask you, is this done using a flat plane? Also, how long did it take to render this image? "a simple reflecting gradient material???" wow... I'd like to know how you did that...