nerrazzi
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Posts posted by nerrazzi
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I think folks who are smart enough to write good plugins are great! If it's worth paying for I'll buy the darn thing. There are a lot of plugins out there that I don't use and probably wont ever use, free or not, it's the one's that truely help the artist become more productive that count.
I remember one called A:M Loft that helped you build springs and the like, can you imagine how long it would take you to build that without that plugin? Plus, since the tech team at Hash is so small, plugin writters are an invaluable source of assistance to the programmers and artists.
Raf and his Setup Machine... do you know how many folks would be crying about how to rig their models if Raf didn't produce TSM CD? What's he supposed to do, give it away?
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Yeah, Raf Anzovin did on his "Dennis the Dog" character. This was with an older version of A:M too. I remember him saying that there were areas in the finished clips where he had to go back and paint out some of the areas where the dog's vest penetrated his chest but overall it looked really good.
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I'm working with cloth and clothing on a character now and as far as I've been able to tell, you still get body geometry poking through the clothing geometry when you move the legs/arms etc... that's "IF" you build the clothing on top of the body geometry. Unless you're character's clothing is going to be blowing in the wind or he/she has to change clothes you should probably just model the clothes as part of the body.
Now if I were to model a character with shorts on, I'd use a combination of smart skin & the dynamic constraint to make the leg of the shorts move at variying rotations with the leg geometry. This seems to work for me and is pretty simple to do. You could even animate wrinkles in a shirt sleeve just using smart skin, it's a little tedious and not so realistic but it works OK for "cartoony" characters.
Up to this point for me, using the cloth wizard sometimes produces unpredictable results and just flat-out doesn't work like it ought to.
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Wow! This is a really good idea although I don't know if I could ever do a tutorial on how to make anything.
Hey, I'd like to see a tut on cloth on a character but A:M itself may not be ready for this just yet. -
aaaah well... looks like I'm going to have to substitute the cloth wiz for smartskin, it's not as realistic in appearance but hey, it stays with your model.
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Well you can only use the cloth wiz in an action window in muscle mode or in a choreography, my problem is permanently associating that spring system to my model. <arrgh>
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I used the Cloth Wiz for a piece of fabric on a character I'm working on and I thought I saved it as a "new part" of my model, but when I reopened the file, the spring system was gone along with all my settings.
Are you just not permitted to save spring systems as a part of your model's hierarchy? Must I create a new system everytime I want to use this character
or am I just plain doing something wrong? -
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Do not let the unending cries for new features that resemble brand X's influence you one bit. If those who cry for such things would, for a moment, be honest, they would have to confess that their lust is just the lust for something "new". It doesn't matter if it is needed or not - they're just bored.
I seriously don't think so... Did you even think about that statement before you wrote it?
Everyone has done that at one point or another it's called "making progress"... or at least they still call it that in Kentucky...
To say that these folks are just "lusting for something new" and are "bored" is baseless and being plain sterotypical. A lot of feature requests are quite legitimate and someone either the end user or hash programmer, at one point, has to come up with the "idea" that is ultimately implimented within A:M.
A lot of companies actually want to hear from their customers about what they like and dislike concerning their products, comments and suggestions are more than welcome.
As far as polys or splines are concerned... I could care less. But if I had to choose between the two I'd probably pick splines because they seem more natural to use as apposed to polys.
...and in my opinion, you don't have to match all the tools found in high-end poly apps., why not just ask the users what they'd like to see made available. If, for example, Hash decided to include in vr. 12 a sub-division feature, how many people do you think would be using it? Probably most would... and such a feature would make A:M way more attractive to potential customers.
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If you want to create a light within the modeling window and have it stay with the model, that is another way to do it. I know you can control the intensity of a light via a pose slider and I believe you can control the color of light displayed using a Pose Slider but I haven't tested it out. I talked about that a while ago here.
Adjusting the lights intensity & color levels via placing a light within a model, inside a modeling window has it's limits. You have more control over intensity levels and color ranges if you create the light in a chor. and "Translate To" it to a model. Either way will serve the purpose the only factor is how much control you want.
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Ouwwwch!!! So I guess a salt bath is out of the question?
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1 - How do I create a new light
Right-click on the chor. and select New>Light
2 - How do I put it inside the model3 - How do I make it stay with the model in the spot I put it as the model is animated and moves in a chor?
Just Right-click the light select New Constraint> Translate To then select your model or a bone inside your model
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...have to take a look at that book. I normally record cartoons like Tom & Jerry on my DVR and play certain parts back frame by frame to get a good idea of how characters move. This is good education for all the crazy exaggerated facial expressions and movements characters make just to do one thing.
For example, there was one episode where Tom was back in the Old West and a human character (cowboy) told Tom he wasn't going to get anything to eat unless he got rid of that mouse. So the cowboy began shootin' at the ground in different directions next to Tom's feet, Tom immediately began a "mid-air run cycle" for about 9 frames before he dashed out of the picture. Animation like that just isn't out there in the 3D world hardly.
I record Spongebob too, that guy's just plain goofy.
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I was going to post this in the AM section but it wouldn't let me add an image.
I clicked on the little arrow at the top right hand corner of my PWS and selected New Filter, does anyone know what this does?
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Sweet! I'm going to try it and see what I come up with. If anyone else has any other examples of this, I'd love to see 'em...
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Does anyone know if A:M's dynamics tools have gotten to the point where you can produce the swaying & jiggling, if you will, of "fatty" parts of the human anatomy? I think I saw someone produce a clip of a characters body weight being shaken and the fat reacting in the simulation.
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There is the very obvious dynamic up front, but when she turns around, I noticed a little twinge in wireframe view and had to go back and see it. It was one of those "he didn't really do the jiggle back there..."
Yeah he made it apparent, and you can see the jiggle in her buttocks clearer in the back side shaded wire-frame, nice touch.
Personally, I'd like to see her engage in some combat with some H U G E sword, I'd pay admission to that.
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Yeah, we know why it's so popular. I'll admit, my eyes were glued to the dynamics at work, you know her ear rings and... feathers, and all...
The model itself is absolutely phenomenal! Without a dought, the best female model I've ever seen cranked out of A:M...period. Nothing else even comes close to second place. The modeling skills were there, the texturing skills were there, the lighting and attention to detail were all there as well, absolutely no crits.
However, it's not really a fair comparison to put Joe's model up against Vic's work because of content. The Hunteress is only performing a simple walk cycle on a turntable, nothing terribly amazing, while Vic's Alien Song goes far beyond that with a full demonstration of "the art of animation."
If you want to compare the two, make it fair... give the Alien a G-String.
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it is a difficult task to come up with good ways of showcasing my work as a modeler - I want to focus attention on the models
Overall, I think that the models look pretty good but there a few areas that you should consider making some adjustments.
-In the video, the bird's claws didn't look round and full enough when it landed on the branch.
-The tops of it's wings closest to the torso would look more realistic if they were closer to the torso when the wings were folded.
-Smoothing the torso & blending the neck into it would be a plus but unnecessary if you're going to add feathers.
-Bring the legs up closer to the body during flight.
+On the plus side, I loved the bird's wing span! Excellent modeling!
-The dino's look very good but I'd experiment with the dynamics of the model to give the impression of massive weight being shifted during it's walk cycle. I know, that really doesn't have anything to do with modeling but if you're trying to land some work, dynamics is what stood out most to me.
Possible tips:
*Definately some sound would be great.
*I've always been a fan of watching a model walk in wire-shaded mode and then dissolve into shaded-mode, then finally fully textured. (All this while the camera circles the model.)
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Excellent work!!!
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Hey Shawn, just wondering if you've ever done something like this before?
Projects like what you're talking about, depending on it's realism, usually require lots of time, talent and effort. I don't know how well you have everything associated with this project organized but giving away your storyline probably isn't the best thing to do. I'd get and have folks sign a NDA or non disclosure agreement before I told anyone what the movie's about especially if your going to produce this for DVD sales.
This film will have to be at least 30 minutes long to justify DVD sales otherwise customers will feel cheated, so you may want to start out with a movie short, something maybe 5 minutes long before you take on feature length projects. Even with a team of regularly paid modelers, animators, texture artists etc... it still took PIXAR "4 years" to make Toy Story. This Greek Mythology film you're trying to make more than likely will take "at least" two years depending on it's length to crank out, with that time scale in mind you'll find that team members may begin to become discouraged and move on to other things.
Collaborative projects do work like this one but they knew each other and could kick one another in the pants when they started dragging.
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Here's a nice one for the hands. Painting Hands
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Here's a link to a great tutorial on hand painting human skin for everyone in need of good custom textures to finish up your models. Painting Skin
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full size pics???
No, i don't. the model is actually stored on my other computer inside one of those dusty hard drives. That particular model is sort of patch heavy, last time i checked it was over 33,000 patches, that was just the head, torso & both legs. With the arms and all those fun hydrolics, that would send it over the 50k mark making it nearly impossible to work with even in wire-frame mode...
Oh and render times are plain ridiculous with that patch count, this single image took 14 minutes.
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Speaking of fluids, if a clever programmer can built a bridge connecting this to A:M it wouldn't make me mad....