phatso
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Posts posted by phatso
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A Motorola Atrix with the plug-in laptop. Atrix: good phone. Laptop: dog.
I don't know if this counts as a "computer" purchase: HTC EVO phone. The glitchiest, buggiest thing i've ever owned. If you wanna get a smartphone, don't get this one.
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Why dontcha insert the live video as an inset in a title page. Then it would be smaller and the quality difference wouldn't be obvious.
Slow is good. It's easy for those who have been doing this for a while to forget how little the beginner knows. What's plodding to you is right for the student.
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"One thing I think new users would like is a tour of all the buttons on the screen, but i don't like doing it all at once. I should find a way to sneak that in over several lessons." Do a tour all at once, but announce that it's just an overview and you'll be talking about each button again. That way they don't think they have to memorize it all at once, but they don't think you're glossing over stuff either.
Do you want a keypad with the views? I think you should do everything you can to get people away from toolbars and encourage the "one hand on the mouse, the other hand on the keyboard" approach. I was like a man on crutches til I got used to doing things with hotkeys.
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"I look at the current TAoA:M and feel it's not teaching some things well. That's my reason. TAoA:m is their first exposure to tuts and it needs to be strong enough to not leave them with confusion about how continue on."
Aaaaymen!
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Make sure you talk about all the weird stuff about splining, like when you click on a cp to add a spline, and it extends the spline you didn't expect, what to do. And simple stuff that trips up beginners, like when you click to add a spline and you see nothing, check to see that you aren't in "9" view, whatever you call it.
UI tools: not all in one tute, but not spread all over the place either. Teach them in three or four groups.
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Ohmigod, I wish I weren't up to my eyeballs in my own books and had enough in the bank to plunge into this. (Maybe RC is glad I don't.) This is exactly what I've been dreaming about for years and the juices that are flowing here are magnifique.
As I was reading thru the posts I had the urge to jump in again and again, but by now I have few comments to add, the mental creativity of others puts mine to shame. Obviously this is tapping into a long-held dream.
First lathing project: definitely a vase. Gotta go in baby steps. Somebody who has made a lot of progress won't be thrown if they hit a roadblock, but a beginner needs only one snag to get discouraged. It's significant that the A:M demo at conventions features a vase. The purpose of that demo is to show how easily one can get one's feet wet. Take note.
How about developing a simplified standard rig to start with? Most of my own use of A:M has been modeling - thousands of images - but little animating yet, and the rig is still a big mystery.
The techniques of good animation can wait; ya can't play Mozart until you've mastered scales and fingering. Many of the people here have started with crude movement and then gained refinement later.
If you've read my post in the other room you already know my biggest suggestion: conceive this as an ebook, not a print book, from the outset. A print book on hand-drawn animation makes sense. A print book on computer animation does not. Hash is a virtual company now; it's made the transition to the 21st century and TAoA:M should too.
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No reason you can't just start with the plain old bitmap paint program and then revisit the subject. It's primitive, but everybody's got it, and beginning students are at a primitive level. Alphas can come later.
Why a chapter budget? Are you thinking of this as a hardcopy book?
Rob, I bent your ear about this when I was in Dallas, so apologies for repeating it, but I want to lay this out so everybody else can think about it. Everybody has a few things they won't shut up about, this is one of mine. Long post, wanna do the whole stump speech all at once and then I'll give it a rest.
Basic premise: textbooks are obsolete.
My home town is a little burg in the middle of Minnesota, 12,000 people, in flyover country. The local school district does not buy print textbooks. This is hardly New York or LA; if that's what's going on here, it ought to tell you where things are going.
Emedia has so many advantages, and frees you from so many print book constraints, that it's probably stupid to try to make a list off the top of my head. I should spend some time and compile a list. I am currently producing a series of ebooks using plain old Paint for the simple 2D graphics and A:M for all the 3D ones. If we were sitting in a restaurant eating pizza (pizza's on my mind right now) and you told me you were planning a new TAoA:M in hardcopy, I'd look at you like you were crazy and ask you why on Earth you would choose a format that:
> commits you to considerable up-front printing costs, which you will only recover over time and may never recover, as opposed to one where the physical media cost is zero?
> requires you to decide quantities in advance, guessing at the potential market, instead of one where quantity is irrelevant?
> forces you to create an animation course that cannot include animations?
> teaches about syncing animation with sound but cannot include sound?
> financially penalizes you for every added illustration, every use of color, every added line of text, as if punishing you for doing a thorough job?
> forces you to think in terms of 16-page booklets for binding purposes, instead of letting the material dictate the size?
> requires you to lay the material out in a set page size, routinely forcing separation of illustrations and explanatory text onto different pages, instead of HTML where you can keep a picture on the screen and scroll the text next to it?
> entails a chapter budget at all?
> makes updating expensive and difficult, as opposed to a format where errata can be corrected and a new version distributed immediately?
> does not permit you to work in a video format, where you could do narration while showing the student what to do click by click? (I've heard this called a "vook" - a video book.)
> does not permit you to add new chapters whenever you feel like it?
> does not permit esoteric and highly detailed material to be pulled out of the main text and made accessable by links, so the book can be 200 pages for one student and 1,000 pages for another, however much detail is appropriate for each student? (A lot like 1:1 tutoring.)
...and so on. After working in emedia, I think of someone working in hardcopy like the mime who's trapped in an invisible box, and maybe doesn't even know it. There must be fifty constraints that you're not even aware of until you start working electronically. Speaking from my own experience, the hardest part is freeing one's mind from limiting habits.
And a print book on computer animation, which is inherently electronic? A print book on ancient Rome or Shakespeare, maybe, but in 2011 a print book on a computer-based technology seems as incongruous as a book about cooking meat written by a vegetarian. TAoA:M, or whatever, ought to be an advertisement and example of A:M and computer animation. You know that highly polished and persuasive dog and pony show Hash puts on at conventions? TAoA:M should look like that. I can't think of anything to get students' juices flowing more than, "Look at this spiffy animation, and then we'll show you how you can do one like it."
I don't know about your experience, but I found the A:M learning curve steep - and the competition's learning curve impossible. The interface is NOT intuitive; there's no way a program with this many capabilities can be. I have long believed that A:M as a program has reached such a level of sophistication that the most promising avenue to wider acceptance is not enhancements to the program but enhancements to the available instructional material. Rob has talked about spending ten years working with it constantly. Does that translate into an A:M "installed cost" of a quarter million dollars? What if there were instructional material so thorough and efficient that it could cut that time by 75%? But print could never do that cost-effectively; it would take 5,000 pages. Emedia can do 5,000 pages, developed gradually over years, with no strain.
Question: instead of a new TAoA:M, how about a new version of David Rogers' book?
Answer: too big a project to bite off all at once.
Question: why all at once, when if done electronically, it could start ToA:M size and grow chapter by chapter?
Answer: this sounds like your old idea of a monthly A:M periodical, with a subscription.
Question: why carry the distinction between book and periodical, a print concept, over to emedia? Free your mind. The appropriate form for emedia is a hybrid book/magazine/video/reference library. A book, in that the core is written and published all at once; a magazine, in that it's expanded month by month; a library, in that - unlike the ephemera of a magazine - it accumulates into a continuously useful body of knowledge. Maybe a "vookazinebrary." Essentially, the Forum, but structured and edited. Speaking from experience, the Forum is a vast, mysterious sea for the beginner who needs structured guidance.
I wouldn't claim that dumping print has no downside. I've never seen a change, no matter how much gained, where there isn't also something lost. But if the gain far outweighs the loss, you go for it. Also keep in mind that you want this stuff to have an extended shelf life, which means we should be thinking of how today's junior high school students are going to be accustomed to learning when they reach adulthood. They do homework on their phones. Those who want print can print out the ebook, probably for less than what it costs Hash to do TAoA:M. Actually, not print the whole ebook, just the parts they choose to print. Or a distilled summary that comes with the ebook. Chalk up another advantage.
A few comments on the proposed chapters - TAoA:M doesn't get into modeling until later, preferring to emphasize the point that students can take premade figures and animate immediately. Shades of DAZ? Anyway, is going to modeling immediately a deliberate shift? Just asking. (A magazine format would facilitate parallel development of many threads. Also provide continuing revenue. Maybe the first 6 months free with A:M, then $5 a month.)
I would vote for chapter 1 to be a detailed explanation of the PWS etc. Every button, every function, especially the context-menu ones. Any teacher (any good one) will tell you the hardest part of teaching is remembering how little the beginner knows. I'm quite sure I'm using A:M stupidly in a hundred ways, because I had to work out procedures that weren't covered in TAoA:M, the tech reference, or Rogers. That's a testament to how rich A:M is, but people shouldn't have to buy the program and then hack it.
I have donned my armor; let the counterattack begin.
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The new tutes are going to be 100% videos right? Books are obsolete.
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why not use sweeper?
Well, I did but I had the cross section lined up incorrectly.
Thanks for the example, Robert. That did the trick.
Make sure the spline ring is centered on the x y origin before sweeping.
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"New Broad Animation Site."
Funny, i don't see any animated broads there.
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I'm going to be doing e-books with, hopefully, dozens of little animations all done in A:M.
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Been there lots of times, I love it. But then I'm a sucker for putting on a suit and going out and being part of the glitz, even if I sneak off to a Burger King when it's time to eat. Don't gamble so I'm not in danger from that. I may move there for 3 months and maybe after that I'll hate the place. But if you want to see a wondrous car collection or great art, it's a fine place to do it.
Too bad there are so many gated neighborhoods, and that they're necessary. "It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Star Trek
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Robcat is referring to the horizontal splines that define the bottom of the top box and the top of the bottom box. Yes, there are two stacked splines after joining, and as I am a much clumsier animator than he is, I have made this mistake - it causes all sorts of problems. Before joining, select one spline or the other, and delete.
That leaves the issue of how A:M will interpret the vertical splines when they join. Occasionally, depending on how the box was constructed, A:M will decide to join them oddly. Then you have to delete both horizontal splines, join the vertical ones, and add the horizontal ones back in. Just takes a minute.
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I always thought it was interesting that Kodachrome was developed by a couple of "Leopolds," both musicians - L. Godowsky Jr. and L. Mannes, who were known as "God and Man" at Kodak. After Kodachrome they never bothered with chemistry again. Godowsky became a performing violinist and Mannes succeeded his dad as president of the Mannes School of Music.
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I didn't work directly on it, but I made suggestions - does that count? I was in MPLS then and live outside Alexandria MN now. If all you need is a resident...
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If it's not unreasonable to assume you'll be starting the class in the fall - get A:M and spend the summer animating. There are basic mistakes everybody makes. (Like establishing a keyframe at some point in the animation, without first establishing a previous keyframe so the program knows when to start moving from one position to the next. It's 100 times easier to do in the right order, than to fix afterwards.) Then, when students trip over the same obstacles, you'll know what to tell them. DON'T wait to start until your students are starting. You'll be at sea.
It cannot be said too many times: go thru the exercises in the book, The Art of Animation Master. I've been thru them three times and one of these days I'm going to find time to make a fourth pass.
As you know, middle school students need rewards at every step to stay motivated. The problem with simpler programs is that they are limited, which will quickly lead to boredom. Once students have mastered a simple program, they will have to abandon it and start all over with a more capable one.
A:M, on the other hand, is like a tricycle that gradually morphs into a bike with training wheels, then a bike without training wheels, then a car, then an airplane, then a jet, then a rocket. Students can start simple and take it a very long way.
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The bass-heavy sound is no surprise, directional mics boost the bass when you get close to them. It's called "proximity effect." This can be an advantage; you can EQ the bass down to get it right and at the same time reduce any rumble in the background.
Hig - I spoze Armstrong would have agreed, but it was Ellington who said that. Not to nitpick or anything.
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Lathe concentric circles with maybe 16 segments, then delete part of the circle. Hold down shift and attach straight splines.
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If you've got only one mic, you can't place it optimally for two actors. You'll have to record them separately.
Radio announcers place the mic above the mouth and just a little to the side, aiming down, so if the actor leans forward the mic will hit the root of the eye tooth. That gets it as close as possible without being in the path of breath noises, and captures sound from the nose as well as the mouth, which is critical. If you just aim for the mouth alone you get stopped up sound.
Can't you set the software with a threshold to automatically gate out room noise between sentences? In an open plan office I think you're going to have trouble.
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When you get around to it - The main thing I see is that the velocity of the particles doesn't vary enough. They should move out very rapidly just after the explosion, then slow to a gradually expanding cloud, then stop expanding and fall with gravity for a while before they flame out. If you ever see somebody throw something out a car window at 60mph, that will give you the velocity curve.
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When I want to control hair growth from a particular patch, I create another patch and place it just beneath the original patch, so it's invisible, or just above, if I want color, and then have that be the hair emitter. This separate hair patch can be any color, any shape, any orientation, and I can change it at will without changing the eyelid geometry, so I have complete control. It can be assigned to the same bone as the eyelid patch next to it, so it will move properly when the eyelid moves.
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Do you really want to model 200+ strings? (3 per note for most of the keys)
If it were me, I'd put in a plane and apply a picture of the strings as a decal. The decal would need to have alpha, so you could see the hammers below. There is no need to animate them; no matter how hard you hit them they don't move to a degree you can see, except way close up.
At the very least, I hope you'll use a decal on the copper-wound bass strings, instead of modeling coils. (shudder)
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arlnee, did you get the slide fixed?
one of the mistakes I always made at the beginning was to move a bone to a certain position without checking to be sure I was at the beginning of the animation. A:M would then interpolate from the last keyframe, or from the beginning if I hadn't moved the bone up to that point.
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"Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." (Casablanca)
Better warn you, you WILL run into snags and get confused. Don't let it throw you, there are people here who can answer any question, years of archives to search, and video tutorials by the dozen. Microsoft's online help should be so good.
Path Deformer
in Work In Progress / Sweatbox
Posted
Hey robcat, remember that electron-thru-wire project I was working on? This would seem to be ideal. Can you elaborate or do a tute or something?
Speaking of which, I got your first video tutes to play using the VLC player, learned a few things. More on the way?