Jeetman

As I said in the A:M community chat/TWO meeting, Thank you for doing this and I'm DEFINITELY IN!!!!!! George

Al, That is excellent!!!! I started modeling this. I have all the specs for it too but time and lack of ability has prevented me from making it. I do have a robot model started. I'll see if I can finish that up and when your Jupiter 2 is done we can put the robot in it. REALLY OUTSTANDING JOB!!!!! I loved watching Lost in Space when I was a kid and still do today at 43 hehe George

It looks great but if you rounded the corners a little it would look better. not too much just enough so it doesn't have that solid edge.

Hi Bob, I second Bruce's comments and add this.... The newer version (which I just upgraded to v14) allows people to participate in the "TWO" project. If you really want to come back with a vengeance, I'd really recommend you to check out this exciting opportunity offered only to A:M users using v13 or higher on account of the new svn feature (read up on it in the forums). Martin Hash is doing a very revolutionary thing. He's making a full feature movie (The Tin Woodman of OZ commonly referred to as "TWO") that is created by all Animation Master (A:M) volunteers from around the world all working together. There is also a complete certification program that Rodney keeps up if your A:M skills are a bit rusty you should check it out. That's how I started. Currently I am part of a team of over 100 A:M users working on the movie. The new updates since 8.5 are vast and the added features and stability is well worth the 100 bucks. Just do it!! Seriously, you won't be disappointed. George

I basically needed a break. I'm back now though working on the TWO movie. See you in chat George

Here's an animation I created to try to help out Technodandy in going from path animation to breaking from the path and continuing with a choreography action. Here's the finished product. I didn't make it perfect. Also, after seeing how cool it looked I wondered if I could modify the Hash Rabbit and give him a superman (or bunny in this case) costume. It was relatively easy to make the costume so here it is. It's not great but still pretty cool. Here are the steps I did for the animation. I'm sure there are a few things I could have done differently (like use blend to match up the path actions) but I at least accomplished my goal. I took the walk cycle I created a while ago and deleted all but the first pose. I turned off the "has stride length" option and created a quick walking to standing action and saved it as "my walk to stop.act". I then created a path, constrained the super_rabbit model and used the same "my walk" action (I created from the book a long time ago) that I also used for the first pose in my "my walk to stop.act" animation. I set the ease to 100 and the enforcement to 0 at the end of the path. I adjusted the red bar of the walking animation to be at the end of the last cycle by stretching or shrinking the end. I imported the "walk to standing" action and placed it with a frame or 2 of overlap. I then created a choreography action and moved the starting point to be right after the "walk to standing" animation which also has the constrain to path set to 0. I then created a choreography action of him touching his face, looking up, squatting down and flying in the air. The hard part was lining up the model bone to match the ending path animation (the walking to standing one not the walking one). Because this was just a test, I did not go all out to make this a movie release. I didn't for example try to match up the smile and eye lids as you'll probably notice. I did what I wanted to do. I went from a constrained path to breaking from the path to complete control by using a choreography action. The only reason my original suggestion didn't work (besides the fact I was wrong about having to set the position before hand) is because apparently you can't smoothly go from a "cycle" action to a choreography action. BUT, if you add a non-cycle action (I.E. no stride length set), to the character and place it at the end where it lines up with the end of the cycle animation it blends quite well. I hope this is helpful to someone. It was fun figuring it out. Super_Rabbit2.mdl And here's the decal for the symbol on his chest. Here's the super_bunny. You'll need A:M 14 to use it though. path_to_choreography_action_with_super_bunny.mov George

OK now you REALLY are going all out. You did it. You made me say WOW!!! Great JOB!!!!!!!!

Black!!!! looks awesome!!!! Great job man!!

The animation looks very cool T-Dogg. Just imagine the camera angles you can use after you finish the model! The model is coming along nicely. Keep it up! Also....LOL I thought I was the only one who used Paintshop Pro here. All I ever hear used is photoshop. Nice to know there are others out there hehe. George

Just watched the short from your link Satyajit and it is EXCELLENT!! very good story telling my friend!!! George

I don't know what 9/11 has to do with the piece and maybe you should re-read what I wrote; "if your against this hanging of Saddam then your an apoligist for the Saddam tyrancy" is a complete misquote and frankly a distortion of any reasonable interpretation of what I wrote. “but leave out the belittling and divisionary talking point to smear anyone with your opposing views.” Isn’t that precisely what you are doing? You are entitled to your opinion, as am I. I agree 100% with you Bruce. Your film is a good way of saying I hope a guy who has caused terrible anguish, torture (real torture not that Abu Ghraib stuff), pain and insurmountable suffering is receiving a just punishment.

Hi Rus, Also being a teacher and practitioner of the Martial Arts, I have one question.... You say you value life. So are you saying you value a the life of Saddam? Are you aware of all he and his two sicko sons have done? If not, please read up on it. It's absolutely demonic. If this guy did the things he did to your family do you really think you'd feel the same? People decide to learn how to defend themselve for different reasons but my main reason was I refused to be a victim of being bullied or worse possibly have to deal with a situation where someone is planning on taking my life. If I'm ever in a situation where a person is trying to do me or my family bodily harm or temping to kill me, I will not hesitate (in self-defense) to take that person out any way I can. I have never been in a situation like this thankfully but I'd think as a teacher and practitioner of the Martial Arts, you'd feel the same (maybe not). I have no love or respect for any individual who has no problem with taking a persons life. Saddam did that (according to the news) on a regular basis and on a massive scale. The last estimate I heard was that he was responsible for about 170,000 killings. Imagine all that pain he caused families. Sorry. I too value life. I value the life of every decent, responsible and caring or (uncaring for that matter) human being but I have no care or concern for any individual who kills people for their own profit or pleasure. This guy was a sick dude and I'm glad the Iraqis executed him. George

You did a great job with the devil animation and the flames are a great touch. Personally after learning all this guy has done, I have no problem with this animation however, a PG13 rating is a good idea. Kudos on the animation and I agree with dborruso, I hope it is true! George

I'm sorry I didn't see this sooner or I would have responded immediately. Keith, I wish you the best and I pray that your surgery is a big success and I'm looking forward to working with you again. Best of wishes my friend, George

Hi Al, Based on the statement above and If less is best, I think this may be the best way. [attachmentid=22639] George

Looks good T-Dogg! I'm glad you're not giving up on this. When it's completed, you'll have a great feeling of accomplishment and a kick ass model to use in Batman projects!!!! Remember, the model is only the beginning. George

Satyajit, The main thing you have to do is have proper sentences. I made these changes so that the story would rhyme better and have clearer grammar. If you use it cool if not no biggie. George [attachmentid=22052]

Jim, This is the best explanation I've seen that explains very clearly the anguish I went through when I first tried to animate with A:M. I almost gave up because it was so frustrating to me. I could do things like the "making rabbit walk" and "It's a pitch" exercise just fine but when I did the "door is stuck" exercise I was confused as to why It wouldn't (the animation) do what I wanted it to do. I of course now know exactly what I was doing wrong. I just wish I had this explanation then hehe. Also, the concept of each part of the model (I.E the hand, forearm, head, etc) having it's own key was confusing to me. Jeff Lew explains on his DVD a quick way to make a key (other than the "create key" button). You just give the part or parts you need to move a little nudge. It creates a key at that point. The real control is when you understand the spline view of the timeline. George

Dhar, Outstanding work my friend!!!!! It's something to really be proud of I love the lighting, setting, the sound and the animation is excellent. You ROCK!!!!! I've always liked Louis Armstrong. George

I'm not sure I understand your question so I'll explain how it should work and maybe that will give you your answer. If you want to add sound to your animation there are 2 ways I know the latter works the best for me. Add sound to an action. Add sound to a choreography. To do these next steps you need to have the libraries, properties and timeline windows on. After you create a scene in a choreography (or action), click on the sound tab in the libraries window. select the sound you want and drag it over the choreography. You should see the wave line in the timeline, if not, then go to the properties window and find the sound there. click on the sound in the properties and you should now see it in the timeline. When you play the animation, you should hear the sound. You should also be able to "scrub". However, I have found that I can sometimes lose the sound when I scrub (move the animation slider back and forth). You now can adjust the timing in the timeline to where you want the sound to play and when you render, you should hear the sound. I hope this helps. George

LOL Thank you Dhar. In the final production, he'll get bashed on the head causing him to lose concentration and the X-Wing to fall. I know my brother in law Kirk (the assistant director), will ask me to do another shot of this but this cut is done. Actually that is my nephew Alex. My Sister's husband (Kirk) Asked him to be the Jedi specifically because his hair is so long. Ken, thanks. For some reason I couldn't import the AVI so I did what another person suggest and converted the AVI footage to TGA's through a program I use for graphics editing called Paint Shop Pro. It ships with a 's sister program called animation shop which is a very basic program that exports TGA sequential files from different file formats (AVI, GIF, etc). Other than that, it was all done in A:M. the awesome X-Wing (which I did not model. I got it from the donated models site), lighting and of course the animation. The file I wanted to attach to the post was too big and I don't really have a website so I compressed it through a pretty good (very cheap compared to Adobe) editing program called Video Explosion. I'm planning on setting up an FTP site eventually. So all in all, I used 2 other programs but only to import and to compress the file. For some reason, I couldn't render a MOV without losing the rotoscope proportions and consequentially losing the camera placement. I'll have to figure out why some day. I did modify the X-Wing by adding 2 bones (one at each beginning of the wing) to create the shock impact bend. Without it, it looked too floaty. Thanks Nancy, I really appreciate the compliment. As soon as Kirk and the lead director are done with their editing, I'll link the final production if I can. George

I can't add anything more than what Ken, Dhar and Case did. Just that you're doing good and keep up the good work! George

Case that looks excellent!!!!!! It's coming along really good. Can't wait to see the movie. George

Here's my finished clip. I meant it to be a WIP but I had it done in about 2 days. [attachmentid=21470] George X_Wing_Levi.mov

In my last post I commended you on the case not thinking you were going to model the actual case LOL. So I'll clarify my statement.... Good job on the "cartridge" and the "case" looks great too!!! You should post a render with the cartridge in the case. George