Darkwing

Like I said before, pretty sure I can do it in Pinnacle. It was an option and though I never burned a disk (how do you determine if a disk is 24fps after it's burned, just to be sure?)

I use FCE and I'll say that anything imported using the .mov format with the Apple Intermediate Codec works like a charm. Apparently it is the prefered format as FCE doesn't have to render it out either. Of course I use AM to compile the frames and export as .mov as opposed to using FCE for that function

Yeah, the big thing is that the model has no other elements with it. I imported a .3ds star destroyer once and AM nearly killed me in hatred, why? The .3ds file had both a camera and light in it. Of course the biggest problem is the textures. Where Max uses one material that houses all the maps for on part of the model, AM will only read one map and make it a diffuse map. So if the 3ds material also had a spec and ambience or self illum map, AM only reads one. And of course in the choreography you can do a basic edit of each of the materials assigned to the model, that's how the Enterprise was able to have glows on the nacelles, they had their own separate material so I was able to just add ambience and glow in AM. The Valiant however only had 3 materials for the whole model and to make the engines glow would have made parts of the hull glow as well thanks to UV mapping. So like I said, needs some more tests like breaking the .3ds models up further in Max and then re-importing, but overall it looks like there is much potential to get it working well enough that an untrained eye wouldn't know the difference EDIT: One other note, the less dense the mesh the easier it works with AM. These were game models converted to .3ds format so the density of the mesh is more or less low, whereas part of my problem with the Star Destroyer I mentioned earlier was that it was extraordinarily dense, nice model, well detailed, but again, AM wanted to either murder me or commit suiced

Thanks, it's also one of the only animation tests I've ever done. The amount of animating I've done with AM you can probably count on your fingers. But yeah, this just demonstrates the possibility of using Props to import .3ds models. There's some tweaking, like in Max the parts that have glows need to be made separate materials so that I can use the Glow and ambience property in AM. The dirty lens was one of the trickier things, but thanks to Rob and his hint to use translucency made things a lot simpler

This is a test of importing some .3ds ships into AM. The blooms were originally gonna be done in AM (finally figured out how to use AM composite and was quite impressed) however, I liked the blooms in FCE more, so I went with those blooms instead. But the lens dirt and all that are AM, so yeah, have a look see EDIT- Whoops, I always forget this place doesn't have a youtube embed, I'm so used to putting in the tags

You can get critiques on your work from the forum members at any time. There is no need for a contest. Yes and no, this is more of an incentive to work on your project or pre-defined ones or whatever. But I dunno, I've no idea why I'm part of this discussion really because in any scenario, I just won't be entering anything ever anyways, so my opinions are somewhat invalid But I think you'd get more people involved if they knew either they had a good chance at winning or it wasn't about winning at all

....which was my point, because you said it was to "build animation skills, nothing more"

And on that note, working on something for 6 months and saying I'm number 50 isn't a good feeling, plus, if it's animating only, that will turn away people (like me). Let people do what they want, that's what I say, get them to push it in whatever aspect they strive to be better at. Because let's say Robert enters, well he's pretty much an animation pro and if I enter I'm an animation suck and if we're going for winners, again, why should I bother entering because it's pretty clear Robert would win

Why do we need to vote on them? Why does somebody need to win? I'm more inclined to the no winner idea and perhaps the ultimate goal is basically for a critique by experienced members of the community. Almost an American Idol sort of thing, except we're not weeding them out to see which is best, we're weeding out what needs improvement and what works EDIT: Might be cool to encourage group projects too, have multiple people work together, that was if someone like me is more of a modeler, than I model, someone animates, someone textures etc, groups could be as small as say 2 people and as large as what, 10 people?

Hey now... don't be blaming me for Matt's lame-o idea!!! <K I D D I N G !> It's a good idea (it would however take some pre-contest setup and most likely require intermediate level experience to create). It would be nice to shake a few of the talented folks around here out from their hidey holes. We've got a lot of talent here in the community. As I mentioned, some create really awesome stuff but apparently don't care to enter contests. Hmmm... I wonder if the Hash Fellows would be up to grading (or critiquing) entries. Let's think big here. What would it take to create a contest where EVERYONE couldn't wait to enter? First, on something you posted a bit further back, about the categories, could almost be like our own Oscars of sorts. Maybe an actual judging panel? I dunno. As to answer your question about a contest where everyone couldn't wait to enter, I hate to say it, but I've been saying this for years....the potential that anyone can win. For instance, the moment I see somebody like Marcos or Stian or any of them are going to enter a contest, I don't bother. I can't compete against them, no matter how hard I tried or wanted to, unless I got real, real lucky, there's no point. So either winning is meaningless in our contest and it's more of a showcase type thing (then what's the point, we could just use AM stills or whatever) or we have multiple tiers (ie, Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced). The catch-22 about this is if we offer some ridiculously fantastic prize, well that attracts the super skilled users, so when less skilled people see the prize and drool, but then see that the more skilled people are entering, you immediately think "if I'm not going to win, why bother putting in the time and effort and false hope?" So basically what I'm saying is the prize isn't exactly a good incentive because the competition will only truly be among a select few people, even if like 50+ people entered.

Yeah, we don't even do the monthly still image contests anymore because very few would participate in them

And depending on what you want, I might be able to whip something together pretty quickly, I mean I did make some of the music for ELZ afterall

And don't be fooled by what JimD said, movie scores are copyrighted just as much as "regular" songs. Every track of a soundtrack (unless stated its royalty free) is under copyright. And don't use anything owned by the BBC, they'll remove it pretty quickly, if they find it usually, just sayin

What's a little copyright between friends? Must say I disagree with Mark's reasoning here on this one, copyright is copyright and it's simply not your material to use, especially if you're showing this around to get paid for something

This is where Magix Music Maker or Garageband comes in. Easy software and your own original, non-copyrighted music

You're not accidentally adjusting their bias are you? That happens to me a lot. You know you go to scale or move a CP, but don't notice that black little rotate handle appear and then you click and drag and it rotates tha bias or whatever and causes them to do that bumpy warp thing

Thumbs up!!! Me like!

Depending on who you're marketing to, I have seen some that are more of a "progression of skill" type demo reel, where it's not the best of the best until the end. You sort of build up with a "this is where I started and here's where I ended up," type dealio. Of course it all depends on your needs and what your purpose for this is. As for audio use a singular soundtrack, using dialogue breaks up the fluidity of the reel unless you're cutting it in a trailer like style, in which you actually have a sort of mini, build up anticipation type story going on in it. But really, use a single music track, something that fits and is appropriate but has good energy to it. As is taught in film, sound is 50% of any video, so only make it silent if it better contributes to the reel. IMO having a soundtrack will help show that extra level of the awareness of the overall project, thus also being something you would want to show off. Now if somebody is really opposed to having audio, they can turn it off. It's much easier for them to turn off audio then to have it be lacking and the viewer getting "bored" because only 50% of the film is there. Look up the VFS animtion demo reels, they're usually very well done which brings something else to mind. A lot of demo reels I've seen don't actually show clips from everything they've done, but are a demo reel specific short, usually having a very very minor/basic story (basically, a lone traveler is looking for something, they climb over the hills and in the distance see a fortress, implying the destination and conclusion is there, end of reel). So it's all a matter of how much work you want to put into this, if you're willing to spend some months making a demo reel specific sequence of shots that have previously not been made, or just do a collage of your previous work. But like I said, go to the VFS youtube channel and look at their demo reels, they also usually include a "how it was made" sort of thing, not like a tutorial or narrative, but sort of a "layer 1 - background, layer 2 - character, layer 3- compositing, layer 4 - effects, layer 5 - colour correction" thingy. Hopefully that makes sense to you

Though I'd be inclined to them being somewhat smaller, but otherwise, way cool, love being able to see a little preview right off the bat

Wow..that was almost inspirational! Ha ha, but sure, if something bizarre ever happens that the project suddenly gets air under its wings, I'll let you know in a heartbeat...or maybe a few heartbeats, depends on how fast I can type

And as much as I and its creator don't want to admit it, ELZ is dead and has been for some time. Though we've toyed with different ideas (including recently saying that we'll put some money into it so that people would animate and model and whatnot) I don't think it'll ultimately work, the project is simply too large and neither of us could afford to pay what it would actually cost to produce said feature film. So basically, you can archive it or whatever it is you do with dead boards

!!!!!yadhtrib yppah semloh Yeah, just tryin to be different Happy Birthday!

So I was right, it is pretty much a density setting, good to know for sure

Mistiness is sort of like the density of the volumetric I do believe. A higher mistiness makes it a thick fog while a lower setting just a light whisp of cloud. Least I'm pretty sure that's what it does, I played with it a year ago for Earth Link and I'm pretty sure that's how it worked

This. I've thought about this before so I guess I have to try this since I've run out of options. The problem is if I want to change something that has been saved in V16 I can't. Giving away my models that I've worked so hard is a great deal to me, but I know some people well enough in here that I can trust to give my models away. It's only that this is going to take a lot of their time and resources and I don't have enough money to offer in return. Just send the PRJ and proper folders to somebody, heck, maybe even hash would render it if you didn't want to entrust it to the public, cause I'm pretty sure I heard hash has a rendering farm or something or I've just forgotten my crazy meds again