CloudPainting

[Rodney]

This is somewhat related to Robert's 'Painting with Light' series but the methodology is very different (I'm not as smart as Robert!)

It's something I stumbled upon last night while exploring things in A:M I've never considered beyond the tried and true and defaults.

 

At the end of the video I show some other stuff that can be done with this technique that goes beyond painting clouds.

Midway through the cloud painting portion of the video you can see the shape that I'm painting with. It looks like two oval shapes, one inside the other.

 

Everything is created in real time directly in v18d with no plugins or extras.

Strickly A:M stuff.

cloudpainting.mp4

[NancyGormezano]

Very interesting. Neat effect.

 

Can you explain in more detail what you are doing, please?

 

Onion skinning? Does this only work with screen capturing?

[Rodney]

Onion skinning? Does this only work with screen capturing?

 

Good guess work Nancy!

 

Onion skinning, yes.

Currently only for stills and screen captured video, yes.

 

The other critical element is ramping the FPS up to 1000 to get smoother transitioning between frames.

Although for the initial setup setting FPS to a low number is recommended.

For instance, if you want your shapes/clouds to take on a specific form or animate in a specific path you'd hit the key poses first and then go in and inbetween those later (or have A:M do that automatically)

[itsjustme]

Very cool, Rodney!

[Rodney]

Thanks David!

 

I will note that this methodology bumps up against a limitation that I'd wager Steffen didn't think would ever be needed, namely that of the user only being able to enter two digits for onion skinning previews. Who would have thought someone might need to view more than 99 frames before and/or 99 frames after the current frame.

 

If this kind of thing ever catches on we'll have to request the upper limit of onionskinning and FPS be increased. hehe

The good news is that A:M chews through those higher real time frame rates without missing a beat.

[Rodney]

I note that there is a clipping plane that cuts through the objects that also prevents this from being an entirely useful methodology.

I'm not sure if that clipping is related to specific graphics cards or is simply an optimation of A:M to prevent needless redrawing of objects that aren't really there.

My first thought was that the plane cuts everything off that was behind the 0 point on the axis but I'm not sure that is always the case.

[robcat2075]

Cool-looking result even though I'm not sure what you're doing exactly.

 

The clipping plane problem could be reported as a bug if you have a repeatable case.

[robcat2075]

It occurs to me that if what you need is more than 99 frames of onionskin and you'd rather not use onionskin at all you could create a single model that exhibits this behavior with... a spreadsheet!

[Rodney]

you could create a single model that exhibits this behavior with... a spreadsheet! smile.gif

 

Hehe!

I think you are on to something there.

 

We need to put in a feature request to directly tie a spreadsheet into A:M.

Then when we update the info in the spreadsheet/xsheet... BAM... the live update will be right there in A:M.

 

Duplicating the models might be similar to how I export a series of models from an Action out to AV2 and then reimport them back into a model. That replicates the onionskinning process fairly well.

Upon reimport you can choose from whichever models from the sequence you want as well... "I like the one from frame 16.... 19.... 20.... and what the heck... frame 10."

The downside being that complex models, such as rigged characters, don't like to import into the same model.

I assume this to be related to the old 'same name bones' issue that kept that from working before.

I don't recall ever having reimport issues with models that do not have bones in them.

 

 

The clipping plane problem could be reported as a bug if you have a repeatable case.

 

I hesitate to report this because it's such an obscure thing that I'd hate to see Steffen waste time on it.

It would be good to document the occurrence though as it might relate to something else that needs fixing somewhere along the way.

 

I'm not sure what you're doing exactly.

 

I need to set up a room where I can put together videos with audio so I can share more of my explorations.

Each time I sit down to record there is something that prevents useful recording such as waking the family up in the middle of the night... too much ambient noise... the list goes on and on...