The Art of Animation:Master

[hypnomike]

Nice!

 

And what is the mysterious Willog's Brew??

[racreel]

Exercise 10 - FW190...

[PF_Mark]

Mike and Mark,

I do apologize for the delay.

 

Here are the links to your certificates:

Congratulations to Mike Gibson!

 

Congratulations to Mark Allen!

 

And a special thank you to Pengy for supplying the current team image.

Part of his combined exercise image was selected because it captured several exercises all in that same image.

 

Thanks to all for your outstanding participation.

 

*Looks like I accidentally used the same giraffe for both certificates. Oops.

Thanks for the Cert Rodney I appreciate it but if it is not too much trouble may I request a slight alteration please. My name is spelled Mark Allan not Allen. If this is a 2 second fix. but if it requires too much time forget about it I can live with it.

[Rodney]

If this is a 2 second fix.

 

Holy... Don't you know I etch these certificate prints using the old wet stone cut method and transfer to computer via slow mouse tracing after the parchment has been aired for 3 days at room temperature with a standard variation of +- 2 degrees. :blink:

 

No problem. I'll get it corrected first thing tomorrow.

Sorry about that. My eyes must be failing.

 

More truthfully I was once given a "Rule" concerning the spelling of the name Alan/Allen/etc. in first, middle and last names. I guess Allan wasn't in that rule.

 

Best,

Rodney (A. for Allen-Go figure) Baker

[Willog]

Hi Racreel,

 

Thats a great pic you have of the plane, I especially like the spinning prop, it adds to the realism, how did you acheive that?

 

Kind Regards

 

Bill

[Willog]

Ok here is my dusty tutorial, after much problems I may add....

 

I had to do this one using the 10.5 version of AM. For some reason 11.1 is refusing to enter keystrokes when I press enter, also I am finding that when I resize the modeling window the object I am modeling goes off-centre.

 

I guess I will have to do a re-install of version 11.1 and see if that will cure the problem. I will however wait to see if any of you guys have encountered these problems before I try the re-install.

 

Bill

dust2.mov

[hypnomike]

Nice FW Racreel!

 

Did you add the prop blur in post or is it a still from an animated prop?

 

Wow Bill!

 

Up to "Eat my dust" already!

 

Isn't dust a cool effect?

 

Can't comment on 11.1 though. I'm sticking with 11t as I've got the technical manual for version 11.

 

Keep up the good work guys!

[racreel]

Hi Racreel,

 

Thats a great pic you have of the plane, I especially like the spinning prop, it adds to the realism, how did you acheive that?

 

Kind Regards

 

Bill

Nice FW Racreel!

 

Did you add the prop blur in post or is it a still from an animated prop?

 

Thanks for the kind words on the FW-190. The prop is a mixture of animated and post. I animated it in a chor for some motion blur, but wasn't getting all that I wanted, so I blended 3 frames in Paintshop Pro to get more of a disc. If the plane were in motion in an anim, I think the blur in the chor would have been enough, but I wanted a little more for the still.

 

Here are 3 original frames before blending...

 

 

On to that giraffe.

 

Richard

[racreel]

More truthfully I was once given a "Rule" concerning the spelling of the name Alan/Allen/etc. in first, middle and last names.  I guess Allan wasn't in that rule. 

My middle name is Alan. My father's middle name is Allan. Do either of these fit the rule? Obviously, my parents thought one was better than the other.

 

Richard Alan Creel

[Rodney]

Yeah... as I've been learning the past few years... The Allen/Alan, Allan etc rule... ain't no rule except the rule of exceptions apparently.

[hypnomike]

Hey Rodney, D Piatt is back with some amazing work in the WIP forum, check it out at:

 

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9959

 

The prop is a mixture of animated and post.

 

Thanks for the post Richard, very creative!

[racreel]

Exercise 11 - Giraffe, no decals.

[racreel]

And decaled...

[racreel]

Exercise 12 - Lip Poses, anim goes to O then A...

lipposes.mov

[Rodney]

Very nice addition there Richard. Great idea.

[Rodney]

Mark,

The updated certificate ready for your review.

 

Congratulations to Mark Allan!

[racreel]

Exercise 13 - Show Some Backbone. Animated the boneless Tom with resolute walk, in marble for exercise 14.

backbone_marble.mov

[hypnomike]

Are you racing with Bill, Richard??

 

You're sure storming on!

 

Did you rotate Thom on the spot or did you use camera movement?

 

Nice work.

[Willog]

I have just re-installed AM and seem to have cured the problem I had with keyframing, however for some reason as soon as I attempt to use the community window and sign in the program crashes completely. I don't even get an error message from Win XP Pro. Still the program does run otherwise.

So here is my Smoke Wind & Fire exercise. I have to put a link here to the Quicktime file as I haven't worked out yet how you guys get such small files sizes :-)

 

http://www.bill.moore.dsl.pipex.com/Art/images/fire.mov

 

Enjoyed this tut too, seems endless what there is to learn, Christmas has come ealy for me I guess :-)

 

Bill

[racreel]

Did you rotate Thom on the spot or did you use camera movement?

 

Nice work.

Thanks.

 

I rotated Thom on the spot. He does two cycles of resolute walk as he turns.

 

Richard

[Willog]

Here's exercise 17 ...

 

Sorry for the link but I will spend some time later looking at reducing the file size for the movies.

 

http://www.bill.moore.dsl.pipex.com/Art/im...g%20Project.mov

 

Bill

[racreel]

Exercise 15 - Eat My Dust...

EatMyDust.mov

[racreel]

Exercise 16 - Smoke, Wind, and Fire...

smoke.mov

[racreel]

Exercise 17 - Cosmic Bowling...

Bowling2.mov

[racreel]

Exercise 18 - Waving the Flag...

flag.mov

[racreel]

Exercise 19 - Flying South. Done.

flock.mov

[Rodney]

Richard,

 

Great job!

 

I do have two questions though.

 

1) Certificate name = Richard A. Creel?

 

2) Its something of a tradition of late to have everyone's Keekat from Exercise 1 on the certificate. I couldn't find yours. Do you want to post an image of Keekat from Exercise 1 or shall I pick one at random?

 

I think it's safe to say that you can probably drag and drop a model from the library to the Choreography window and add a pose to it.

 

Please advise.

-Rodney

 

P.S. I think you get the award for "Most powerful spin on a bowling ball"!

[racreel]

Richard,

 

Great job!

 

I do have two questions though.

 

1) Certificate name = Richard A. Creel?

 

2) Its something of a tradition of late to have everyone's Keekat from Exercise 1 on the certificate. I couldn't find yours. Do you want to post an image of Keekat from Exercise 1 or shall I pick one at random?

 

I think it's safe to say that you can probably drag and drop a model from the library to the Choreography window and add a pose to it.

 

Please advise.

-Rodney

 

P.S. I think you get the award for "Most powerful spin on a bowling ball"!

Richard A. Creel is fine. I will post a Keekat image for you.

 

Richard

[Rodney]

Temporary certificate online pending delivery of your Keekat:

 

It'll be available via this link if I can get it uploaded before I have to sleep/work today.

 

Congratulations to Richard A. Creel!

[racreel]

Here's Keekat, I did my own pose.

 

Richard

[Rodney]

Richard,

That was an impressive run down the home stretch and over the finishline.

Zoooom!

 

Your certificate should be online.

 

Enjoy!

[racreel]

Richard,

That was an impressive run down the home stretch and over the finishline.

Zoooom!

 

Your certificate should be online.

 

Enjoy!

Thank you Rodney!

 

I would like to thank the academy and my cat for all the support she gave me.

 

Richard

[PF_Mark]

Mark,

The updated certificate ready for your review.

 

Congratulations to Mark Allan!

Thanks Rodney

 

I have upgraded and re-installed AM but now it does not work I posted my problem in AM reports I hope that's the place to report these kinda problems.

[Willog]

Is there any hope that someone will reply top my plea for help in dropping movie filesize.

I am a complete newbie at this and was hoping that someone would help me in advising on how I get the movie files down in byte size.

 

Sorry if I sound a bit taught but I did think that someone would help been as most seem to have solved this by the size of their movie files.

I have completed all tutorials but cannot put any more files up on my site and this forum only allows 1 MB.

 

This problem along with my re-installation problems have daunted me a little. I have never had problems with any of the software packages I use but AM seems to have given me a huge headache since I lost the ability to Keyframe and did a re-install.

 

Bill

[Willog]

Here is the last exercise, not sure why but file size here is ok.

 

Anyway it's been fun but I am off back to the beginning for a rerun and hopefully I will post up the different adaptations I get from a little more experience with this program.

 

Would still really like some help with the file size issue I have if any of you guys have the time to spare.

 

Kind Regards to you all

 

Bil

birds.mov

[Rodney]

Congrats William,

 

Pending further instruction from you a certificate is online via the following link:

 

Congratulations to William A. Moore!

 

Glad to hear you plan on refining a few of the exercieses. There is always a lot to gain from mining the exercises of TAOA:M for the gold in those veins.

 

You said:

Would still really like some help with the file size issue I have if any of you guys have the time to spare.

 

As some people (possibly including the compression experts) don't always monitor the discussions here you may want to post in the main forum so that all can see and respond with their expertise.

 

Thanks William!

[racreel]

Is there any hope that someone will reply top my plea for help in dropping movie filesize.

I am a complete newbie at this and was hoping that someone would help me in advising on how I get the movie files down in byte size.

 

Sorry if I sound a bit taught but I did think that someone would help been as most seem to have solved this by the size of their movie files.

I have completed all tutorials but cannot put any more files up on my site and this forum only allows 1 MB.

 

This problem along with my re-installation problems have daunted me a little. I have never had problems with any of the software packages I use but AM seems to have given me a huge headache since I lost the ability to Keyframe and did a re-install.

 

Bill 

William,

 

If you are rendering the movies from A:M, when you set the movie type (avi or quicktime) click on SET beneath the type to set your compression. I have been using Sorenson 3 Quicktime (mov) for the exercises with the compression set to medium or low quality at a size of 320x240. The only one I had size problems with was the lip sync with sound. The settings dialog for the quicktime in A:M doesn't have a setting for the audio. Just try different compression types and quality settings. For video, it's always a tradeoff between quality and file size.

 

For stills, I load the tga files into Paintshop Pro then save out as jpg's which compresses them quite a bit for posting.

 

Hope this helps,

Richard

[Willog]

Hey Thanks Racreel....

That is what I been waiting for just a hint of where to go to lower the file size.

You have hit the nail on the head for me and I really appreciate it.

I am so new to this type of creativity, I am an oil painter by heart so find this medium a little strange. But you have shown me the way to go or at least experiment with and I thank you very much.

 

Kindest of regards

 

Bill

[Willog]

Rodney,

 

I am so sorry I did not reply to your post regarding my completion certificate.

I guess I was wrapped up with my own failings to secure a result regarding the huge file sizes I was getting with my tutorials :-)

 

I very much appreciate the work you have put into our improvement and it has been great to have your encouragement throughout the 19 exercises, and the certificate looks just great, I would be very happy to receive it from you.

 

I am moving on a little and I want to spend quite some time on applying materials to my models, so I am presently seeking out some good tutorials about that.

 

I will be staying with this forum though as I do intend to re-do some of the exercises and maybe expand on them a little...... Thankyou again Rodney and of course Mark, Mike and Richard for all your advice and encouragement.

 

Bill

[Rodney]

William,

Not a problem.

 

Everyone is busy these days. I'm just glad I've got a fairly good workflow going so we aren't experiencing the delays from when the certificates first started being issued. Those guys waited for maybe months to get their certificate.

 

You, and other TAOA:M alumni are always welcome here.

Never forget that.

 

One of the best ways to learn... is sometimes to teach.

If you help others grasp and demonstrate concepts that you have learned those concepts sink deeper into long term memory and sticks there. To the benefit of all.

 

Thanks again William!

You did an outstanding job.

[hypnomike]

Bill, sorry I missed your question about file sizes, I've just started work again and aren't on the forum as often as I was.

 

I echo Richard's suggestions re the format.

 

You can also save space by not using keyframes (in the quicktime preferences as opposed to A:M keyframes) in addition to this you can choose to render at a lower framerate, this does not effect the length of your animation. UK tv is 25fps and cinema is 24fps, you could drop as low as 15fps if you're desperate but results may flicker a little.

 

Congratulations to both Bill and Richard on completion of your certificates, I look forward to seeing more of your work in the future. Well done!

All the best

 

Mike.

[PF_Mark]

Thankyou again Rodney and of course Mark, Mike and Richard for all your advice and encouragement.

 

Bill

Your welcome

[medicineman]

Please excuse my inexperience and frustration. I keep beginning the tutorials from the art of animation handbook and the online tutorial. Following step by step. Yet in lesson 1, keycat retains a yellow box bounding him which i cannot delete. Calling for view/pose sliders results in a blank window. No choices to select. The original CD did not run and had to install updates from your site. Do I have all the 'parts' I require.

 

Thanx

[Rodney]

Medicineman (can I call you MM?)

 

Its hard to see what you are seeing from here.

It does sound like you have either an installation problem or (perhaps more likely) a video card driver issue.

 

First things first I'd suggest a visit to the website of your video cards manufacturer. Current drivers can really make a difference.

[medicineman]

Sir,

 

I'm running AM on an iMac g5 os 10.3.6. (one of the strengths of Mac is the non-issue of 3rd party cards) The original disc installed, but would not run. Calls to Hash gave advice of dl'ing the latest software update. I would have preferred a functioning disc, but that was not to be. The sofware update allowed the app to run.

 

Sorry if I sound frustrated. Yet instsructions that say do 'this' to get 'that' do not work for me. Consequently, I've begun and given up on the tutorial three times. I'm not one to give up on anything. Being an old coot, I had the patience of Job, but Job has left this tribulation to me.

 

P.S. MM is just fine.

[Rodney]

If you call me Sir I will have to call you Sir too.

 

Sir,

I wish I could help but I really don't have a good basis to draw Mac knowledge from. Actually I do... and it's the fine folk that frequent the OS/X Forum.

 

I'd suggest posting there to get good solid answers.

 

OS/X Forum

 

You can always come back here later.

[PF_Mark]

Mark,

If you every decide to really fine toon Exercise 6 to the point where you want to make it your own little story with a twist. That last bit where the movie stops looks like it could lead to a funny moment where he smacks into the door frame which reminds me of ZachBG's Indiana Shag hehe. For some reason your animation reminded me of Zach's even though the ending would be quite different. All that work for a lump on the head!

 

Regardless of where you choose to take it... nice work. With the suggestions of others here in the forum improvement in all aspects seems guaranteed.

 

Ok took a while to find this post Rodney! Wow talk about activity in this forum

 

I took your suggestion and came up with this what do you think?

 

http://home.cogeco.ca/%7Erobinallan/Movies...is%20stuck2.mov

[Rodney]

Not bad Mark.

 

If you can get it to look like he doesn't see the door frame as he starts to move through I think you'll have it.

 

Nice to see you are still refining.

[hypnomike]

Hey Mark!

 

I'm just popping in for a quick visit, really busy in the run up to Christmas!

 

If you play around with the timing when Shaggy bumps into the frame you'll have a winner there. I'll bet the tweaking takes longer than the rest of the work but it'll be worth it.

 

I'm not able to get on the forum as much as I'd like for the time being so feel free to e mail me when you've finished Mark, I'd love to see it.

 

Best of luck, be seeing you.

 

Mike

[Vong]

Okay, so I've been working off and on trying to go back over TAOA:M to try and refresh my memory. Here's what I've got so far...

 

http://www.s93272651.onlinehome.us/lesson1.jpg

 

http://www.s93272651.onlinehome.us/lesson2.avi

 

http://www.s93272651.onlinehome.us/lesson3.jpg

 

I'm still working on the rest of the book, slowly but surely!

 

 

 

 

Now, where did I place my 10.5 CD......