Homemade Anime

2,000 Hits a Single Day Record !!!

2008-08-10T12:35:00.000-07:00

Usually I see traffic booms during specific times of year such as the Superbowl or NBA Finals, but nothing like this. We here are really happy that thousands of you have choose to join us as we look behind the preparation required to be an Olympian. Thanks, again and keep visiting.

-Mike

What Should My Next Tutorial Be?

2008-01-20T11:50:00.001-08:00

Hey Everyone,

I've been busy with work, and have had limited time to work on the website. So to help each other out and to get my creative juices flowing again, I'm asking you for tutorial requests, and I'll try my best to deliver. Just write your tutorial requests in the comments.

Thanks

Get help picking colors

2007-12-24T08:47:00.000-08:00

For those of you unsure about what colors to pick while scheming up that new site, here is a little help:

Color Blender

Color Schemer Generator

Review: Transformers makes my eyes HURT !!!

2007-12-23T21:28:00.000-08:00

(Not as seen in the movie)

So I recently decided to go out to the local Bestbuy and use my cool 10% off savings to buy a DVD and the movie I decided to buy was Transformers. Having already seen the movie at the theatre I wanted to have the movie in my library for movie parties, and this weekend I had one with some of my best friends. Those who had seen the movie thought that the idea of a Transformers movie was pretty neat, and it seemed like no matter what the movie did, just the thought carried it for those people.

In my honest opinion I liked the movie primarily based on its story. The writers found a way to take what was really an unexplained storyline to most of us who were blinded by transformable robots as kids, and had made it into a compelling movie. Also, there was a high degree of geek factor which appeals to any nerdy high schooler looking to land the hottest girl at school. However, there was and will always be one major problem with the movie.

No matter how many times you fool around with the settings that you thought were not available in the theater, you still can not make this movie less monochromatic than it already is. Early in the movie, metallic monsters seem pretty cool as they are set against backdrops that are bright and in high contrast to the metallic colors of the bots. But to my dismay as the movie goes from the first hour into the second hour the fight scenes are mostly set at night or in a cityscape setting where no sunlight is available to highlight the bots features. At its worst which coincides with the climax of the movie, the fight scenes involve completely colorless bot on slightly completely colorless bot action. The fights in which the bots are engaged similar to grappling, you really can't tell who is winning the fight. So in the end, I really only got a couple good minutes of fight scenes out of the entire two hour movie. Could this movie have been done any other way, probably not. But in the end you do grow appreciative of the original cartoon.

Dark Knight Movie Posters

2007-12-15T18:22:00.000-08:00

(Click on the Movie Posters to Enlarge)

I don't hate the CG in 'Legend'

2007-12-15T18:10:00.000-08:00

From what I've read, many don't like the CG in the knew Will Smith movie "I am Legend," and I can understand that because even looking in the commercials the animals look like crap. Their movements, texture, and even sometimes their shape look like utter crap. So then why don't I care about the CG in "I am Legend" ?

Because, it does not have anything to do with the movie what so ever. I took a break from work to spend an hour and a half at the theater and came away with more questions surrounding the movie then questions that surround the graphics. Hell, the producers could have pulled a fast one on us and saved money by putting people in animal costumes, similar to that which you see at a children's party, and I still would not have cared. But what I do care about is this?

(SPOILER ALERT: Text is written in black, so highlight to know my real question about the movie)

I know the movie was originally a book from what I understand and written many years ago. But shouldn't the producers of the movie said damn, I would love to make this movie but its really just taking '28 Days Later' and adding in a little bit of Castaway. Instead of hearing Sam all the time, I would have sworn I heard Smith saying "Wilsoooooooon".

[ ROPEOFSILCON ]

Penguins all year 'round

2007-12-15T18:00:00.000-08:00

Just in case you though that you couldn't get enough penguins with movies like Surfs Up, and Happy Feet, you will be happy to know that a cartoon series with CGI penguins is in development over at Nickelodeon, but you never would have guessed which penguins would be staring in the new cartoon. Its the penguins from Madagascar whom which I placed a bet at 150-1 odds to have their own penguin series. Damn, those who had their money on the certain Happy Feet are leaving the casino without their shirt.

[ Forbes ]

The true Profitability of 3D modeling

2007-12-15T17:46:00.000-08:00

While, many of us know that 3D modeling can make a good living for anyone with the right business, it seems as though the folks at CNET is just figuring that out (no wonder they are going bankrupt). So if you need an extra buck, learn how to model in these specific areas:

- Game mapping
- Modeling Social Avatars
- and most importantly modeling the accessories for social avatars.

[ CNet ]

Behind the Scenes: Bee Movie

2007-12-01T08:09:00.000-08:00

With the creation of Bee Movie, I guess its safe to say one thing: its safe to make CG movies about insects again ( See "Antz" and "A Bug's Life"). For those of us who are more interested in the production rather than the story, here are a few behind the scenes clips from the making of the movie.

CGI vs Reality Part II

2007-11-06T17:15:00.000-08:00

Ben Buckeley of SeacoastOnline has posted his opinion on the CGI vs. reality debate that highlights recent successes from CGI based films, contesting that Bee Movie is the final nail in the coffin for live action flicks. Certainly, he hasn't seen read my piece on the new TMNT movie.

[ Seacoastonline ]

Coding Comic Books

2007-10-02T20:32:00.000-07:00

First there was CSS that allowed web designers to make style sheets for an entire website where all they needed to do to change the background, was change one small line of code. Now imagine if with just a little bit of code you can make pages look like a comic book layout. Well taking that a step further, what if someone decided to get all the comic books ever made and digitize them using this new markup language. Well that's the motivation for John Walsh and his idea of Comic Book Markup Language.

[ Link ]

By the way, this has inspired me to work with CSS to create a website that has that comic look. Stay tuned.

Outiside the Canvas

2007-09-26T18:31:00.001-07:00

I usually don't go outside the realm of computerized art software wise, but sometimes people out there create really cool art using circuitry, colors, and their local home depot. Each week I'll be putting up post that focus on off topic pieces and today its arts surrounding the nightlife, dancing, and drinking. Check out these cool Ambiance art works.

A Dancing Table [Makezine]
Have a Drink on the iBar:
Homemade Dance Floors [ Link 1] [ Link 2]
Another DIY Bar [DIY Disco Bar]

Animated Short: Bathtime

2007-09-26T17:54:00.000-07:00

I can't give this guy enough credit, Carlos Puertolas, has created a nice little animated movie in full 3D and got the movie featured on youtube. Congrats.

Giant Master Chief Post

2007-09-25T20:04:00.000-07:00

In honor of the Halo 3 and the end to my day job as we know it, I have put together every cool thing that I can find from around the Internet about the guy who I'm going to go apeshit with on Xbox Live.

In honor of Master Chief:

Quick video tutorial on how to draw Master Chief [Game Trailers]

A good Master Chief custome and another one thats 10x better [Link 1] [Link 2]

How to make a fairly descent suit [Link 3]

What would life be like if Master Chief advertised for Coke [ Link 4]

Make the dude out of paper [Kotaku]

Master Chief to be inducted in the Madamme Tussads Museum [Joystiq]

The Master Chief Dog Tag [Bungiestore]

The Chief Breakdancing [Link 5]

Victory Dance on your desktop [ Link 6 ]

Famed Lego Artist makes Master Chief [MTV]

Mo-Cap God speaks to followers

2007-09-21T09:02:00.000-07:00

In a Wired interview with Andy Serkis who has worked on everything from games to movies which include King Kong and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, lets us in on his life and how he got to exactly where he is today. In what has now been deemed Cyber Acting we get to see videos of Serkis doing work for such cool new games like the long awaited Heavenly Sword.

[ Wired ]

JLA beginning casting next week

2007-09-21T08:10:00.000-07:00

So it looks like they will start filling the roles for the highly touted Justice League of America movie. Could be mo-capped, but what we do know for sure is that the actors who play Superman and Batman are not going to be included in the project.

Free War of the Worlds Comic Book

2007-09-18T19:45:00.000-07:00

In what I'm hoping would be a new trend, Dark Horse Comics has released the War of the Worlds comic book with art by D'Israeli. The book is 192 pages long and I've gotten through about 30 of them, but I can tell you that the work is spectacular. Now with all of the money coming in from movie adaptations instead of comic book which no-one reads anymore, hopefully authors and publishers would release more titles in this fashion.

[ DarkHorse Comics via Drawn]

How to draw a Sea Turtle?

2007-09-18T17:46:00.000-07:00

In this quick tutorial the folks over at Wiki teach you how to draw a sea turtle.

[ WikiHow ]

Marvel is no Stranger to hit DVDs

2007-09-16T20:23:00.000-07:00

I just wrapped up another Marvel made for DVD movie that again hits the spot in quality both visually and content wise. Although I didn't review on this website, the Ultimate Avengers 1 & 2, I think that these movies were very well put together and didn't have a single flaw. Each character acted as though they just jumped right out of a comic book, and the themes were more grown up so that true fans could appreciate them. Shit, even a couple guys died in the movies. How real is that? Iron man continued the Marvel DVD franchise and did a pretty amiable job with its CG. The storyline may not have been completely there but the movie was watchable and whats not to enjoy when you got a fully CG Warhammer. So how would such an ambiguous character like Dr.Strange fair in a lead role in a movie?

Strangely well, actually. On paper, Dr.Strange, is not the perfect character for a CG filled high intensity flick due to the fact that sorcery doesn't draw the crowds as much as guns. Secondly, Strange isn't well known and isn't a strong lead superhero known for heading mutant teams or crime fighting organizations. Lastly, the villains in the Strange universe, any novice artist can create by simple sketching and adding fire.

So why does this title work? Because Strange isn't so Strange, and he's actually a regular guy, accept with a Doctorate, who goes though some pretty rough times. Its the way in which he overcomes his past and present troubles is what makes him so likable. Think a magician is such a sissy, when you set his physical training to music from Batman, it makes him cool and strong. This is where the movie focuses: the journey, and the setup to the battle, but not the battle.

The battle could have been better, but what do you expect when you have magicains fighting it out, "I command thy rabbit in a hat to charge the attacker?" Thats as good as its going to get, but Marvel did the smart thing by creating a good storyline that embraces the importance of the battle and not the battle itself. The battle is not random, as it brings the story fully together, and how can any battle be useless when it uses a crazy amount of CG.

Because the battle was mildly weak, Marvel did a perfect job in setting up a sequel. Viewers would really want to see what Dr.Strange can do once he fully utilizes his powers, and hopefully this can be shown in the future. And if everyone watched this movie, a sequel wouldn't seem so Strange.

More Free Mo-Cap Files

2007-09-13T20:44:00.000-07:00

This time from Animazoo who has 8 different categories for you to choose from including martial arts, walking, and dancing. Hit the link for more.

[ Animazoo ]

Free Gun Fighting Motion Caps

2007-09-13T20:05:00.000-07:00

Animating for gun fighting can be very difficult but we will use two simple short cuts that will literally do the work for us. The most popular media featuring gun fighting are video games. And it just so happens that those games were made using the same software that we are using, and so their files are readily available over the Internet. Here are the two most popular from:

8 Free Motion Capture Files

2007-09-13T19:55:00.000-07:00

The most difficult free items on the net that relate to 3D animation are mo-caped or motion captured files. What makes these files so special is that you can import into your 3D apps and instead of you key framing your character's IK system,, the file does all of the work for you. Thanks to the BlenderNation for the link to these 8 free files. However, because the files are in bvh, you can also use these in 3D Studio Max. In the next couple of days I'll have a quick tutorial on how to import in 3Ds Max.

[ Blender Nation ]

Rap Trapped?.....and Flopped?

2007-09-13T17:52:00.000-07:00

When Pixar decided to make a movie about a rat,a.k.a Ratatouille, some of us cringed, while the Pixar execs pressed the button to put the film into production. Well the result was a film that didn't live up to the box office numbers as past Pixar films, and so the fight began between the production company and their distributor Disney. As if the two didn't settle things from their contract disputes comes even more mud slinging between the two. My take:

This is Pixar's fault. All of it. What is the number one animal people hate to see in their vicinity, a rat. And what country does the United States, your main distribution market, think the least of? France. So then why would any company make a movie about a French rat that works its way into the kitchen. Pixar points the finger at Disney's marketing plan, but who can market such a horrible protagonist. When having such an unlikeable protagonist, there is usually a second character like Donkey from Shrek, who just makes up for the lack of personality of the main character. There was no side-kick character to cheer everyone up. Just look at Nemo, who's story I personally loved it, but if Nemo took the journey alone then the movie would be a drama instead of a family movie about a fish. Enter Dorothy, Buzz Lightyear, the Rest of the Incredibles, etc.

Pixar will learn from this failure and it will be back with something other than a dead rat.

[ New York Magazine ]

Heavenly Sword brings GODLIKE visuals

2007-09-11T22:15:00.000-07:00

Over the past two days, I have witnessed a video game trailer that although containing no real game play footage, will indeed inspire you not only to play it but to recreate it (notice the poetic undertone). But, whatever I can say to explain how great this video game looks, won't give it justice so lets just get to it and role the tape (I suggest that you reduce the videos to their original size):

You can view more trailers here and in HD

That looked incredibly awesome, and if your like me and already have the game you've seen the spectacular in game graphics, and like me you're probally wondering just how did they do that. Here is a special that the developers did for GamerTV showing you just how.

For a quick recap of the game and all of its great graphical magincainery, check out the link.

[ Thinking Animation Blog ]

Going Old School: The Lost Children

2007-09-11T20:58:00.000-07:00

Over at Branded in the 80's, they have a great commentary about the cartoon "The Lost Children" that aired in Dec. of 1983, and from what I remember I thought I was watching a mixture of the Smurfs and Darkstalkers (U.S. version). Brand N 80's has a slightly different take:

"the 'children' are a strange alien race that appears to be some sort of amalgamation between Willey Kit and Willey Kat from the Thundercats, and the Lost Boys from Peter Pan. At first I figured the kids were painted up in some sort of tribal war paint, but I believe that this might actually be their real skin…"

Either way the show was pretty weird due to its crazy looking protagonistic heroes and the overplayed use of monters and sourcery. By the way, when trying to refresh my memory and googling the phrase "The Lost Children," you would be amazed on how the words, lost children, has really become more about lost children.

[ Branded in the 80's ]

Woody Woodpecker gets a haircut

2007-09-11T20:42:00.000-07:00

Deep in my bookmark collection that I have been saving on a notepad ever since the great wipeout of 2003 was one of my favorite website, classiccartoons.blogspot.com , which reviews old cartoon episodes that would only likely be featured on Boomerang. Today they are reviewing one of my childhood remodels (sarchaism), Woody Woodpecker, and in this episode he meets a Native American at a barbershop. Maybe not the best of story lines, but its always cool to not only see old schoool ignorance, but also to go behind the scenes of each show and learn the historical relevance of the episode.

[ Classic Cartoons ]

Disney Recruitment Book from 1977 Crtsy. TAG

2007-09-10T19:12:00.000-07:00

Thanks to our friends over at The Animation Guild, we're now able to see what was demanded from young people who had the hopes and dreams of animating in ......1977. Forget watching Saturday Night Fever and Welcome Back Kotter episodes, would be animators were locked away in basements trying to recreate the Disney Magic that is today outsourced Disney Magic.

[ The Animation Guild Link #1 ]
[ The Animation Guild Link #2 ]

Online Cartoon Studio #2

2007-09-10T17:48:00.000-07:00

We've seen our fair share of online cartoon studios who blog their experiences using Blogspot, and we have to say that many of them have very good material including animation cells, animation reels, and storylines. Another group is continuing the trend, Ka-Ching Cartoon Studios, who's trailer is ready to make waves on the Internet. I like these guys because there work seems pretty original and is carrying the torch for the Samurai Jack motif.

[ Ka-Ching Studios ]

Happy 10th Birthday Flash!!!

2007-09-10T17:24:00.000-07:00

No we are not paying amage to the Flash from Justice League of America, who's movie is bound to suck, we are actually congratulating the makers of Flash who are probally not even involved in the development of the product anymore. Why? Because thats basically how the market goes when you have a cash cow of a product. You usually are bought out and then you move on with your life. Wired has an interesting article on the life of Flash and how its changed over the years to be an inherent feature on every cell phone in America. And to give a hint of what the article is stored, here is how one of Flash's creators gives a virtual "Fuck You" to critics of Flash.

A great artist never blames his tools. With any technology, you can have poor implementation and poor usability. God knows that I've been to tons of HTML sites that were just terrible in terms of usability and have all sorts of issues.

[ Wired ]

Digital masterpieces hitting a TV near you

2007-09-04T16:35:00.000-07:00

Cnet reported a couple days ago about a new take on digital painting technique that goes a little further beyond the normal Corel Painter motifs. These masterpieces are not made to be still, but to move in ways that capture cuban surealism and still blow your mind with their physical transformations. Created 100% with his computer San Base, these paintings are availble for your computer, big screen monitor, and projector. Enjoy.

[Cnet News]
[San Base]

Making Money from your Flash Games

2007-09-01T23:18:00.000-07:00

If you like I recently have, decided to delve into the world of creating Flash games, you might be wondering what to do with them other than just showing them off to friends and family. Well like all major designers there comes a time when you must make a decision between doing something because its what you enjoy and doing something to pay the rent. However, when you make money doing what you can really kill two birds with one stone. Over at the Kongregate, there are plenty of stone throwers trying to make a killing with their games. If you have been thinking about going the way of game enterprise instead of just a game developer then this is a must read.

[ Kongregate: Make Money with Your Games ]

I'm starting a Blog Roll

2007-08-26T01:01:00.001-07:00

For anyone in love with the blogosphere, which reminds me that someone should come up with a 3D representation of the blogosphere in something that looks like the Earth where each blog has its own separate land. Of course the way things are shaping up, AOL and Gawker would own roughly three fourths of the planet and will soon invade us all. However we can fight back, by starting a killer Blog Roll, so anyone who wants to join leave a comment and we'll start one up.

How do you start a project?

2007-08-25T10:56:00.000-07:00

We here at HomemadeAnime, wanted to know how exactly do you go by starting a project? I often just work off the fly, but sometimes I would actually sketch out what I want to do using storyboards. However, when I was in the working world Gant Charts and deadlines were the norm, but also hard to work with, so we ask you how do you work best? Check out the poll for voting and for results.

News on Justice League of America: The Movie

2007-08-24T21:08:00.000-07:00

What is better than making a movie with one superhero? Making a movie with a dozen of frekking superheroes. It seems like Hollywood has bitten the bullet and is getting to make what on paper seems like the worst movie in history. Here is the break down of the many problems I have with this upcoming disaster:

1. With so many superheroes, how much screen time will each character get, and how much character development will each character go through?

2. Over the years we've seen many interpretations of JLA characters through their individual storylines, the JLA storyline, and through cartoons based on the JLA. That being said, what persona will each character take? Remember how the Flash was a douche in the lastest cartoon series.

3. Currently, the two biggest stars in the JLA lineup both have movies, Superman and Batman, so will the actors playing the two be the same playing the characters in the movie, and will the villains of each movie also reprise their roles in the JLA picture.

Here is are a couple updates on whats been going on behind the scenes:

- A JLA movie with no Batman or Superman
- CGI over Live Action?
- The Flash gets no film, but wouldbe actor wants JLA

Carrara Studio, You've Come So Far

2007-08-24T13:53:00.000-07:00

In my younger days I was quite the penny pincher, trying to save a buck wherever I could and although not easy, I was able to produce some good work for a moderately strong portfolio. Of course using Rayman Studio and the rest of MetaCreations package left you with hardly anything to say when asked if you knew how to use any of the major programs, but at least you learned how to lie.

One of those programs, Carrara Studio is still on the market and still helping out kids like me with packages starting off at $250, and for that amazing price you can own all the benefits of past MetaCreations Applications (Insert used car salesman smile). Hit the link to check out the review.

[ GameDev.net ]

Tutorial: Basic Masking in Flash

2007-08-24T07:35:00.001-07:00

Many times I see on the Internet, flashy animations that imply a cool wiping effect that reveals some part of picture that wasn't there before. This is known as the "masking" effect which is pretty easy to learn and master. So today we'll just make a simple menu that is originally not present on the screen and then reveals itself upward to to reveal the entire menu.

1. So I began by making 5 labels for a conventional Portfolio website. I then made each one of the labels into its own separate button.

2. Then I created a new layer, and on that layer I made a small black rectangle located just beneath the "Contact Me" button and was as wide as the longest word "Example Art." When creating the rectangle, I disabled the outline feature because its utterly useless for masking., Here's a picture of what I did:

3. Next, create a new keyframe for both layers on the 1oth frame (it doesn't necessarily have to be on the 10th frame, but this is just an example). On that keyframe, use the white selection tool to highlight the top two corners on the black rectangle and use the UP arrow to drag the corners all the way past the "Home" button. This is how it looks:

4. Now select the rectangle frames, and Create a Shape Tween. Then on that same layer, right click and choose Mask. Now hit play and marvel at your work.

For good measure, I add in another layer ontop of the rectangle layer, and added a keyframe on the 10th frame. Afterwards, I opened the Actions panel and typed in "stop();". Of course this is a menu so no loop is necessary and instead we need it to stop so we can navigate.

Congrats, you've finished now challenge yourself by making a cup of water with a straw, and make the water decrease in the glass.

Success Story: Flash Cartoon makes WB

2007-08-22T19:03:00.000-07:00

I might have focused a little more on giving out Flash tutorials over the past couple of months, and you are probally wondering what exactly you can do with all of this useless information. Well you can follow these simple steps and you too can be on the WB.

1.) Write a script
2.) Spend time creating unique characters and background
3.) Get in touch with an agent to sell your animation

But most importantly, BLOG the making of your show. We want to send a congrats to the makers of Skunk Fu for getting on the WB this fall, and wish them the best of luck. We really enjoyed watching the overall process behind getting a cartoon from idea to print.

[ Link ]
[Official Blog]

A New Cheap 3D program for the Mac

2007-08-02T20:24:00.000-07:00

It has been a good couple of weeks for Apple. As we all know 'the phone to end all phones' has had major success. However, we don't see Apple giving us the various programs on the cheap that many of us starving artist. You must be saying, "so then why the hell did you buy an expensive Mac? loser." Simple its what everyone told us to buy, to get the best graphic processing on the market.

STOP. Enough of the bickering, turns out that a 3rd party has just released a $160 3D program.

[ Link ]

Simpsons Movie Review/Ramble

2007-08-02T19:43:00.000-07:00

I promise to all those out there who haven't seen the movie yet that I will not reveal any part of the movie. I'll leave that up to other movie critics who tell you the plot to a movie, in which you should go in thinking with a blank slate and have no hint of the outcome. That's mainstream critics for you, guys who would rate and give information on a movie based on an almost 20 year old show, that they've never seen. Consequently what happened afterwards was probably the biggest overrating of a movie that I've ever seen, A's and 5 stars everywhere. Upon leaving the movie, I said this is the nail in the Simpson's coffin.

But then over the course of the next hour or two I took a step back, and begun to think was the movie supposed to A.) do the show justice on the big screen, B.) show that the show still has some revelentcy, and/or C.) be a new start for the show.

Fox honored A with a pretty tame script for Simpsons standards, and after watching the movie I literally said to myself (highlight the next to lines to read what I say) "yes I know they've had a gazillion shows, but how many times Homer saves the world or Springfield or Barney.

As for "B", The creators of the show proved that the show was still relevant with a huge market campaign that got people giddy over visiting Kwik-e Marts that were only located in extremely rare places. But people still went in droves, and even more went to get Simpsonized.

With both a brilliant advertising plan that raked in tons of dough, and a decent written script, is this a new start for the Simpsons. The simple answer is: NO. This movie wasn't a nail in the coffin to the franchise or a start, it was a celebration of their longevity. Its sorta like seeing the old slugger on your favorite baseball team hit a base hit. Although slow and fat, he still runs to first base while awaiting the younger faster pitch runner to replace him. While watching the movie, maybe I was the one who felt old and surrounded by the many teenagers in the audience. It seemed like every joke that the movie made was over the top hysterical, but I for many like the other slightly older members in the audience choose not too.

See as we grow older we understand that humor is more complex then just your simple one liner and fart joke. We understand that we can choose not to laugh at a joke as South Park forces us too. The problem with the franchise is that it never grew into that stage of humor content, and lost many of the jokes that made you silent enough to think and then laugh. Being funny is about thought and choice, and that's something you learn over time, which shows in the Simpson's lack of growth.

As you can tell I believe that the show deserved better. But, that wasn't what the movie was about. It was a 2 hour shin dig to celebrate the many people that put it together, and to symbolically conquer that which Hollywood has been saying it couldn't for 15 years. For the lack of Simpson nostalgia and comedic value, ironically the makers of the movie decided to do one thing right, go out in style.

Making a Flash DDR Game: Key Recognition

2007-07-27T16:08:00.000-07:00

For those of you who missed out on my previous tutorials about the game, you can catch up with the links that I've provided on the sidebar. Anyways we finally have come to the meat and potatoes of putting together our game. The most important part of any game isn't the looks or the sounds, its about allowing the user to interact with game, and with this tutorial we're going to show you how using our series: Making a Flash DDR Game. For those who are just joining use you might want to go back and read our previous two installments. However, if you just want to jump right on into things, here we go. By the way, some of the material can get pretty rough around the edges so just leave a comment for help. Also beware that some of this stuff is for intermediates and above.

1. To begin, let's revisit our current game setup.

So what will occur during the game is, that game pieces will drop down onto the "landing strip" and every time the game piece lands on its respective area, the player will have to press a certain directional key that corresponds with the game piece. If you haven't read the previous articles, think DDR.

2. Now we are going to do is convert the gaming area which is just a set of vector shapes, into a movie symbol, which you can name whatever you like. So highlight all of the vector boxes and right click and select convert to symbol and choose movie. By converting the actual game area to a movie symbol, this allows us to program the game "within it of itself," which in laments terms means that we have more flexibility by giving the gaming area its own environment, instead of just programming the larger flash file full of all the other objects.

3. Now double click on the new movie. double click on the "landing strip" and here is where we will create our game. First we need to define what is the up, down, left, and right symbols. What is unique about this particular game setup, it that it allows you to do that by simply highlighting and copying a up arrow within the "landing strip." Next, paste the object back on the screen, and convert the shapes to a button symbol, which should be appropriately named "up." Do the same for the left, right, and down arrows.

4. This may sound crazy, but delete the left, right and down button off the screen, but don't worry its always available in the library. Afterwards, create a new layer and name it "Up" (Right Click on the layer to rename). Then copy and paste your Up button off the first layer and onto the "Up" layer.

5. Its time to get a little crazy. First expand the keyframes of the landing strip area to the 30th frame. Then move the up arrow over an up arrow within the "landing strip." To make it easy on yourself just place it over the area where you copied it from. Then move the button upwards y only using the "Up" on your keyboard, because we want the button to be directly aligned with its landing area. Move the arrow completely off the stage. Now add a new keyframe at about frame 30, and on this new frame, move the "Up" button all the way down the stage, using the keyboard. Then create a motion tween from frames 1-30.

6. Find the frame where the button directly overlaps the "landing strip" and makes a perfect fit. Convert that frame to a keyframe (this should be around frame 15). Now tricky part, Copy the button that's on the landing strip, and convert the frame thats 5 frames away from your current frame into a keyframe (You will see why later). Delete the button wherever it is on the screen, and Paste in Place the button. Then for all the frames inbetween, convert them to keyframes as well.

7. On the intial frame in which the button crosses the landing strip, click on the button and open the Actions panel, and type the following:

on (keyPress "") {
gotoAndplay(_currentframe + 2);
}

8. On the next frame , select the frame itself in the Timeline and in the Actions panel, type:
gotoAndPlay(_currentframe + 3);

9. On the third frame, change the tint of the button to something really bright, This will let the player know that they successfully hit the correct key and did it in rhythm.

10. On the fourth frame, change the button tint to the same color it is on frame three. And in the Actions panel, for this frame, type:

play();

11. On this frame, remove the tint from the button, and also type in:
play();

12. When looking at the Timeline, the timeline should look like this:

13. Now test, and see if it works. If not just go over the process again, and I have to say it took me a little bit of time to figure out things that were wrong with the process. Once your done with that, do the same for the left, down, and right buttons. Also you can create multiple animation sequences on the same layer so that you just don't have to have only four sequences. My main tip is to use Copy, Paste, Paste in Place, to your advantage and double check the code on a button to make sure that the correct key is pressed to initiate the button. I literally spent 3 hours reviewing code to see what was wrong, when I had missed type "Press Up" on the left button.

Making Menus in Flash: Component Menu

2007-07-21T16:54:00.000-07:00

Thanks for coming back or if your here for the first time I'm glad to have you over. If your not familiar with the site, I have been putting my 3D duties on hold, to try to create a flash based video game, based on the highly popular DDR series. As I am beginning the actual programming process, I'm taking a step back to create a START page and adding another menu to the game interface. So I'll begin by explaining both menu's, the START menu is going to be a hard coded component based drop down menu, where as the second menu will be a flash based button menu. Let's begin with the component menu:

1. First, if you haven't read the previous post, here is my generic layout for the game, and I've transferred it to the START page. I've already added the text "Select a Skill Level" and so I'm ready to create my dropdown menu.

2. Next, select from the menu, Window, and then Components.

3. You will see a Component Box filled with various form components that are usually reserved for our old JavaScript days. Drag and drop a ComboBox into the scene. I have idea why they didn't name it DropDown Box or Menu, maybe due to copyright.

4. Use the Free Transform tool, to increase the horizontal scale of the Combobox. Why? Because it just looks better.

5. Now, lets fill it up with options. So go back to the Window Menu and choose Component Inspector.

6. We can't just input Words, into the ComboBox, because each position on the box, represents a number (everything is a number these days). The number will come into play during the programming portion. So I figure that I will have four skill sets, "Beginner, Intermediate, Hard, and Expert." Therefore, if the Values of the position begin at zero then I should only go up to 3, so click the 'plus' sign and keep adding numbers until you get to three.

Then click on the labels portion, and input in whatever titles you want to be selected by the menu, again for me it was "Beginner, Intermediate, Hard, and Expert."

7. So now to complete the layout before the programming, we have to include a button because just selected an option from the menu won't instruct Flash. Therefore, a button must be used. So I just put together a simple rectangle and converted it to a button and then put the word 'start' within the button.

8. Now select the ComboBox, and name the ComboBox in the Properties box. What did I name the box, 'ddrbox'

Next select the button and open the action panel. So here's the easiest part of the whole process.......that's just copying and pasting the following code that I have already written. Just replace the 'ddrbox' with the name of your ComboBox.

on(release)
{
if(ddrbox.getValue()== 0)
{
gotoAndPlay(2);
}
if(dddrbox.getValue()== 1)
{
gotoAndPlay(3);
}
if(ddrbox.getValue() == 2)
{
gotoAndPlay(4);
}
if(ddrbox.getValue() == 3)
{
gotoAndPlay(5);
}
}

To modify your menu to do something else, you can replace the gotoAndPlay() with geturl() and you will be able to direct users to websites. In the second half of this tutorial, I'll explain how to make Flash button based menus, and stay tuned to the Making Flash DDR, series as I constantly update it with plenty of useful information.

Well, good luck and if you have any QUESTIONS, not 'oh my god I hate your freaking guys because you have no life and blog all day' type comments.

Making a Flash DDR Game: Game Layout

2007-07-14T17:26:00.000-07:00

Welcome back, as we continue our series on how you can make your very on Flash DDR game (dancing pad not included). The major response I've been getting from this article, especially from friends is...."Re-programming a game that's already created, doesn't prove that you are cool nor that you can make games." Oh cointreau, many games are copy cats of another game, movie, or even book and remaking or mimicking a certain style is beneficial in that it shows that you understand programming, no matter how simple nor how complex. Having the creation of a video game down on your resume, goes a long in way in that it shows that you not only have artistic understanding but logic skills as well. Lastly, after you created your game, you can modify it as much as you like and improve it to meet your needs. So now that we've understand why we are doing this, lets move along to the first leg of the game creation marathon.

The Board Layout

In every game the basic component is the gaming environment, i.e. the scenery, the game board, the arena. Our environment, like al DDR games comprises of a game board and music. Here is the game board that I created:

The game board, which is 300 px wide by 488 px tall, was designed in Adobe Photoshop using a photo that I found using my trusty old friend Google Images. Once I had decided on the perfect pic, I placed a layer below the layer containing the girl, and painted it black and then removed all of the excess background around her body using the eraser. Afterward I made a 4 pixel border which you can do by using the rectangle tool to select the entire picture, and then choose Edit-> Stroke.

Afterward, I put a blue tint on the girl by making new layer, and then filling it with blue and using a Darken, blend effect in the Layer window.

Importing into Flash

The next step is actually bringing the board into the Flash environment. Before I imported the picture, I needed to change the dimensions of the flash document to suit that of the picture. To do that, click on the dimension button at the bottom of screen (I'm using Flash 8 by the way), and change the values to 299 px by 488px.

Now your ready to bring in the picture, so select File and Import to Library, and then find the picture that your using for your background. Then you should see your file in the Library Tab and if your not able to see it, select Window and check Library. Then drag your photo onto the stage, and lock the current layer.

Planning Arrows and Gameplay

DDR type games have huge screens for you to play on meaning that there is plenty of time for you to recognize which directional arrow is being required, and then for your neural system to comprehend which body part needs to be moved. This is why the arrows are either at the extreme bottom or the extreme top. This is why players who use regular controllers will always be better then players using pads, because there is a faster response time between your brain and fingers than your brain and feet. To increase the level of difficulty I've decided to place the "arrows" in the middle of the screen, and limit amount of travel time for the arrows. If someone can be successful at this game then they are nothing but a true neural master. This is the modified board, which is always subjected to change:

The box setup I came upon by accident but once I got into it, I said to myself that the arrows can actually be in the shape of boxes, which allow for multiple types of arrows being able to settle in one location. The 'up' arrow can arrive at the smae place a 'right' arrow can leaving plenty of possibilities. I created them using the rectangle tool and then removing the area for some of the boxes. Afterwards I created the pattern and converted the entire pattern to a movie symbol. As you also notice, the set of boxes at the bottom is for maintaining the players health. The further to the right the boxes fill up is the more closer the player is getting to losing. Next we'll look at programming in arrows and selecting music. The fourth part of the series will be devoted to programming in the score and health bar.

To be Continued........

Making a Flash DDR Game: Background

2007-07-13T17:34:00.000-07:00

So recently, I've been getting back into Flash which coincides with my recent parlay back into the video game world. Man, have things changed. Game consoles are over $400-500 while the market seems to be dominated by a $250 device that involves people really getting into the game. How so? Through specific input devices that allow the user to feel that they make a difference. The success of the Wii was originally doubted, but anyone who played games like Guitar Hero or DDR understands the value of a proper input device.

The Myth of the Wii

For those, who didn't take the Comp Sci path through college, an input device such as your regular ps2 controller is a series of trigger buttons, that are choreographed to trigger a certain signal that is compatible with the software. In lamens terms, button 'x' may equal jump, and 'y' may equal shoot. Technically speaking, a controller can be any configuration, just as long as the signals are trigged. That is the success of the Wii. Many believe that when they move the controller 'Up' that they are really completing a difficult task, but to the contrary that same movement can be mapped to the up button a Playstation or Xbox controller.

Simplifying the Controller

However, deceiving the Wiimote maybe, it still maintains a level of difficulty because character movement is continuous. For example, when playing golf, swinging the golf club corresponds to a swinging of the controller which dynamically operates the software. Games such as DDR and and Guitar Hero lack the dynamic software control. These games contain instant button readings, because they are only comparing a key stroke to the expected keystroke within the game. The logic is as follows, if the player presses "left" at the expected left keystroke, then a point should be added to the players score.

DO YOU KNOW HOW FREKKIN' EASY THIS IS TO CREATE?

This particular game structure is perfect for one to create for a Flash based game. There is actually one already out there, and we're sorry to burst their bubble, but we want you to become skilled to create better games for the future. Yes you can be making the next big Flash cell phone game for the IPhone. So lets get started.

Space Ghost & Birdman DVD Release

2007-07-07T11:12:00.000-07:00

In what was a twilight age for Modern Animation, the good ole' Hanna Barberra cartoons that sparked many of clones and three hit series decades later, are back on DVD for only 20 BUCKS. Space Ghost and Birdman both the complete series for only 20 FREKING dollars. Some animation sets are priced at 60-100 dollars, but these masterpieces which were usually 7 minute cartoons at the most, perfect for quick viewing (hint hint, please release on Youtube), are a fraction of the cost.

[ Link ]
[ Birdman DVD]
[ Space Ghost & Dino Boy DVD]

New Anime Releases

2007-07-07T11:06:00.000-07:00

Here are the July 2007 Anime movie releases for the month of July.

[ Link ]

Intel Inside a Rat?

2007-07-07T10:57:00.000-07:00

For the many of us that thought going against the grain and using AMD processors was the way to go, we have been humbly put into our places by the Core 2 Duo. Now Intel has staked its claim on the 3D Movie studio market with their help in the development of Ratiou....I'm not bothering spelling so a stupid title to a movie. They could have just named it the Tasty Rat, and it would have made just as much money. The money spent on the Intel based rendering system was well worth it for Pixar:

"There were many technical challenges in the making of 'Ratatouille'," said Greg Brandeau, senior vice president, technology, Pixar Animation Studios. "Intel's advanced computing capabilities helped Pixar bring 'Ratatouille' to life faster than ever, delivering a 30 per cent performance improvement in the computer-generated animation and visual effects rendering software. Faster rendering gives lighting designers more time to create even more realistic images like an animated Eiffel Tower or Remy the rat's winning smile."

[ Link ]

Director talks Shrek 4

2007-07-07T10:51:00.000-07:00

Thought the rumors of watching Shrek in 3-D goggles was a joke, well think wrong because the animation crew behind the giant ogre are going gun who with their idea to make audience members looks just as dumb as some of their characters. The good news is that there will be more attention to character graphical development.

"Yeah, it's interesting to watch 'Shrek 1,' because it looks to me like it was just the lower half of the face that moved," Miller says. "The ability of these characters to express themselves is a thousand times better now. It's just a continual evolution of the software, of the tools, and also the skill sets of the animators, who are just getting better and better and better."

[ Link ]
[ Shrek 4-D via Imdb]

New Tomb Raider TV Series

2007-07-07T10:33:00.000-07:00

In what has been the recent revival of the Tomb Raider franchise, the folks behind Lara Croft are creating 10 episodes for an animated series to be released only on GameTap. The voice behind the adventurous bombshell is none other than Minnie Driver.

[ Link ]

Here's a Job

2007-06-23T23:05:00.000-07:00

We are looking for animators who can combine our flexible and intuitive authoring pipeline with dynamic in-game behaviours to deliver memorable character performances. Multi-layered blending, mirroring and additive animation give endless variation to a base move, whilst our cutting edge IK and physics-based dynamic motion & behaviour synthesis technology ensures our characters react to their dynamic environment. Believable acting and emotion is also aided by our facial animation system which simulates facial musculature to give subtle performances that look compelling and alive.

Successful candidates will also possess a passion for animation and a strong interest in gaming, plus the ability to portray convincing motion of a wide variety of subjects. Our animators often work closely with our exceptional code team so good communication skills are essential, and we use 3D Studio Max and Character Studio so experience of 3DS Max is therefore advantageous.

Frontier offers 25 paid days holiday per annum in addition to public bank holidays, rising to 30 after 10 years service, a bonus scheme and share options. Salary will depend on experience and capability.

Please send CV and covering letter stating current salary or salary expectation quoting reference AG0607 to Anna Dakin, Frontier Developments Ltd, 306 Science Park, Milton Road, Cambridge CB4 0WG or email animatorjobs@frontier.co.uk Only applicants eligible to work in the UK should apply. No Agencies.

Psst, get your resume's ready because the guy your interviewing for is this guy. And you can start shitting your pants while editing your demo reel.......now.

[ Link ]

Cinderella Looses Shoe Again: End of the Line for DVDs

2007-06-23T22:59:00.000-07:00

Disney has now quite making movies that bring shame on the name of many of our favorite characters. Some of those movies like the recent Bambi II have been hits garnering lots of attention, but according to one individual it was the making of a sequel to Cinderella that told him he needs haul it in with the made for DVD animations.

[ Link ]

Welcome Back Speed Racer

2007-06-23T22:41:00.000-07:00

In what has to be the biggest news for many in the 2D animation realm, is the return of Speed Racer to TV. Lionsgate will handle the production of the series and Nicktoons will debut the new cartoon to coincide with the release of the Warner Brothers live-action movie. Here is a preview:

The new series will follow a young Speed Racer as he joins a racing academy where he discovers that he is the son of the legendary Speed Racer from the original TV series as well as learning he has a brother -- the new Racer X -- which he never knew existed. Speed Racer and Racer X eventually team up and race their Mach 6 (a supped up version of the original Mach 5) to find out what really happened to their father.

Here is my take on the situation:

First and foremost, Speed Racer was a fantastic cartoon back in its heyday and should be remembered as such. Since then the torch for automotive cartoons has transferred hands very seldomly and foremost the title currently belongs to Initial D. Personally I have been wanting to see the series updated for modern times for quite a while now, and the direction that it's being led in now is not a good one. Anime productions these days take on a variety of different undertones that demand attention to storyline and plot. For God's sake, Speed Racer is forever in search for his father, what better storyline do you need than that. Speed Racer crossed over age limits and could be understood by almost anyone, and now they are going to corner the series into a setup for Sponge Bob. No F'n way. Someone stop this production, get rid of the mechanical monkey, place the show on Adult Swim, and re-insert all of the violent scenes that included bodies being dismembered. Thank you.

The Next Akira?

2007-06-22T20:40:00.000-07:00

While most of us can never fathome an animated flick being more inspirational and defining than the classic Akira, there is a small following gathering behind Satoshi Kon and his film Papkrika, which sounds all to familiar to the type of spice found in many of our foods. All joking aside, Kon and Madhouse Studios inked a deal for licensing with Sony and is scheduled for theatrical release soon. May 2007 to be exact, but its June and I still haven't seen the movie in any local listings.

The movie centers on a futuristic device called the DC Mini, which allows psychiatrists to view patients' dreams, allowing for not only potentially revolutionary forms of therapy but also plenty of metaphysical mischief. Dream life and reality have collided before in such live-action films as "A Nightmare on Elm Street," "Dreamscape" and "Total Recall," but the freewheeling animation of "Paprika" is the perfect medium for depicting this hallucinatory terrain.

Some lucky critics have seen the movie already have given it their "top 5 of all time" award. I'll hold on giving my opinion and wait until the DVD release.

[ Link ]
[ Link Wikipedia ]

Orlando meets Bollywood

2007-06-17T19:14:00.000-07:00

Disney, the ever growing a global corporaion, has waived its magical wand over another region of the world in India. With the expanding reach of Bollywood, there certainly is no better time for Stateside movie studios to start dancing at the endless opportunities. Disney has certainly fitted in nicely with the Japanese audience, and has now signed a animation deal with Yash Raj films. Te first movie coming out of the pipelines is Roadside Romeo which will feature many of the usual Bollywood scenes including dancing and song. According to IndiaFm the movie synopsis goes like this:

A rich, cool, spoilt brat of a dog is abandoned on the wicked streets of Mumbai. He faces situations he has never faced before. He is confronted by dangerous, loony characters, the likes of which he has never met before. From mansions to streets… From five course meals to five courses of scraps…From soft beds to piles of garbage…From champagne to tap water…

So how does this benefit Disney, "This will help us strengthen local understanding of culture, art and music in India. We, on our own, cannot make a good Indian film,"Mark Zoradi, marketing president for Walt Disney Studios. That's all fine and dandy because we wouldn't want Disney to misrepresent an entire culture through animated means now would we. See following references for proof of Sarcasm (Here, Here, Her e, Here, Here)

[ Link ]

Shrek asks, how much 3D is too much 3-D?

2007-06-17T16:52:00.000-07:00

Dreamworks thinks that making an ogre in a large 3D world just wasn't satisfying enough for movie goers, and we need to be even more in the picture. From now on, all Shrek movies will be made in 3-D, the type of 3-D that requires you to wear glasses. Personally, I like the way Shrek is with the ambiguous adult humor while still making a movie for children. I just hope that they don't turn the series into another Spy Kids.

[ Link ]

Join P.A.D.- People Against Disney

2007-06-17T13:04:00.000-07:00

Many people have problems with Disney. Of which include animators placing secret messages in the tape and DVD versions of their movies. Other people like myself, cite a lack of classical 2D appeal in recent movies, as a major flaw in Disney. But some if not many if not all of us, have beef with the Disney Vault. You know the mystical Fort Knox of Disney movies, where the studio stores them after their limited DVD release. Where the hell is it and how do we break in?

"Here in Australia, there is no threat of the "vault" - DVD titles simply vanish from store shelves: 'not available' is all we're told."

What do the animators themselves believe is the main problem with Disney, Bambi 2, yes that's right. The movie that's derived from the Anime culture is the cause of all of our Disney related problems.

[ Link ]

Puss the Cat makes own Production Company

2007-06-16T21:02:00.000-07:00

The man responsible for characters who carry guns blazing from guitar cases, fencing swords, gets Angelina Jolie to perform a great O-face, and fathers spy kids, and as we all know the guy who brought us Puss in Boots is starting his own Animation Production Studio. Antonio Banderas, who owns Green Moon Productions are in talks to buy Kandor Graphics, a Spanish Animation Studio. Adding, intrigue to the story is that one half o the duo that founded Kandor, used to work for Pixar, which adds some intelligent being behind the animation work.

[ Link Variety]

Make Creepy Crawly Ants

2007-06-15T17:37:00.000-07:00

For those of you with a Myrmecophobia, this tutorial is not for you. However, for those of you who love ants, or just want to try your hand at creating a virtual ant farm, this is the place for you. We will be working with Flash 8 today, which although I consider it my friend and soul mate in the journey of life, I usually create tutorials for those craving 3D. My main tip for learning anything is patience because without it, trouble shooting can easily become a virtual hell, making you go utterly bat shit.

So let's begin:

1.) Lets just see what we will be animating. Please download the image below:

2.) Now that you have it on your desktop or in your Lockbox, import the file into the Flash 8 Library. To do that choose File->Import->Import to Library and select the downloaded ant. Next, drag the ant from the library and onto the canvas. Your Flash window should look like this:

3.) Notice the image is pretty large, so now's a good time to shrink the ant down to a more manageable size. Right Click on the Image and select Free Transform. Grab one of the corners with your mouse and just as in Photoshop, hold Shift and scale down the ant.

4.) Next we're going to vectorize the ant and then eliminate everything in the picture except the ant itself. So select the image, and then from the Menu selecet Modify-> Bitmap-> and Trace Bitmap. The settings for the Trace Bitmap are as follows:

Color threshold: 100
Minimum area: 15
Curve fit: Normal
Corner threshold: Normal

5.) To start removing material click on space around the ant and take note of how similarly colored areas, can be selected together. After you have chosen an area hit delete on your keyboard and it will remove the area, BUT be careful. Do not delete the colors that are slight variations of the "deep maroon" that is used for a majority of the ant. You could accidentally delete a good portion of the ants legs. We will correct this problem later. Use the Magnifying glass on the left hand tool bar to get more of a closer view.

Below are the color areas that should be deleted. ALL areas on the picture having the particular color tone indicated should be deleted.

Before:

After:
6.) Its time to correct the legs, and also the shape of the lower abdomen. To begin, lets select the pinkish area near of the second leg on the bottom 3 legs. Then select the eyedropper tool, and then click on the dark maroon portion of the ant. Notice, that the color of the leg changes to match the rest of the ant. Afterwards, change the color of the rest of the legs. Use the pic below as a guide.

To fixing the deformed part of the abdomen, we simple select the paint brush, and the open the color palette and to set the color to the color of the abdomen, click on the abdomen itself. Notice that the cursor changes to the eyedropper.

Now, use the paint tool and paint in a more fuller abdomen. The result should look like the one below:

Beginning the Animation Process

7.) Now, that we have the ant taken care of, its time to actually animate it. To begin use the black arrow and hold ctrl, and completly highlight one leg. Be careful because you can only select by making rectangles, so you will have to make small rectangles to highlight portions of the leg that are close to other legs.

Do this for the remaining legs 1-6.

8.) This part gets a little tricky, as there is no exact animation sequence and everything takes time to perfect. But, we'll try to get it in a couple takes. So click on a leg, I myself am selecting the first one of the upper row. And select Free Transform. Then click on the circle in the middle, and move it towards where the leg meets the body. For this particular leg, this is located near the lower right hand corner. Do the same for the remainder of the legs.

9.) One key part of animation, is knowing how to control each part of the animation. The easiest way to do this is by separating the different parts of the animation, across different Layers. This is the same way in sound production, you move the instruments on different tracks. To do this, we are going to do something pretty dramatic. First, select Insert Layer, on the Timeline Controls Panel, and Rename it, Leg 1. Do the same for the remainder of the legs.

10.) Now, on Leg 1, Right Click and select Cut. Then select Leg1, in the Timeline Controls, and choose Edit and Paste in Place. Again, complete this for the rest of the legs.

11.) Ants don't move in the same steady stride of a person, but instead move in a choatic manner, and therefore each leg needs to be animated independently of one another. To do that, we need to create a Loop for each leg. To begin, select the original layer where the body is located (this should be near the bottom of the list), and right click on frame 12, or however long you want your movie to be, and select Insert Keyframe.

12.) Next, Insert a Keyframe on frame 2 of the "Leg 1" and afterwards, drag the Keyframe, to frame 3. To bring the leg back to its original position, thereby creating a loop so on frame 12 Insert a Keyframe.

13.) On frame 3, rotate (Using Free Transform) the leg slightly about the pivot point that we established earlier in step 8. Insert more Keyframes between 3 and 12, maybe every five frames or every four and rotate the leg on each Keyframe. Finish doing this for the rest of the layers and don't worry too much if the legs get crossed every now and again. Make sure that the legs don't resemble a smooth walking or swimming motion. One leg maybe moving every 2 or 3 frames. The amount of animated frames do not have to be paced out either, but must move within reason so animating on frames: 2,4,6,8,9,12 is fine. Just remember everything must end on frame 12.

14.) Then to actually animate the movie, select the entire row of frames for a given leg and right click on the selected area and select Create Motion Tween. Notice that the area turns to purple. This indicates that there is a motion tween on the frame. Do this for the other legs that you have animatedThen on the menu bar hit Control-Play. This is where you can see your animation and see the many errors soon to follow. You can tweak the movie by going back to the keyframes (the ons with the dots) and re-rotating the proper leg accordingly.

15.) Notice that during playback, there is an annoying pause when going from frame 12 back to 1. This is because there are two frames exactly alike right next to each other, which is irregular. So fix the problem, highlight the entire vertical row of frames, under frame 11, and Right Click and Convert to Keyframe. Then select the entire row under frame 12 and Right Click and Remove frames. Now Play the movie again, and you should have a smooth even loop.

16.) Now that we have this ant moving in place, let's make it move around and about. So save this file as ant.fla . And now, we will export the movie so select File-> Export -> Export Movie, and name the file ant.swf.

17.) Create a New Flash Document. Then Import the ant.swf to the library and once again drag the movie onto the canvas. If you want to work with a smaller ant, just use Free Transform to scale down the ant.

18.) Insert a Keyframe on frame 30 and select the layer, as in the layer name and Right Click and choose Add Motion Guide.

19.) Then select the "Guide:Layer 1" layer, go back to frame 1, and use the Pen Tool on the Toolbar, to create a Path. On Frame 30 of "Layer 1" move the ant to the very end of the path.

Now Play the Animation or cycle through the frames, and you will notice that the ant moves accordingly. Finally, Insert Keyframes throughout the "Layer 1" motion tween, and rotate the ant to walk smoothly on the path. Afterwards, play the animation one last time and you should be watching an ant walking frantically across the screen. For more help on the Motion Guide see here. Good luck Animating !!!

3D Studio Max and After Effects MashUp

2007-06-09T18:01:00.000-07:00

Its been a long time since I've written a tutorial and I thought that I should get back to doing what I do best, explaining the simple things that make an animation reel great. So here I'll merge too tricks into one by creating simple loops, followed by using green screen to bring them into Adobe After Effects. Let's get started!

Steps:

Creating a Loop

1.) Very simple here, to begin let's start by making a sphere.
2.) Now select the motion panel on the right hand side, and click under create key: Position, Rotation, and Scale. Next, select the Y, and then Z axis, and do the same that you did for the X-axis and select position, rotation, and scale. This will create a key frame on frame 1.

3.) To make sure that the sphere ends up at the same spot which it started, move the frame slider, down to about frame 30, and without doing a thing to the sphere, repeat step 2.

4.) Now you can animate your sphere on any of the frames in between 1 and 30 by first selecting the auto key.
5.) Then when you press play you will notice that the sphere always goes back to its original position.

Green Screening & Premiere

An old Hollywood trick for decades, greenscreening has allowed anyone to be anywhere. Now this little ball will be green screened and placed into Premiere.

1.) Go to Render->Environment and click on the Background Color and change the color to green. The key here is to write down the Red, Green, and Blue values because you will need them in the future.

My green values are as follows:
R-0
G-255
B-18

2.) Now Render your movie from frames 1-30, and save the file as an AVI file. Afterwards replay your movie in a video player on repeat,so that you can judge the amount of extra frames you need to make the movie look smooth. This could be by rerendering from 1-32 frames or 1-35. Its up to you.

3.) Break out your After Effects. I am using After Effects 7, but any After Effects version should do as long as there is a CHROMA KEY function.
4.) So to begin, double click on the project panel and open a picture that you would like to use for your background.

5.) Now drag the file to the Timeline Panel. Notice that the file now appears in the composition panel, where you can increase or decrease the size.

6.) Now, let's import your movie so repeat steps 4 & 5 and instead of loading a picture, load the AVI that you just rendered.

7.) So its time to get rid of the green, to do this, right click on the file name in the Timeline view, and follow the path: Effect-> Keying -> Color Key

8.) Click on the eyedropper in the Effects Control Panel on the left, and then click
on the green in the movie.

9.) Remove more Green by increasing the color tolerance. Then adjust the Edge Thin and Edge Feather values to first remove more green and then thin out the edges

Color Tolerance: 196
Edge Thin: 1
Edge Feather: 2.8

Congrats your done, and I hope by this simple little tip, you can incorporate this technique into larger projects. Thanks again, and make sure to visit my other tutorials for more great tips.

Behind the Eye Patch Part 1

2007-06-05T18:50:00.000-07:00

I'll be the first to admit it, I only saw part of Pirates of the Carribean ATE, and not because I got a bad copy off a guy from the street. Nope, not that nor that I was hauled away by a usher for sneaking into the theatre. I missed the movie because I fell asleep for two hours after a long day of work. However, I did get to wake up in time to see the entire movie get stolen away by a movie extra. So I made it up to myself by going on Youtube and combining all of the behind the scenes clips into one understandable movie.

Starz Behind the Scenes Part 1

Starz Behind the Scenes Part 2

Another Behind the Scenes

Sky Network BTS

Character Featurette

Pirate Lords Featurette

Shreknology

2007-06-05T18:12:00.000-07:00

According to the director and producer, they stayed in a dark room for 3 months and have just seen the light of day, and unfortunately Shrek 3 fell short. But to most fans who chose a big Ogre over a Pirate and a Superhero, or for those who instead paid the twenty-one dollars to see all three, we got to see a really good movie. To the trained eye, one could see that the movie was far more detailed than its predecessors and the best part was that it took far less time to make. Let's see how they did it:

Get a Swedish Visa in Second Life

2007-05-30T05:10:00.000-07:00

Just when we thought the ludacrisy of Second World can not get any bigger, the Swedish government has opened a virtual 3D embassy, where you can get a "real cultural and informative experience." Personally, I can't wait to see the day when statesmen are dressed as furries. That's when I will pay money to join the Second Life Community.

[ Link ]

IBM Tries its Hand at 3D

2007-05-30T05:03:00.000-07:00

The Business community is never so keen to creativity except in marketing. Note: I hate people in marketing, because they go to school get pointless degrees, never do work, and still get all the girls at the office. Anyways, the monotone unaggressive IBM workstation may soon be changing its attitude with new BladeStation:

The HC10, essentially a headless PC in a blade server format, fits into IBM's BladeCenter chassis and offers what IBM Fellow Dr. Tom Bradicich described as a high-end workstation experience.
Uniquely, the HC10 can reproduce 3D graphics and real time video over a network without the cost and energy consumption of a fat client, according to IBM.

What next, the ultra samurai desktop?

[ Link ]

Learn to Love your 3D Glasses

2007-05-30T04:07:00.000-07:00

How far have 3D movies come since the 1900s? Well maybe not that far, but at least we don't have to look stupid wearing stupid glasses while on a hot date (o.k. maybe not a hot date). Now, the real question is what if that movie theater made you shell out $50 for each pair of glasses, would you pay the cost not to look cheap? Dr.Phil's classic second person advice: If I were you I would wait until the second date.

A second type of technology relies on shutter glasses, which are synchronized with the flicker of left-eye and right-eye images that are projected onto a traditional movie screen. For this technology, the projector sends right-eye images to the screen half the time, and left-eye images the other half. It also sends out an infrared signal, detected by the shutter glasses, which keeps the glasses in sync with the images. These glasses are more effective at minimizing ghosting than other 3-D systems are, says Howard Lukk, vice president of technology at Walt Disney Studios, in Burbank, CA. However, because shutter glasses use optoelectronics and batteries, he says, they cost significantly more than polarizing glasses do. And since they cost more--around $50 a pair--they are usually collected at the end of a movie and sanitized for future use, which requires personnel and other expenses.

[ Link ]

Free Maya Personal Learning Edition 8.5

2007-05-19T22:16:00.000-07:00

Many industry analysts have debated the significance of the merger between Autodesk and Maya, but has there ever been a time when you have seen a version of Maya offered for free. The way this is going, I hope that Autodesk buys up every company it can so that I can pay free-99 for everything. The only drawback is that Autodesk has decided to put their watermark on everything that you render and to be even more annoying it sometimes moves. But like most things I think this will eventually get cracked by some pissed off modeler who can no longer take their frustrations out in WoW. Enjoy!

[ Download ]
[ Questions & Answers]

The Dreaded Half Upgrade: TrueSpace 7.5

2007-05-19T20:59:00.000-07:00

What makes many of us modelers really angry is when companies make you pay for upgrades of products that you have already bought. Its like paying for System Update on Windows or even paying for the car fixes during massive recalls. Companies should understand that fighting to stay ahead in the market by quickly releasing an update does not make consumers happy. Instead just save face and wait until you can spend the time and money to create a new version. (Man what a rant) Now, I present to you TrueSpace 7.5

[ Link ]

Iron Man Special Effects Update

2007-05-19T18:11:00.000-07:00

Once again Marvel is at it releasing movies that to some of us just don't make sensse anymore. Yes, we understand the comic book, but why create a movie out of a character who has money, but no natural powers and who feeds his need for a wild side with crime fighting. Anyways, a lot of money is going into this film and it looks like even George Lucas and his team at ILM has their hands in the Iron Man cookie jar. I just hope that the actor playing Tony Stark will really capture lifestyle of a billionaire, coke binges and all.

[ Link ]

Animators Bootcamp by SIGGRAPH

2007-05-19T17:55:00.000-07:00

From the NYC SIGGRAPH burgeoning and diverse field of animation.

We’ll bring you news you can use from the professionals in the trenches. So whether you are a student or a practicing professional, get the tools, tips and talking points you’ll need to get your career to the next level.

• Learn the finer points of self promotion in today’s competitive digital environment. • Hear about exciting alternative career and creative opportunities.
• Familiarize yourself with all the legal ins and outs before signing that big contract.

There will be plenty of time for Q&A with leading studio film and television producers, cutting-edge game designers, innovative Flash animators, and futuristic 3D immersive modelers. Expect a day filled with practical strategies and ample time for networking with your peers. Don’t miss this new opportunity to get informed and get motivated!"

Best part, is that tickets go from $25-50, and this is an extremly good deal when compared to other seminars and networking meetings that I've had to shell out hundreds of dollars for. Also, here is more info from CGTALK:

Among the panelists scheduled to appear are Fred Siebert, former president of Hanna-Barbera Cartoons and the original creative director of MTV; Louis Cataldi, art director for Kaos Studios, a division of THQ, the #1 selling kids video game brand, Emmy-nominated CG specialist and filmmaker Nils Norgen, award-winning animation director and author of Your Career in Animation, David B. Levy, and independent talent recruiter Ila Abramson, former chief talent recruiter for MTV, PDI/Dreamworks and Nickelodeon.

WHEN: Saturday, May 19, 2007;

Registration and Welcome: 9:30 - 10:15 AM;
Panels: 10:15 - 4 PM, with a mid-morning and lunch
break

WHERE: Fashion Institute of Technology; Katie Murphy
Amphitheatre, Building "D"; Seventh Avenue at 27th
Street; New York City

[ Regsitration ]

Official ZBrush Announcement

2007-05-19T17:52:00.000-07:00

Just incase you missed the all of the cool features that the new ZBrush 3 has to offer, here is a little video that Pixologic put together for their official announcment earlier in the week.

[ Pixologic ZBrush ]

ZBRUSH 3: Pre-Registration

2007-05-19T17:21:00.000-07:00

Many of my 3D success I have to thank to the magnificent program, ZBrush. A program hard to describe because its not a modeler nor a renderer. Its more a dynamic texturer that you can use to literally paint on textures and skins onto your models. The best part is that after such a long time without a new update, ZBrush has declared that they are taking the Next Step, which is the name of the next enstallment in the series. You can now pre-register for the program at the companies website, and hopefully we wil have a review up soon.

[ Pre Registration Link ]

[ Z Brush 3 Features Link ]

Animated Background

2007-05-18T20:08:00.000-07:00

The other day I was working on a project and discovered this simple trick on how to make an animated background and even how to create lightning. So let's get started:

Programs:
3D Studio Max

Steps:

1. The Default setting for the Environment background is Black which is noticeable when rendering. Changing the default Environment is easy by selecting Render->Environment-> and changing the color, BUT since we are making an animated background lets select the AutoKey first, and then change the color. This will change the background for the first frame.

2. Now move the timeline to a later frame on the timeline and change color by one more time selecting Render->Environment-> and selecting a new color.

Notice, that every time you change a color on a frame, there will be four red ticks around the color bocks on the Environment panel. This informs you when the frame contains a set background color.

3. Another way to tell which frame contains color or not is by opening up the timeline panel. Select the button on the left part of the timeline with one arrow going up and one arrow going down.

Scroll down until you reach Environment and click the plus sign next to Environment and select background. If you did the previous steps correctly you should have something like this.

Each line represents either Red, Green, and Blue on the RGB color wheel and a collection of squares on a frame number, means that there is a particular color combination for that frame background. If you do not want that color to be on that frame anymore, just drag your arrow cursor over all of the square boxes on the frame and hit delete on your keyboard. Deleting just one square would not work since the squares make a combination. To change the color of the frame, I think it is easier to just delete the squares and click close on the panel, and change the background using the previous steps.

3. Now lets Render a movie so that you can see the change in background color. Select Render->Render-> and then select render for a particular range and enter the frame numbers that you want the movie to render across.

Now save the file to a particular location. Select Render and then open the movie and you will see that the background gradients between color locations. To make less of a gradient and more of an instanesous change, add more frames with different color. Also, there are many other things you can do with this little trick, like adding lightning by changing the map on a particular frame. That we'll save for later, have fun with this.

Secrets to Finding a Job in Computer Graphics. Part 2

2007-05-18T17:30:00.000-07:00

So after reading all of the hardships awaiting you in your search, you are now ready to find your dream job and here are the ways how:

1. Be Flexible

The first lesson that must be learned is that not every computer graphics job involves making fantasy lands or mystic characters. The job market for artsy jobs and jobs that surround creative thinking is very LIMITED. Therefore,you must expand your market scope and look to companies that need 3D services and not creative thinking alone. Understand that the product industry (cars, boats, architecture) need concept design artists to bring their ideas to life for a good sale, that would make you the picthman. The point is that ANYTHING that needs 3D SERVICES is in your job market. Examples: Condos, Navy, oliviergregoire.

2. Become an Expert in one program.

When jobs require one program, it means that you need to be the best of the best in that program and bringing C or B level work to a job interview just won't cut it. Therefore pick a program to learn and that way although you might be ineligible for jobs that use other applications, you have a better chance at getting a job that uses the program that you do know.

3. Be Versatile: Accessories to your knowledge

Computer Arts, doesn't incompass one particular skill or one particular program. Thus, you have to become at least an intermediate at a variety of popular programs. If you think everything is about 3D Studio Max, it isn't. What would you do if your workplace uses Maya. Your in luck here since most modeling programs have the same basic functions, and 3d design theory is universal. However, you might be asked to do work in Photoshop or Flash. So what programs should you learn, try: Adobe CS, Corel Painter, Flash, and a plethora of modeling programs even Poser (Do you think companies will spend a bunch of time waiting for you too model a perfect face.

Another tip, learn to merge these programs together. Model in Max integrate with After Effects through Blue Screen, and create a background in Photoshop.

4. Freelance

There is nothing better than working for yourself on your own time and repping all of the rewards. The main problem with freelancing is that its not a yearly salary plus pay can be otherwise meager and hunting people down for your money is not a good feeling. Customers can be a pain and never let up on their demands. However, the benefits are clear:

A.) Helps build your resume.
B.) Creates a clientel and if you do it right, will lead to other opportunities through free advertising
C.) You determine the amount you will get paid and the stronger your resume becomes is the more amount of money you can charge. Think of each successful job as your own promotion.

If you still have a problem with freelancing, think of it like this. De Vinci, Donatello, Michelangelo, was never hired by any employer and did all of their work freelancing. Why can't you be the same. Plus, if your inbetween work Freelancing can mean the difference when faced with bills.

5. Make yourself known.

Walking into interviews with your resume and portfolio only is not acceptable. You need to have a website that shows your employer what you can do with a bigger canvas. Including a short blurb about yourself would also be very valuable in building a personal relationship with your employer. Instead of just pictures of your work, show what you could do when you set your work to music in a cool video, so use Youtube or another free service to create an animation reel. Also, you can gain clientel without even having to go to job interviews because you can share your link any where you want including forums or online directories. Plus if an employer needs to share your work, then they have your link too.

Take it from me, finding work is never easy. But once you get in the industry and have references everything else will fall right in place.

Secrets to Finding a Job in Computer Graphics. Part 1

2007-05-12T21:32:00.000-07:00

[Insert any cliche line from how to find a job books. For example, "So you've finally decided to make the leap into the world of CG"]

For the life of me, we're not going down that path and no one should be getting the normal talk to on how to find work in the computer graphics industry, mainly because its not normal. While finding a job in the industry, you'll run into tons of characters both animated and in real life, and there are many hurdles that could make reaching your dream job a nightmare. However, you can make it and earn that fantastic job, if you follow these simple steps compiled from years of experience in the industry.

But first, you must understand the bumps and bruises along the way:

1. Competition.

In computer arts the main language that is spoken is ascetics , and how pleasing something is to the eye. Thus, this language is spoken around the world, and so no one job is restricted to location, which creates millions of applicants.

2. Degree vs. Non-Degree.

For many of us, learning animation and modeling started at home with no teacher and no classroom, and it can be argued that we learned principles that could never have been taught at school. Today, many universities have just began to implement 3d design into their art programs and this has baffled many job recruiters who now have to answer, can lessons be learned at school that couldn't be self taught and what are the importance of grades in the industry? The point is that the answers to those questions are all subjective and do not be surprised if a college grad or self learner, gets hired over you.

3. Entry Level.

At any job, being entry level is tough. However, for people who love their own work, it can be even more of a burden as they can often find themselves working on projects that they don't care for. This can result in poor effort and a bad end result. Understand that you are working for someone who has been at the job longer than you, and although you might have years of experience, you still have to work your way up and gain the approval of your co-workers.

4. Everything is Fun until its work.

Can you imagine working all day on modeling, and then coming home to model some more? Often, this doesn't happen as sooner or later we get sick of what we are doing and can't continue doing the same thing especially at home. Working at home was easy when we were single and building our portfolio, but with a job and maybe kids, exhaustion and priorities set in and "[file name].max" can't be given as much attention as it once did.

How to convert Max files to Flash?

2007-05-04T18:12:00.000-07:00

For many of us, we work in a number of different mediums and the problem is that many of our programs and the companies that make them generally don't like each other, which makes it hard to exchange files from one program to another. Although I don't know much about the relationship between Adobe and Autodesk, the programs 3D Studio Max and Flash are not compatible together. But there are ways around their incapability and here is a list on how to get your 3D models, vectorized and into Flash.

Swift 3D Plugin: Probably the well known methods to import your models, Swift 3D has been around for years (2001) and offers many benefits including: a direct plug-in, complete animation conversion, and awesome quality. I can attest for this program as it has served me well over the past couple of years on a variety of projects, as creating Flash files is just a simple matter of installing a plugin and pressing a button.

Vecta3D: Offers a $70 price cut from Swift3D, and offers many of the same features as Swift3D but after getting familiar with outputs from both programs, Swift3D is the obvious winner.

Flash 8 Video Encoder: If both of the programs aren't accessible, you could attack the problem on the video side of things. Thanks to Flash 8, there is a new video encoder that allows you to transform your video into '.flv' , which happens to be the same format that Youtube uses. So after you finish your animation in Max, save the file as an AVI and then drag and drop the video into Flash 8 Video Encoder, and you will have a .flv file that is safe to imput into a Flash library or stage.

Recreating New York City

2007-05-01T19:42:00.000-07:00

By now we all have seen King Kong, where the main focus of th movie and our questions have been centered around a giangantic ape. Was there anything in the movie but a big ape, maybe this guy? However, there were many other people behind the scenes recreating the various world's including a mostly 3D New York City. CGArcheitect sat down with one of the cg artists to talk about how he feels over shadowed by the big ape.

[ Link ]

New FF4: Rise of Silver Surfer Trailer

2007-05-01T19:21:00.000-07:00

In the added tradition of making this model completly silver and adding a surf board to make him look cool, we are once again showing the most recent trailer from the new movie, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. I hope this movie doesn't lack the acting that this movie did or turn out like this B-movie I remember.

[ Link ]

What do 50 Cent and Ice Age have in Common?

2007-05-01T19:07:00.000-07:00

Were you thinking, that they were both posterized simultaneously in the rooms of many ten year olds. Although you would be right, thats not exactly what I was looking for. The other correct answer would be that they were both modeled by the same character artist, Richard Diamant. An amazing 3D modeler who has worked in a variety of films and games, and has stepped outside of his artistic cave to talk to 3DTotal.

"I knew nothing! So I went to my local computer store and found the only 3d software that was available: Truespace!"

If you don't know what TrueSpace is, it can best be defined as cheaply awesome.

[ Link ]

Creating Dinosaurs with Animatronics

2007-04-29T19:45:00.000-07:00

To many of us, 3D is everything. When a project arises where an environment or characters are so out of this world, we immediately turn to our keyboards and mice and start slaving away at our computers. However, there are still a rag tag group of special effects artists who continue to use Animatronics, to achieve outstanding results. Here is a video outlining how they put together dinosaurs for the "Walking with Dinosaurs" series a couple of years ago.

Moi Beta: Free 3D Modeling Program

2007-04-29T18:57:00.000-07:00

I'm going to leave it up to their website to give a summary because I can hardly even pronounce the word Moi. Those double vowels fool me everytime:

MoI (Moment of Inspiration) is a new 3D modeling/CAD program for designers and artists.

Offering a blend of precision and freeform drawing tools, it sports a unique user interface that operates seamlessly with a pen tablet (a mouse is also supported).
MoI is currently in open beta release. If you're looking for a fresh, fluid way to draw and create CAD-accurate 3D models, then download the beta and give it a try!

[ Link ]

New Captain Jack Featurette

2007-04-29T17:01:00.000-07:00

Want to know what happened to Jack? And whats going to happen to him in the end of the Pirates of th Caribbean Trilogy. Click the link to find out.

[ Link CGTalk]

Google Earth adds American's Favorite Archeitecture

2007-04-29T16:48:00.000-07:00

The vast world of Google Earth has just gotten a little bit better thanks to the opinion of you and I. The American Institute of Architecture along with Google has asked in the past year, what we think of our buildings and monuments and what we would like to see recreated in Google's virtual environment. They listened and now buildings like the National Cathedral (located in Washington D.C. for those of you outside the Beltway) are now available. Enjoy!

[ Link ]

Holy Crap!!! 3D Desktop on WindowsXP

2007-04-28T21:27:00.000-07:00

For many of us, ever since we viewed our first video starring the new Linux OS, Ubuntu, we have wondered when a system like that will be made for Windows. Thanks to the diligent searching by our friends at Tutorial5, we have our answer in a Japanese piece of software called Madotate written for Windows XP that turns your windows inside out.

[ Link Tutorial5]

Modeling the Spartan Helmet from 300

2007-04-22T08:53:00.000-07:00

It seems as though the tutorial I posted on CGTUTORIALS.COM has a broken link, so I have reposted the tutorial specifically for our viewers from CGTUTORIALS. The movie 300 has been one of the best movies I've seen all year, maybe even the past two years. Persians might be mad at the story, but you can't deny its artistry and I'll take the 300 members of their special effects against a 2000 member army of Persian special effects guys any day (just joking). Anyways, the movie sparked in me a creative spirit to recreate to my best abilities the helmet used on the main character, King Leonidas.

So lets get started:

Tools:
3D Studio Max

Steps:

1.) Create a Line that goes right down the y axis. This will be your reference line when making the helmet, so you want to make the length, the same length that you envision it would be going from the top of the helmet to the tip of the nose, and you want to make sure that it is as straight as possible. (For my tutorial it is pink but for your model it can be whatever color you want)

2.) Next Create another line and make the left hand side of the mask as shown below. After finishing modeling that half of the helmet, you should align it with the pink line. The easiest way to do this turn on the "Snaps Toggle" icon ,

and drag the upper most vertex to the top of vertex of the pink line, and do the same for the tip of the nose as well. Notice that your helmet is now aligned with the pink line.

3.) Next Clone the Line by clicking Edit->Clone, and make this a Copy clone because we will modify this side ever so slightly to attach it to the other side. Then after cloning, select from the taskbar, Tools and then Mirror, and mirror about the X axis.

4.) I have deleted the pink line, and we going to move the right side, as close as possible to the left one.

5.) Next we are going to select the vertex at the top of the left side, and drag it to its left side counterpart. Then do the same for the tip of the nose. Then Attach the two sides together.

6.) Then select the vertexes at the top and the tip of the nose once again and weld them together. The best way of selecting the vertexes at a given location, lets say the top, is to just drag your mouse across the small area and both will be selected.

7..) We are now going to add more vertexes to the helmet. To do this check the Connect box first, and then select Refine and start placing vertexes around the helmet. Look at the picture below and you would notice that the vertexes are placed symmetrically. (Warning: Use Edit Spline often, as its an easy way of saving your work. Don't be scared to use it for each step of the Outlining Process)

8.) Now select Create Line. Notice how there is a mysterious line that is just created. Personally I think that this is a bug in max. To correct this just select the undo button.

9.) The undo, will keep the create line still selected, and also with the Snap Toggle Icon highlighted. Create lines connecting the the vertexes we have just made. Only connect horizontally and not vertically. When you go from vertex to vertex, usually a red cross hair will appear informing you that you are connecting a line to a vertex.

10.) We need to add more lines, so we are going to refine the grid a little bit more. See below.

11.) Connect the remaining vertexes and this is what you should get.

11.) We want to make the helmet a solid, so under the Modifier panel, we choose Surface, and if you can not see your helmet, select Flip Normals. Also, although its not shown in the picture, set Steps to 0.

12.) Under Modifiers select Edit Poly and choose Polygon, and highlight all of the polygons within the helmet. Check the Perspective view to see if they are the Polygons on the visible side of helmet. Then Extrude it ever so slightly as to create a plate.

13.) Time for detailing, lets make a small brim at the bottom, so select Cut under the same Edit Poly modifier and begin making a line just above the bottom of the helmet. Do so for each side.

14.) Then select the polygons created and choose Inset and drag the polygons ever so slightly to create a smaller set of polygons from the previous set.

15.) Afterwards, select Edge from the Edit Poly panel, and select the edges leading from the tip of the nose to the top of the helmet. Next Chamfer them ever so slightly. Then select the polygons in between and using the move icon, drag them away from the mask. The outcome should look like the third picture.

[NEW STEP ADDED]

To get the Bend in the max as shown below, in the Modifier drop down menu select and use the settings below or adjust the angle until you are satisfied with the bend.

15.) Now select Element from the Edit Poly panel, and choose AutoSmooth. Notice this smooths out the finish of the helmet.

16.) What would a helmet be, without a potion to put your head in. So far we only created a mask. So create a sphere and place it acordingly.

17.) Next add an Edit Poly modifier to the sphere and remove the vertexes as shown.

18.) The switch over the the Perspective view and see if you can see any vertexes through the eye portion of the helmet If so select them and delete them too. You may now have gaps at the side of the helmet from in between the spherical region and the mask part, so move the vertexes accordingly to cover the gaps. (You can move the vertexes by selecting vertex underneath the Edit poly panel).

19.) Lets unround out the sphere so we first take the vertexes in the front part and move them up. Then move other vertexes so create a flat region.

20.) The back may be tricky, so you should add another Edit Poly modifier here. First select the pole of the sphere and move it down. Continue by moving other vertexes down until you get a flat edge for the sphere.

21.) Now select the edges as shown, and while holding Shift move the edges downward and away. Then scale the edges across the x axis. The order of pictures are as follows upper left-> upper right-> lower left->lower right.

22.) Here I continued to unround the sphere by selecting the entire back portion and scale it inward across the x axis.

23.) Next I added an AutoSmooth modifier to the entire sphere.

24.) Then I looked in the Top View where I can still see that there was a gap in between the sphere and the mask, so I moved the vertexes to fill the gap. Next, I cloned the sphere, because if you rotate underneath you would see that there is nothing there. Then I added a Normal modifier to the clone, and chose Flip Sides. Now if you rotate you can see something underneath. What you should further do is Add an Edit Poly to the original and Attach it to the bottom portion, so when you make changes you will be making changes to both the shape of the inner and outer region of the helmet since they share the same vertexes.

25.) Returning back to the mask, we want to add some flare to it. So Add an Edit Poly modifier and select the inner vertex on the mask and move it outwards. That may sound confusing so refer to the picture for assistance. Then do the same thing for the vertex beneath and your resultant should be the lower right quadrant. The order of pictures are as follows upper left-> upper right-> lower left->lower right.

26.) Then adjust the vertexes that you made (not any other vertexes) to create almost an arc around the helmet.

27.) Autosmooth the entire mask. Then if correct any out of place vertexes in the spherical region.

29.) Create a lined shape as shown below. As you can tell this will be where the hair will be located.

30.) Now Extrude the shape and place it in the center

31.) Next in the taskbar select Modifiers and Hair and Fur.

32.) Now the extruded shape should have hair all over it, and that's not what we want. We want hair only on the top portion. So under the Hair and Fur panel select Polygon. Then select every polygon on the top surface of the shape. Afterwards, click "Update Selection"

33.) Now the hair where its supposed to be, but not quite where we need it. So lets select "Style Hair" and select the icon entitled "Stand hair up." Then move your mouse over the hair and as you select the hairs, they will move up accordingly.

34.) While still in the X view select the scale and the scale each hair line. To do this I placed the circle over the area and with my mouse, Right clicked and the moved my mouse downward. Its odd because if you move it up it might scale down the hair. This might take some practice but in a minute or two you would have it right. You will need to scale each line a lot so do not be conservative in your estimates of the size of the hair particles.

35.) Finish the hair piece by selecting the move icon and moving the back hairs in place to make an overall arc.

36.) Adjust the hair panels as shown below.

37.) Now for bringing it all together, let's add the material. Render-> Material Editor and click the box that says Standard in the first window. Then select Mtl Library and select the material entitled "Metal-Dark Gold". Its standard in all 3ds programs going back to 3ds version 3.

38.) Then scroll down and expand the Maps panel and reduce the Bump level from 30 to 15. Then select the box labeled None and add a Noise material.

39.) Then drag and drop the material on the helmet, mask, and hair region. If you want you can do a test Render to check your results. Another way to add the material is with the shape selected, click the Assign to Selection icon.

40.) One final touch to go and thats adding the spikes to the helmet. To do this create a cylinder with a height segment of 1. Next add an Edit Poly modifier to the cylinder and select Vertex. Then using the scale tool, scale the vertexes at the top of the cylinder inward. Then add the gold material that we just made to the spike. Next Clone the spikes and disperse them throughout one side of the helmet. Then select those spikes and clones those as well and Mirror it across the X axis. Adjust Accordingly.

41.) One final Render and your done.

** I understand some parts might be confusing but use the pictures as a guide. If you have anymore questions or comments just leave them and I'll try to answer them as best as I can. I hold down a 9-5 so its hard to respond during the day, but at night I'll try to answer them.

View 3D Films at Home (No Glasses Necessary)

2007-04-18T20:41:00.000-07:00

The old days of having to wear cardboard glasses with red and blue transperancy paper, are over. O2 has just released TV shows in 3d so you can view them on your couch while chugging a Beer. However, if you drink Bud or Miller your out of luck because the TV Shows are only being broadcasts in the Czech Republic for right now, but hopefully you can learn to drink your beer out of the bottle and maybe into a fancy glass.

[ Link ]

The World in High Def for Free

2007-04-18T20:31:00.000-07:00

Once a week I take time out of my day to add to my addiction of the ever popular Google Earth. The 3D world viewer can be used for various things, looking at your house from space, seeing the world's wonders from space, and also stalking from space. I tend to do the latter only in public libraries. However, in celebration of Earth Day, 3D nature is allowing everyone to use Ultimate Earth for FREE. Although the two programs do essentially the same thing, Ultimate Earth lets you view weather patters and a greater level of geographic detail in high def. Use this more or less like a preview because its a matter of time before Google programs their simulation to include cloud patterns, or they could just go ahead and buy their competitors like a normal company would do.

[ Link ]

Where is Everybody from?

2007-04-14T23:55:00.000-07:00

I just want to know where are people from who read this blog. This would help me in knowing how much I have to explain things, and the wording to use for everyone to understand the tutorials and articles. Thanks.

-Cero

Finally Print in 3D

2007-04-12T20:16:00.000-07:00

Ever wanted to reenact the scene in ghost using your own 3D models. Now you can see your works lifted off the page so that it feels like if your looking at clay and the folks over at Make Magazine show you how. Have fun.

[ Link ]

Homebrew 3D Scanner

2007-04-12T19:51:00.000-07:00

A little ingenuity adds a lot to life, especially when Legos are around. A Mad Scientist over at chromecow.com has used his incredible amount of knowledge in electronics to make himself a 3D scanner that is completely out of this world. This is a must read.

[ Link ]

10 Second Modeling for a Lot of Cash

2007-04-12T19:36:00.000-07:00

For many of us cheap bastards with holding with no dough in our pockets and only time on our hands, we spend hours upon hours modeling our scenes while trying to catch every detail using our Edit Polys and manipulating tiny vertexes. While others like these guys, just use a scanner smaller than your desktop to do model in seconds, quality of work that we only can dream of creating.

By the way what would you model if you had one of these? I would model food to give to my kids because I wouldn't have any money after buying one of these.

[ Link ]

Yahoo hates me !!!

2007-04-10T18:24:00.000-07:00

The other day I wrote an article stating the 3D movies were coming to an end in terms of their creativity as many of today's productions can be easily and if not better when played with human characters. And as a result of my plea to the movie studios is an article on the front page of Yahoo.com informing us that Hollywood is going to crank out more 3D movies than ever.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive of DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc., is so gung-ho about 3-D that he has said his studio might start exclusively releasing movies in the format as early as 2009 with its "Monsters vs. Aliens."
"For Memorial Day weekend 2009, I would like to see 3,800 locations and 6,000 screens that we can put our movie on. And if they are there, then we will be exclusive in 3-D,"

Remakes and 3D movies, thats the life of a Hollywood producer.

[ Link ]

Quick Note

2007-04-09T16:29:00.000-07:00

On my last tutorial, I have recently noticed that there are a few other tutorials out there explaining how to make a LCD computer monitor using UV maps. Before making my tutorial, I did not check to see who else created a tutorial about the subject and if I had known I would not have made it as I don't want there to be any confusion between the two nor do I want any accusations of plagiarism. I do my best and will continue to bring you creative tutorials that assist you in your 3D journey. Thanks for understanding the error.

Modeling a Flat Screen TV

2007-04-07T17:19:00.000-07:00

Are you a baller, or just a person that appreciates large scaled items that can test the limitations of the studs within your walls, well then you probably have a Flat Screen Television. These days no entertainment system these days is complete without two huge speakers and a nice plasma or LCD. So if your making mods for a social networking program such as Second Life or the Sims, my latest tutorials in a series of household products is perfect for you.

Tools:
3D Studio Max
15 Minutes or Less

Skills Highlighted:
UV Mapping
Modeling- Edit Poly

Steps

1.) Create a Box that has the dimensions: Length = 3 , Height = 5, Width = 5.

2.) Next apply an Edit Poly Modifier to the box and select Polygon under the menu. Then using while holding Ctrl, select the middle nine polygons, and then scale across them X axis.

3.) Next with those same polygons selected, select the Extrude button and Extrude the polygons just a little to create a small extrusion. (Although the click and drag method is easier if you have problems following with it, select the box next to the Extrude button, and use the numbers as your guideline. The problem when using this method is that once you stop at a number, it creates a new segment which we don't want, so with the numbers method, you have to get it right the first time or undo and start again.)

4.) Then Bevel the same polygons, and you will notice a small curvature among the edges of the polygons.

5.) Again with the same polygons selected, choose the Inset Button, and create a small inner outline of the polygons by clicking on and then dragging the polygons.

6.) Then with the same nine polygons selected, select the Extrude once again, except this time slightly Extrude inward.

7.) Now create another slight inset and extrude in once again. You are done creating the screen portion, and now for the touch ups.

8.) Select the outer edges of the TV and select chamfer to create angled edged.

9.) Reselect the front 9 polygons located in the middle of the TV and while holding shift, click on the polygons. Notice, it will ask you if you will like to clone them, and choose Clone to Object and name it Screen. Then you will see that a new object has been created, I would change the color of either one of the objects, to distinguish between the two.

10.) Now we are really going to change the color of the tv, so add a material with a diffuse color that is dark gray to the TV set.

11.) Next Add an Edit Mesh Modifier and select the polygons to the side of the TV screen. These will comprise the speakers of the TV set. Once you have selected the polygons, open th Material Editor and create material with an even darker greyish diffuse color. Then select Apply to Selection.

11.5) In a different Material Window, load a bitmap that you would like to use as the picture on your TV screen. To do this, select the box next to the Diffuse Color, and select Bitmap and choose your picture.

12.) Now select the object: Screen that we had made earlier, and apply a Unwrap UVW modifier. Then select Polygon, and then Edit under Parameters. Then the Edit UVWs window will appear and select Mapping -> Normal Mapping.

13.) You will see a pop up as below, and select Top/Bottom Mapping. The results may differ here, so experiment with the options to receive the results as shown below.

14.) Next in the drop down menu located next to the letters "UV" in the upper left hand corner, select Pick Texture, and then in the Mtl Editor select the Diffuse Color map that you created earlier containing the bitmap.

15) Now using Scale tool near the tool next to the rotate tool to transform the rectangle to contour to the picture. If you press the down arrow on the Scale tool you will see more options to scale in either th x or y direction. Use them as they will be very helpful.

16.) Now to make the base of the TV, select a polygn in the middle of the bottom of the TV. Your polygon should be in the second row of the original box. Then Extrude the polygon and then Bevel the same polygon to create the stand. Use the below pictures as a reference.

17.) Notice how the bottom portion of the stand is a quite large in relation to the television. I choose to Scale those polygons across the y axis. This choice is up to you.

18.) Finally highlight the bottom polygons and Autosmooth them. Any angle will be sufficient.

19.) Render the television, and your done.

Face-Off: Perfecting Face Modeling

2007-04-06T18:59:00.000-07:00

I like many people wish that my human models would look as realistic as possible. At the same time I have never really decided to risk the loss of control of my work and give in to buying Poser. The controversial program is highly looked down upon and would get you killed in a forum like CGTalk. However, there are solutions you can either take the time to learn or you can try another program that has captures the simplicity of Poser, but gives you the user more control. The solution is N-Sided Quigam, which is available as a free trial on the company website. I have supplied a couple tutorial links to get you started.

[ Link ]
[ Link #2 ]
[ Link #3 ]

Did TMNT kill the 3D Movie?

2007-04-03T16:18:00.000-07:00

This weekend I finally jumped on the bandwagon and finally rejoined society in the movie going experience, full of overpriced popcorn and loud teenagers playing a mean game of wedgie. What exactly brought me out of my dweling hole to experience such excitement? The Turtles. That's right, me no longer the teenager or child I once was, well into the middle portion of my twenties, went to see a movie about four turtles who can kick some serious ass.

Unfortunately, the kid's reaction to his underpants being pulled was the highlight of my night as the new Turtles in 3D were bland, humorless, and even wimpy. Maybe there something wrong with me an avid UFC fan who now laughs when a Samuel L. Jackson says "there are snakes on this motherf*ckin' plane." Was it that I had become old, and Turtles were still young.

Impossible! Afterwards, too cure my hatred of all things youthful, I went back and watched one of my favorite films of all time, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1. There on my grainy VCR, I saw my childhood heroes become human again, filled with laughter, pain, and resolve that drew your in to their . They had real skin and real eyes that let you know that there was something more to them than their catch phrases and cool moves. They had heart.

But, that was 15 years ago, and today we get our first true evaluation of 3D medium compared to animatronics and live action effects. When the Toy Story first premiered we were able to approach CG movies from a blissfull new perspective that left us clamoring for more, so much so that an entire movie studio, Pixar, was able to thrive on making 3D movies alone. Pixar brought us to worlds that could not be seen with normal camera pans and zooms. So although we asked about the movie making process, we never explored the actual movie content.

Could Toy Story be a live action movie? Of course not, but shit hasn't anyone seen the Wizard of Oz. And is it fair to ask if the Incredibles, could have been just as entertaining as a live action movie?

Can't picture it, then take a look a the Batman series of the 60's, and soon you'll see that human actors could pull it off. Need further evidence then compare the "Prince of Egypt" to "The Ten Commandments" and many 3D movies just don't compare to their human counterpart.

The message to Hollywood here is simple: don't give up on people. We created the computers, and we can act better than them too. Here's a simple rule of thumb, if the setting is not in a far away place that I can see with my naked eye, then leave the CG alone, and a sewer with ooze doesn't count.

Top 10 Must See Movies of 2008

2007-04-01T16:56:00.001-07:00

Athough we are still in the early parts of 2007, and well beyond the award season and just before the summer blockbuster bonanza, its never too late to look ahead to 2008, which looks to follow the quintessential Hollywood formula of creating sequels, remakes, and adapting comic book to the big screen. So what movies will you be looking forward too:

Honary Mentions: Babylon A.D., Speed Racer, The Mummy 3, The Incredible Hulk 2, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

10.) Iron Man

Marvel a few months ago released the Iron Man Animated Movie which was pretty well done in its use of CGI and story. But on the horizon is Iron Man the film that stars Robert Dawney Jr. When will Hollywood ever learn that you can't throw big names into a big budget movie and expect results. Dawney Jr. has only been good at two things Alcohol and Drug abuse and now he's going to abuse our eyes and ears with this film. The supporting cast includes "Its hard out here of a pimp" Terrance Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow who's last superhero movie, "Sky Captain" wasn't very good either.

The interesting part of the movie and the reason why its on this list is because we all want to see what the suit would look like. Similar to Ghost Rider, we can stomach the movie if the superhero looks cool.

9.) James Bond 22

Honestly, nothing was special about the last Bond. I would call it a breath of fresh air and Daniel Craig played Bond commendably, but its easy to do so after seeing the original Casino Royale with the best Bond to put on the suit and hold the gun. So in order to adequately judge, we have to see how he will be in the next Bond film.

8.)Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Harry Potter is growing up, and even the actors taking new roles in more explicit and adult movies. Daniel Radcliffe recently has performed nude in English theatre, and we should expect to see more roles of the same as he gets older. How will this effect the Harry Potter audience or his performance in the movies. Will he even care? That is to be seen.

7.) The Dark Knight

What was more impressive: Christian Bale's acting or the voice that he put on for the role of Batman. It seems as though the Batman franchise has learned its lesson, which the makers of Iron Man still needs to learn, go with good non mainstream actors and you will have a successful film. Heth Ledger is going to play the Joker and it is rumored that Harvey Dent will also be a part of the film. Its just too bad that Jack Nicholas was and will always be the best Joker in the history of Batman films.

6.) Watchmen

If you have not read the comic book then please torrent the word Watchmen and you will thank me later. In what many have said sparked the revolution that brought reality to the pages of comic book, the Watchmen is so dramatic that it even is listed of Time's 100 greatest novels. Here's there description:

...former crime-fighters are drawn back into action by the murder of a former teammate, The Comedian, which turns out to be the leading edge of a much wider, more disturbing conspiracy. Told with ruthless psychological realism, in fugal, overlapping plotlines and gorgeous, cinematic panels rich with repeating motifs, Watchmen is a heart-pounding, heartbreaking read and a watershed in the evolution of a young medium.—L.G.

5.) The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspin

The Chronicles of Narnia was perceived by many to be the Lord of the Rings for Christians. Disney actively invited their entire congregation from many churches to see the movie, and the box office sales skyrocketed. Will the producers "adjust" the script (the book) to satisfy fans of the movies.

4.) Star Trek XI

There is no current info on the movie, but we know that its scheduled for release in Xmas 2008. More to come.

3.) Priests

A modified Japanese Comic that's:
" The story is a vampire Western that concerns a warrior priest who disobeys church law by teaming with a young sheriff and a priestess to track down a band of renegade vampires who have kidnapped his niece."

Isn't odd how almost every movie from Japan becomes a major hit in the United States. Will this be another one.

2.) Indiana Jones 4

Years in the making, will we finally see a valiant comeback from our favorite adventurer? We will soon find out by next year as Harrison Ford reprises his role as Indiana Jones. The question will be is if he is too old to pull of the stunt work or perform with the same enthusiasm that he did. But just in case Ford needs some help, Sean Connery will once again play Professor Henry Jones, and if Connery can do what he did for Catherine Zeta Jones in Entrapment then we may see another movie in the tradition of the Indiana Jones that won 7 Academy Awards will be difficult

1.) Jurassic Park IV

What is considered the most profitable and most captivating series of the past decade, Steven Spielberg tries to right the wrong of JP3 with what is to be, Spielberg's if not movies' next great masterpiece. In 1993, we were hypnotized by the vast terrain and brilliant detail in of each Tyrannesorous Rex, and the entire film one terabyte. Since then, ILM has moved far and ahead of that point to create movies with full CGI characters and galaxies in StarWars, and the dramatic sea's in Pirates of the Caribbean.

The only drawback is that Joe Johnston, director of JP3, will also be directing this film as well. For this film to live up to the expectations it needs Spielberg to be a VERY hands on producer, as well as a better writing team.

Did you just paint: Sideshow Bob and Homer

2007-04-01T12:11:00.000-07:00

[ Link ]
[ Link ]

Did you just paint: South Park #2

2007-04-01T12:02:00.000-07:00

Matt and Tre have just released sketches of what the boys would look like if they were real. The drawings look pretty impressive but most of us want to know if any fourth grader in Colorado really sounds like Cartman.

Did you just paint: South Park #1

2007-04-01T11:54:00.000-07:00

In the recent trend to take over the Internet art scene, people all over the world are giving their own personal interpretations of what mainstream cartoon characters would look, if they were drawn in a more realistic style. One member of Deviant Art has upped the anti with their pictorial spread of the characters of South Park. We had the Simpsons and Futurama, what next the Jetsons?

[ Link ]

Stop and Go Motion Animation

2007-04-01T11:41:00.000-07:00

One of the more grueling and most difficult forms of animation, is stop and go animation because of the sheer amount of time it takes to create just a frame of animation. However, anyone with a camera, tripod, time, and most importantly an idea, anyone can create an acclaimed mini production like South Park or those old Christmas Specials. Here are two great shorts that bring home that point:

Create your own 3D World Using Active Worlds

2007-03-24T22:24:00.000-07:00

This project reminds me of many projects I've worked on in the past, where I had to create game environments and then test it out with my own 3D character. The one big drawback is that you know where everything is. However, the plus is that you know where everything is. In Active World you and your friends can explore your 3D world and also the worlds created by the other users, and this is what breaks monotony during gameplay. The site also says that you can:

* Build your own 3D virtual reality home on the Internet
* Shop online in our own 3D virtual reality mall and chat with store clerks
* Explore over 1000 unique virtual worlds
* Make new friends and chat with people from all over the globe
* Play interactive 2D and 3D games
* Choose from a vast range of avatar identities and chat with other avatars.

Personally, shopping for things that only your 3D character can use sounds like a waste of money and here is where a GTA cheat should be used to steal other people's items. Thanks EdGames for the tip .

[ Link ]

Free Film Making Resources

2007-03-24T21:24:00.000-07:00

If you had dreams of your movie becoming the next Sundance hit to receive a big budget production deal, then your in luck. I have found some sites that can help you do just about everything except for casting, writing, and gaining publicity for your film. This video is 8 minutes long and shows you how to edit your movies using Sony Vegas Movie Studio.

The next site is for as the name says Guerrilla Filmmakers only. The guide isn't really a guide but a brief synopsis of each step in the process and is good for anyone in need of a quick review of their High School Film Class.

[ Link ]