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New directions

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New directions

Several weeks ago I got an email from a guy in the midwest whose family does an annual motorcycle run to raise money for MS. He decided to do a better t-shirt than usual, and asked if I'd donate my work for the shirt. I guess he found me on the internet. So we started trading emails and working out some ideas:

Here's a page of samples I worked up for him. We still haven't settled on anything, and I haven't heard from him in a few weeks, but I've learned a lot in the process. Plus, an uncle of mine who does a bit of music suggested I cover myself by doing a licensing agreement with the guy.

After a few attempts at matching 3D and 2D, I decided to give 3D a shot for my biker characters and their bikes. I've had a great time with it, using free software. I'm learning Hash AM now. I've heard some trash talked about AM around here, but I'm liking what it's doing for me now. This piece was done with the free software. I also got permission from a band on the Central Coast to use their music, which is pretty cool.

Got a few other things in the bag, and I'm working less hours this summer which will hopefully give me more time to work on these things. We'll see.

Haven't been around much lately, thought I'd pop in and share a thing or two. Enjoy.

rupertpiston's picture
Cartoon Thunder There's a little biker in all of us...

Cartoon Thunder
There's a little biker in all of us...

Animation Master rocks

:) I have been using Maya and Animation Master. I'll tell you, if you cannot afford to drop $6,000 on Maya, dropping $300 on Animation Master is not a bad trade off. I have found that animation wise, you can do pretty much everything you do in Maya easier in Animation Master. It makes it so you don't have to become a programmer, and you can be an artist, and get straight to the animating. Animation Master is simple to use, and it has cloth and hair now, just like Maya. There are more tools to make modeling easier in Maya, but when using splines, you don't need to have all those tools to correct the geometry problems from poly's or nurbs. Also texturing is a breeze in Animation Master. Animation Master isn't industry standard, and I think that's why it has a bad rep. It'll come around though, give it a try. :)

Incidentally, Maya Complete (all the Maya anyone but a studio would ever need and then some) is just under 2 grand for version 7 and academic licenses go from 250-350 depending on the version.

I'm pretty much a Maya guy, but the companies I work for provide the copies of it. I've seen some pretty good animations coming A:M/Hash. Maya offers plenty of other tools but it's mostly developed for the larger studios that can afford to keep TD's on board. A:M has everything the independent artist needs to create a good animation.

While working on my own projects, sometimes I find myself being overwhelmed by the number of tools and possiblities in Maya and loose focus of working on the animation at hand. It's part of the reason I'm taking a second look at Flash. Simplicity can often inspire the artist more than too many possibilities.

I forgot what the question was...

Oh, yeah. Nice work. Don't forget shadows on your 3D stuff. It'll help take some of the edge off the 3d stuff if you add in a soft shadow (and help connect it with the ground).

Producing solidily ok animation since 2001.
www.galaxy12.com

Now with more doodling!
www.galaxy12.com/latenight

you're the bikemaster

great drawing!

if you like you can turn the front wheel
slightly towards cam, to give it more volume perspective-
wise. that might also bring out the other handle behind,
to give it more silhouette.

as it is, it's great.

incidentally, didn't understand organic modelling until I
came across AM. the only reason I switched to 3dsmax
was because it has the same spline-based modelling.

it did crash on me occasionally, which prolly gave it
its bad rap, stability issues and stuff. but for 300, like you
said, they're up there with my favorites with trueSpace.

and don't forget that 3d guy who went to pixar with an AM
demo reel.

Don't worry.  All shall be well.