The Art of Animation:Master (Online)

Please add your exerices to this topic and others will join in.

The Art of Animation:Master is being completed on a continual basis in the New Users Forum. Meeting deadlines can be an important skill to master early on but this course is self paced to allow each person the flexibility they need to learn the basics of Animation:Master. The course can be completed in as little time as necessary or as much as is needed by each participant.

Note: You may want to download the videos first.
All available Video Tutorials related to TAOA:M can be found on one page:
The Art of Animation Master Video Tutorials

The Art of Animation Master Part II: Modeling

MODELING TAKES TALENT
8 - Customized Car
9 - Flower Power
10 - FW-190 Fighter
11 - Giraffe (No available video tutorial)
12 - Lip Poses
13 - Show Some Backbone (Adding a Skeleton)

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The Art of Animation:Master
Exercise 9: "Flower Power"
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View online in two parts:
Part1 (11.7MB)

Part2 (16.4MB)

...or download both in a compressed ZIP file:
zip
(26.7MB)

Name: Den Dotson

Exercises Completed: Nine
Date Completed: Tuesday March 22, 2005

Instructor: Rodney (Gardener Supreme) and that guy on the web tutorials

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement: Like pushing up daisies

Here is a link to the ninth completed exercise:

Included in post

Thanks Rodney,
-Den

Nice animation Den!

There's power in this simple flower.
Exercise 9 covers some powerful aspects of modeling with splines. They are simple... yet basic skills you'll want to master early on.

For those that want to delve further into the basic skills taught in Exercise 9 please explore the following resources:

Lathing
-- View Advanced Lathing Methodologies

Attaching Control Points (CPs)

Adjusting Bias-- View Modeling an Umbrella / Adjusting Alphas - by Moscafilms

Copy and Paste
Tip: Use Control C to Copy and Control V to Paste in modeling windows

Group Rotation (and Pivot control)

Operation of the Duplicator Wizard
-- View Tech Talk - Duplicator Wizard Hash Inc creates flowers, screws, and staircases
-- View Creating Sea Shells with the Duplicator Wizard by Robcat! Try it... It's Fun!
-- View Modeling a wire basket by Jon Wofford

Basic Bones Hierarchy

CP to Bone assignments

Smartskin

Name: Chris Thom
Exercises Completed: 9 of 19
Date Completed: April 17, 2005
Instructor: Whomever will give me the time
Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement: I'm curious as to when you would actually use the automatic bone assignment. In spite of the temptation I wont sing "Daisy, Daisy give me your answer do."

Now that was a friendly flower.

ChrisThom said:

well, that makes sense.

I just they had a way that would set the bones automatically for you.

Name: Tom Jansen
Exercise: #9 Flower Power
Date Completed: April 26th, 2005
Comments: hehe... resisting urge to put a smiley face on the flower ;-)

-Tom

Name: Tenez Waggoner
Excercise Completed: 9 Flower Power
Date Completed: May 20, 2005
Remarks/Suggestions: Hmm. Not much to say about this one. Went relatively smooth. One thing, I wanted to have a giant bee, but couldn't find one. And I don't know how to make one. So I just took the only bug I could find. I think it works.

Poor flower.

That ain't no bug.... look closer. It's a freakin' spaceship!
No wonder he's scared. Luckily there is no driver.

Good job Tenez!

I know you are heavy into the exercises but definitely take the time to review the information at the above links concerning the duplicator wizard. Good stuff!

Name: Leo Mitchell

Exercise # 9

Completed: 25 May 2005

Instructor: Web tuts and manual

From Tenez's scared flower to your sad one we are getting all the emotions represented.

Good job Leo.

Name: Paula Waslen

Exercise Completed: #9 Flower Power

Date Completed: Jun 11, 2005

Although I knew most of the modeling techniques from this one, I did learn about the duplicate wizard.

Name: Steve Nicholas

Exercise: #9, Flower Power

Instructor: the manual

Remarks: went pretty good, the only problem I had initially was the picture in the manual of the duplicate dialog has the copy and extrude switches reverse of how they actually are. The petals looked mighty strange extruded! Otherwise, I'm very impressed with how easy the modelling and rigging was, even though it's not a complicated model. It gives me hope for the future! It even made my flowers boogie down!

Paula said:

Steve,
That is outstanding! You really went above and beyond on this one.
Playing music for your flowers really appears to work wonders.

Bravo!

Name: Zev Eisenberg
Exercise Completed: Exercise 9 "Flower Power"
Date Competed: 10 July 2005
Remarks/Suggestions: w00t. My life is fulfilled. now on to the next big thing. Actually, it seems that the tutorial is missing something. Didn't it use to include a bit on coloring the flower? Also, why aren't my petals casting shadows? I made them full closed 3D objects. Strange...
-Zev

Very nice Zev,

I think you are correct about the earlier exercise covering Named Groups and colors. The current manual shows the named groups colored but not going through the process. My memory of named groups is overridden by Jeff Cantin's SIGGRAPH Tutorial though. He did an outstanding job of covering the basics.

Concerning the shadow.
Is it possible that you have your normals inverted... would that even do it?

Unsure...

Yes, the normals were flipped- but that wasn't it. The normals were also flipped on the leaves. They're the same geometry as the petals. I flipped the normals, and nothing happened. Here's the prj.
-Zev

Name: Doug Wills
Exercise completed: Flower Power
Date completed: 8/7
Instructor: Book and web video


Fun little ditty. Glad to do it because my wife is a daisy nut and has a lot of ideas she wants me to produce with talking and dancing daisy's. At least it will be good practice and it means that I can stay on the computer playing with A:M if I agree to do it. ;-)


By the way, I am noticing that on many of the videos, this one included, that the audio loses sync with the video about half way through (not on most stuff, just the tutorials.) It becomes a big pain trying to line the screen display up with the audio to catch things, especially the smaller details. Is it just me, or are others experiencing it too. If it's just me, anyone have any ideas on a solution?

Thanks

Name:KD
Excercise: #9 Flower Power
Date: 5th of August 2005
Instructor: Rodney.. =)

heyllo~

just became an a:m member and loving it =)

here's my attempt. not done.. heh

can anyone help me on how to model a background? thank you!

ATTACHED FILE

Flower

name: Linda s. Hill
ex completed: ex 9 Flower Power
date completed: 8/23/2005
Instructor: Den Dotson

The drama... the pathos... that flower sure knows how to act.
You make animation look fun Linda. Keep it up!

Rodney

Name : Erik Kirschberg

Excercise : #7 Flower Power

Date Completed 9/11/05

Instructor : A:M Community

Name: Melissa "Elissa" Heldenbergh

Exercises Completed: 9

Date Completed: Nov 23th 2003/Sept 13th, 2005

Instructor: A few years of A:M use, the book, and web tutorials, plus also doing the mentor program with Paul Daley. Have I be forgetting David Roger's book? That too!

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement:
Original the modeling and rigging of this flower confused me, after Hash put up the video tutorial *insert angels singing* I went back and did it from scratch. Simply niffy, that's right niffy.

Oops skipped one exercise- I will go back tomorrow.

name: Chris Wheeler
ex completed: ex 9 Flower Power
date completed: well today - but started ages ago
Instructor:modeling with thanks to anyone one the community who ever commented - and Sherwood's forest!

dandelion movie

Heres my flower- well a weed actually - I resurected it from quite a while ago

Dandelion model for the comunity

Anyone can use it for any project, if they so wish, just let me know.

Nothing fancy...no frills...just the exercise

Awesome dandelion, Chris

Linda Bridges
Flower Power
August 30, 2005
Instructor: Den Dotson[attachmentid=9769]

Names: James Owens
Exercises complete: 1-9
Date Completed: 14 October 2005

I don't know why, but all of the sudden, I got fasinated with the mirror effect.
[attachmentid=10156]

Names: Dhar Jabouri
Exercises complete: 1-9
Date Completed: 22 October 2005

Such a simple thing... a flower. Yet everyone adds their own creativity and it becomes art.
Very nice everyone!

Rodney

Name: John Kuepper

Exercises Completed:lesson 9
Date Completed: oct 24, 2005

Instructor: all kinds

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement: just did the tut

Thanks John!

Greetings Rodney,
This Tut was really outstanding. I realy enjoyed the step by step instructions which for me is really helpful being brand new at AM. Most say I am impressed with bones system of AM...that auto assign thingy is very cool for sure but know as one porgresses to more complex models one will have to assign manually......


Name: Rich Gelles
Course Completed : Exercise 9 Flower Power
date completed 11/06/05
[attachmentid=10805]

Name:Marc Vancouillie
Exercise completed #9 flower power
Date completed 11/16/05



Instructor:t.a.o.AM book,learning video on the hash side and reading
in this topic what people have done before me.[attachmentid=11258]

When I copy and paste the leaf when I give it a color then put it in shaded mode 25% of the color is gone.
What is wrong?

Thanks in advance

We are going to need a bit more info to figure that one out.

Are you guessing that 25% of the color is gone? As in transparency?
Are there parts of your leaf missing?

If its missing parts perhaps you didn't get all the Control Points selected before you copied.
If it is in the color only... we'll need to know more.

Can you upload an image of the problem?

Rodney

I am having upload problems. This is a test file.

No problem here. It's the solar system.

Make sure your file size is under 1 megabyte.

Here it is Rodney.

I figured it out. Thanks for your time.

Name: Splinesmith(Kurt Lange)

Exercises Completed:9

Instructor:the manual.

Remarks/Suggestions for improvement:
The background is something I created.

Name: Douglas Karpp
Exercise: Exercise 9: Flower Power
Date Completed: December 13, 2005

Sorry, it's an animation instead of a still.

[attachmentid=12272]

Name: Jody Krivohlavek

Exercise Completed: Exercise 9

Date Completed: January 1, 2006 (HAPPY NEW YEAR!)

Instructor: AM Handbook, Video Tutorial and everyone that's ever posted to these forums.
(Been around since the Playmation days )

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement:
Just can't seem to put this stuff down tonight/this morning.

Happy New Year everyone! Blessings to your families from mine.

Name: Eric Goesch

Excercise Completed: 9

Date Completed: 01/06/06

http://home.comcast.net/~pyglesias03/flower.avi

Whoa - that is sweet

You gotta tell me how you can upload movies on Comcast. I know you told me before and I tried it but never worked.

Please?

Name: Ross Klettke
Exercise completed- 9
date completed- 1-20-06

Name: Micah Jank

Exercise Completed: Exercise 9, FLower Power

Date Completed: January 24, 2006

Instructor: None

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement: Well i cant really think of any...but hope you guys can give me some info!

Name: Claudio Ravenstein (fybs)
Exercise completed: 9 Flower Power
Date completed: 2. February 2006
Instructor: The book

I have finished the flower. It is strange how a spline opens up slightly when the flower bends, but otherwise I am happy with it. It was a fun introduction about how to model and setting bones in Animation Master.

Fybs.

Its funny I can't upload the quicktime movie....what a shame....Maybe its a timeout error or something...
Here is a jpeg of the flower.