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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Exercise 8 - Customized Car
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View Online:
Customized Car

Name: Den Dotson

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

Instructor: Rodney (Head Mechanic) and that guy on the web tutorials

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement: Easy as a Sunday drive

Here is a link to the seventh completed exercise:

Included in post as image

Thanks Rodney,
-Den

Everytime I see the results of Exercise 8 it makes me want to race cars.

Vrrroooooooooom!

Go Den Go!

Name: Chris Thom

Exercises Completed: 8 of 19 (though I've skipped 7, but I'm coming back to it!)
Date Completed: April 15, 2005
Instructor: AoA:M & Lee Iacocca
Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement: I have been doing most of the exercises so far based solely on the book but this time I watched the video also and I noticed that they didn't do everything the same. So I did a hybrid of the two.

BTW, I did a refit and mine is a hybrid car. Better mileage you know.

Hey Chris,
Your background reminds me of Rodger Reynolds superb modeling.

You said:

Hey Chris, how'd you do the background?

Name: Tom Jansen
Exercise: #8 Custom Car
Date: April 25, 2005
Comments:
Um... what in the world is going on around my car doors? All of those black little lines appeared when I rendered this, and I haven't even started messing with lighting let. Anyone have any ideas? Might it have something to do with the surface settings of the car body??

Thanks!
-Tom

Tom,
Those lines are a part of the pixelization and distortion of the decal image applied to the car. As this exercise is fairly basic there are a few Exercise Extenders (TM!) that are designed to explore this area a little more.

The additional background and props that Chris and you have added in your scenes really demonstrates your eye for detail. An excellent way to get the most out of these exercises.

...and speaking of v12 CDs...

As an extension to Exercise 8 don't forget there are other cars (and models) to which we can apply distortion. The attached image shows a few of the vehicles from the Cars folder.

Rodney,

Ok, whew...

Just making sure I'm understanding what you are saying. Basically, the stretching and pulling of the model (with the attached decal) is causing that distortion? So really, for this particular exercise, using this particular model, that phenomenon is normal and to be expected to an extent (depending on the way you alter this car), right?

Hehe.. I was getting worried that KeeKat's, um.... "pimped up" ride was starting to rust out on him! :-)

Thanks a million!
-Tom

Name: Tenez Waggoner
Excercise Completed: 8 Customized Car
Date Completed: May 19, 2005
Remarks/Suggestions: This one was a breeze. So I had to add something to it. I noticed others adding characters, so I decided to add one as well. I noticed this very sexy looking woman character, and HAD to add her. Then I added keekat for the pimp factor.

Keekat has gotten entirely out of control.
Good job!

Name: Leo Mitchell

Excerise # 8

Completed: 25 May 2005

Instructor: Web tuts and manual

Acknowledging some of your exercises out of order as I can't view MOV files just now.

As they say... "This one is history!"

Name: Paula Waslen

Exercise Completed: #7 Customized Car

Date Completed: Jun 11, 2005

Mine is very boring compared to the others...but I am anxious to move on to the more interesting modeling exercises.

Name: Steve Nicholas

Exercise 8: custom car

Remarks: a very quick and easy lesson, so here is my my boring picture.

Name: Doug Fall

Exercises Completed: Eight (yea! I made it to part 2!)

Date Completed: June 22, 2005

Instructor: Rodney and the ol' book

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement: This one took a lot less than the others. Not much to add here...

Paula, Steve and Doug,
This exercise is pretty straightforward but there is a lot of power in that distortion cage. This also makes for a good introduction to modeling as you can often adapt one model to the purposes of another. Stretch here a little... distort there a little... on and on 'til perfection.

Now concerning this exercise... I hope to add an Exercise 8.5 someday that applies the animated distortion cage to create great exagerated motion with this car. There aren't a lot of tutorials out there on animated distortion cages so that needs to be a higher priority I'd say.

At any rate... on to the next exercise!

Name: Zev Eisenberg
Exercise Completed: Exercise 8 "Customized Car"
Date Competed: 9 July 2005
Remarks/Suggestions: Into the Broccoli Mobile, Batman!

Nice.

I love A:M's distortion cage. You can really make models exactly to fit.
Its like working with clay.

Name: Doug Wills
Exercise completed: Customized car
Date completed: 8/6
Instructor: Book and web tutorial

Basic, but informative.

Anyone wanna race?

Didn't spend a lot of time on this but the concepts are good to understand. Used a little of the ",", "." and "/" keys which some hiding and unhiding. It really helps. Saw the use of distortion cages on one of the SIGGRAPH videos. Can't wait for your 8.5.

-Doug Wills
Where there's a Wills, there's a way!

name: Linda s. Hill
ex completed: ex 8 Customized Car
date completed: 8/23/2005
Instructor: Den Dotson

Distortion is fun. Good job Linda!
Come back later when we explore animated distortion... k?

Rodney

Name : Erik Kirschberg

Excercise: #8 Customized car

Date Complete 9/11/05

Instructor: A:M Community

Name: Melissa "Elissa" Heldenbergh

Exercises Completed: 8

Date Completed: Sept 12th, 2005

Instructor: A few years of A:M use, the book, and web tutorials, plus also doing the mentor program with Paul Daley.

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement:
This quick and fun exercise has always been one of my favorites... cute, fun, silly and let's you start poking around with models.

Name : Chris Wheeler

Excercise: #8 Customized car

Date Complete 9/14/05

Instructor: A:M Community

Yay Pimped my ride!

"Hulk Smash"

Sigh. When will we learn... Violence is not the answer.

Very innovative use of distortion Mark!

Names: James Owens
Exercises Complete: 1-8
Date Compelted: 14 October 2005

[attachmentid=10152]

Names: Dhar Jabouri
Exercises Complete: 1-8
Date Compelted: 22 October 2005

Now we are starting to see some real variation in the theme.
Nice personal touches James and Dhar.

You get extra credit if you share your finished model with decals in a zipfile.
We'll collect 'em if you share 'em.

Rodney

Name: Eric Goesch

Excercise: #8 Customized car

Date completed: 10/24/05

Completed with help of: AM , AM forum, "The Art of Animation Master", and David Rogers 2002 AM Guide.

Comments: Started Tweakin and look what happend

ame: John Kuepper

Exercises Completed:lesson 7
Date Completed: oct 24, 2005

Instructor: all kinds

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement: just did the tut

Greetings Rodney,
Jumped out of order a little to get some modeling exercise in while I could.....

Name: Rich Gelles
Course completed 8
date completed : novemember 5 05

[attachmentid=10792]

Name: Splinesmith(Kurt Lange)

Exercises Completed:8

Instructor:the manual.

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

Name:Marc Vancouillie
Exercise completed #8 customised car
Date completed 11/16/05

Remarks:This exercise was a very easy one.So I added some
more things.
I have noticed that A.M. v.12 refuses for some reason to
render to a tga or quicktime file.When I make a choice in the menu
it always jumps back to "Image file" the default setting.It makes
then a avi file of one image.
I overcome this for the moment by rendering in version 11.1

Instructor:t.a.o.AM book,learning video on the hash side and reading
in this topic what people have done before me.[attachmentid=11253]

Marc,
OUTSTANDING!

Now that is what I'm talking about. This is the direction we are hoping to take all of the exercises... the emphasis on storytelling. You've nailed this one!

There is a work in progress (additional exercises/mini-tutorials) that hopefully will go with this one some day. For now I'm calling them collectively; "The Race is On!". It is a collection of concepts... a kind of 'What we've covered thus far' that incorporates model/choreography setup, path animation; model and animation distortion, decaling and more with storytelling of course taking place in a great car race. At the end of the exercises everyone has a mini-movie of sorts created. In theory each time someone finishes "The Race is On" they've created a new episode in the ongoing series. Who knows if it ever becomes popular it might someday grow up to be an official exercise.

In other news you said:


I'm sure you aren't the only one that has noticed this particular issue with rendering.
You can render in v12 of course but you have to (generally) change the image type in both the File Type and the File Name areas. I started to do a test with the standard render panel and it looked like the settings were staying there. Maybe it is just the Advanced Render Panel that has this problem?

At any rate... that is probably one for A:M Reports.
Thanks for making me smile with this one.

Eric, John, Rich and Kurt,
Congrats on completing this one too. Some nice personalization there.
If you haven't already done it I encourage you to investigate animated distortion cages too! Tres cool!

Rodney

Wait a second! Where's Rudolph?

Hello Dhar,
Rudolph has'nt a red nose any more.He has joined AA and is sober since a couple of months
Did'nt you know that ?

Name: Douglas Karpp
Exercise Completed: Exercise 8, Custom Car
Date Completed: December 13, 2005

Here is my custom car. The decal seems to have become distorted, unfortunately.

doug

[attachmentid=12267]

Name: Jody Krivohlavek

Exercise Completed: Exercise 8

Date Completed: December 31, 2005

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

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement:
I grabbed the car I felt was already cool and did some extra customization to it.

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

i'm such a big fan of war of the worlds that when i did the custom car i just had to put red weed on it

[attachmentid=12796]

Name:Ross Klettke
Exercise completed: #8
Date completed: 1-19-06

Name: Micah Jank

Exercise completed: #8 Custom Car

Date completed: January 21, 2006

Commets: I call it a limmo convertable......

Mike Dalton
Project 8
Completed: Feb 16th 2006



"Flying Car"