Note: Users of A:M 2006 (Yeti CD) please read information at this link for more on troubleshooting a problem with the Knight's knees. Read about it HERE .

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 III: Technical Directors Training


TECHNICAL DIRECTORS TRAINING
14 - Playing Marble (Materials)
15 - Eat My Dust (Volumetrics)
16 - Smoke, Wind, and Fire (Particles)
17 - Cosmic Bowling (Dynamics)
18 - Waving the Flag (Cloth)
19 - Flying South (Flocks)

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Exercise 15: Eat My Dust
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View the online video:
Web (3MB)

Download:
Zip (2.8MB)

Name:  Den Dotson

Exercises Completed:  Fifteen
Date Completed:  Wednesday April 6, 2005

Instructor:  Rodney (ready to hit the dusty) and that guy on the web tutorials kinda gettin used to the new web guy

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement: No comments.

Here is a link to the 15th completed exercise with the night strutting his dusty stuff (dust cranked up to show on web):

http://homepage.mac.com/animateden/hash/eatMyDustsm.mov

Thanks Rodney,
-Den

Name: Tom Jansen
Exercise: #15 Eat My Dust
Date: May 3rd, 2005
Comments: I scaled down the dust a little bit, since, unless you are "Pig-Pen" from the Peanuts cartoons, how often do you really kick up THAT much dust with each footstep?
Here's my clip:

http://cybersummit.org/AM/Ex15.mov

Thanks!
-Tommy

Hehe.

That actually scared me! Not the animation... that was cool.
While waiting for it to download I went back to reading forum posts...
Right in the middle of answering a post the scratchy walking sound started followed by the laugh... and I thought... what the heck???

I thought my answering machine on my desk was possessed or something.
Good thing I remembered I had opened your movie or else I'd still be afraid to go near my desk!

Now that I'm recovering... I'll go back and watch a few more times.
Nice touch! Ypu make this animation stuff look easy.

Hehe.. sorry for the startle!

I couldn't help but add KeeKat into the scene. I was watching the Knight "resolutely" walk... and kept thinking he looked like someone had just given him a big wedgie!

Then I started laughing... so I thought KeeKat would find it just as funny as I did, so he had to laugh and point too!


Ahhh.... I'm so easily amused!
-Tommy

Name: Tenez Waggoner
Excercise Completed: Eat My Dust
Date Completed: May 25, 2005
Remarks/suggestions: I was going to go back and render a longer one, but I lost the project. Keep forgetting to save before I close the window. Oh well.

Boom. You nailed this one too.
Fastest exerciser seen thus far.

Name: Leo Mitchell
Exercise Completed: #15 Dust Volumetrics
Date Completed: 08 June 05
Instructor: Web tut guy
Comments: Quick and to the point. I alway like clear discussions when dealing with effects.

Eat my Dust

I'm trying to do this exercise and I'm finding that the knight's feet are twisted when I apply the walk cycle in an action. I had the same thing with some of the other models. Any idea why this is happening? Can I download or get a different version somewhere else? I am using V11.1.

Paula,
You might try turning off Inverse Kinetics. Sometimes that can be a chore to work with.

You should find the switch in User Properties.

Thanks for the reply Rodney. If I turn off the IK, the walk doesn't work. In any case, I reloaded both action and model from the CD and only the right foot was twisted. I easily fixed that, so here is my exercise:

Name: Paula Waslen

Exercise Completed: #15 Eat My Dust

Date Completed: Jun 21, 2005

This was a very straight forward exercise and something I had never done before.

Eat My Dust

Name : Erik Kirschberg

Exercise Completed : # 15 Eat My Dust

Date Completed 9/16/05

Instructor : Web Tutorial

Name : Chris Wheeler

Exercise Completed : # 15 Eat My Dust

Date Completed 10/06/05

Instructor : Web Tutorial

Ok I created a new "zombie walk" action for the night, rendered a test (see attachment) Ok good, dust!

Then decided to drop Nighty into the wharehouse scene from the AM cd folder. Rendered 4 secs worth- eatmydust

Owe noe! No dust! So I scaled nighty down a bit when I dropped him in there and checked that particles was on.......so what did I do wrong?
Chris

Name: Melissa "Elissa" Heldenbergh

Exercises Completed: 15

Date Completed: Oct 14th, 2005

Instructor: A few years of A:M use, the book, and web tutorials, plus also doing the mentor program with Paul Daley. David Rogers book... Jeff Lew's DVD.

Comments: I swear this tutorial refused to work in version that shall not be named. (cough, cough v9.0 & v9.5), but those dark days are behind us.

Name: Dhar Jabouri

Exercises Completed: 15

Date Completed: Oct 30th, 2005

Instructor: Online Tutorials
Comments: Short and to the point

Names: James A. Owens
Exercises Completed: 1-10, 12-19
Date Completed: 22 October 2005

[attachmentid=10739]

Names: John Kuepper
Exercises Completed: 15
Date Completed: Nov 9, 2005

Name:Marc Vancouillie
Exercise completed #15 Eat my dust
Date completed 11/30/05



Instructor:t.a.o.AM book and reading
in this topic what people have done before me.


[attachmentid=11811]

Name: Douglas Karpp
Exercise: Exercise 15: Eat My Dust
Date Completed: December 24, 2005

[attachmentid=12592]

Name: Splinesmith(Kurt Lange)

Exercises Completed:19

Instructor:the manual.


Remarks/Suggestions for improvement:
I forgot to post this when I did this a few days ago.

Name: Jody Krivohlavek

Exercise Completed: Exercise 15

Date Completed: January 3, 2006

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

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement:
Had fun playing with this... still don't have the motion quite right, but I'm eager to get on with the next lesson.

Name: Ross Klettke
Exer completed: #15
Date completed: 1-23-06

remarks: The knees on the knight got twisted around at times at it played through the resolute walk cycle, so I had to flip them around on some keyframes.

Name: Micah Jank

Exercise completed: #15

Date Completed: January 24, 2006

remarks: a little Fast but overall i think it turned out well.

Name: Claudio Ravenstein (fybs)
Exercise completed: 15 Eat My Dust
Date completed: 28. February 2006
Instructor: The handbook

Had problems with the knights legs so I used incredible hulk instead.
Fybs.


Name: Claudio Ravenstein (fybs)
Exercise completed: 15 Eat My Dust
Date completed: 28. February 2006
Instructor: The handbook

Had problems with the knights legs so I used incredible hulk instead.
Fybs.

Mike Dalton
Exercises Completed: 15
Date Completed: March 8th 2006

Thats is really good!

Done with Exercise 15

Name: Bob Koonce

Exercise Completed: Eat My Dust

Date Completed: 3-21-06

Instructor: Individuals on forum, TAoA:M, Video tutorials, and other material.

Remarks/Suggestions for improvement: None at this time

Any comments or constructive criticism will be appreciated.

Thankx,
Bob Koonce

Great Job Bob. Keep up the work. Your almost done.

Leo

Thanks Leo 5 more to go.
Having trobles with the Giraffe though

Bob Koonce

Name: Stephen Molloy

Exercise: #15

Date: March 31, 2006

Instructor: Wed video

Remarks: this is done with two actions (resolute walk and trip )...i put the dust in both actions ( making dust 1 and 2 ) this was a mistake ......i found the dusts where overlaping and had to hunt around to cut out dust 2 for the first second and cut out dust 1 from the last second. next time i think just add dust to the chro that would have been easier. (That's after walking away for a day and come back to the project lol)

Excellent Stephen. It's seeing people taking the exercises and adding to them to make it better. Keep it up, you are doing great.

Thanks Leo

i'm just having a great time doing them.

i was finishing the cloth exercise, i grouped the flag wrong ...when i selected the cloth group i couldn't right click on it ...so i just group the whole flag myself ...i set the wind and run the sim ...the flag blow off and hit the ground .....hehehe even mistakes are fun.

SM

name: sam wiley

Comments/suggestions: A:M dose not seem to be vary good with the dust volumetrics

[attachmentid=16372]

Name: James M Glover

Exercise Completed: Example 15
Post the results of your work in the New Users Forum under the specific exercise topic.

Date Completed: 31 July, 2006

[attachmentid=19075]

Good job James, I like the way you changed it up and used a different character and put it in a scene.

Name: Glen Clarkson
Exercise Completed: 15 Eat My Dust
Date Completed 8/22/2006


Knight with white dust.

I could almost hear footsteps during that.
(pound. pound. pound.)

Nice job!

John Bailey
Exercise 15: Eat My Dust
August 25, 2006

[attachmentid=20001]

http://media.putfile.com/Thom--Knight

Couldn't resist this!

JohnnyB

Name: Shane O'Sullivan

Exercise Completed: Exercise 15


Date Completed: September 26, 2006

Instructor: None / Manual and Online Video tutorial

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement:

exercise15

Yeah ! , heavy duty walk cycle.
very good, lotta attitude there.

Great dust clouds and a foot stomping walk.

The only thing I noticed was that she sinks into the ground. With each step part of her foot disappears. You could probably fix it by going into bones mode, select the path and from a front view, tap the up arrow until her feet are above ground.

That's the only suggestion I could come up with. Good job.

JohnnyB

Actually my original idea was feet sinking into sand/dirt but changed my mind and forgot to raise her again

Name: Al Dinelt
Exercise Completed: Exercise 15: Eat My Dust
Date Completed: October 26, 2006
Instructor: TAoA:M

Here is my attempt for exercise 15. The knight didn't want to cooperate with the resolute walk, so I used the Hero Dude instead. Just needed to fix the arm movement.

One thing I noticed is that when I did the initial single pass of the video, the dust clouds were nice and white and quite visible. However, when I did the final multi pass of the video, the dust clouds all but disappeared. Anyone know how to make the clouds more visible?

Thanks...
Al

[attachmentid=21733] [attachmentid=21732]

Hey Al,

I love the Hero dude walk. It fits him perfectly!!!

I had the same problem when I rendered my CGI X-Wing shot. Because I was pressed for time, I had to settle with a single pass.

I never tried it but I contemplated maybe increasing the density of the dust so that when the multi-pass did it's blending, it would smoothen out.

Here's my X-Wing take. If you look close at the nose as the X-Wing falls, you'll see the dust. I deliberately kept it subtle.

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?act=A...st&id=21470

George

EXERCISE #15

ANIMATED BY: KEITH (BUDDHABUCK)

COMPLETED: 11/05/06

COMPLETION TIME: 30 MIN.

Name: Caroline Begbie
Exercise: Exercise 15 - Eat My Dust
Date Completed: 25th November 2006

Here's the knight:
[attachmentid=22544]
What I learned:
I think if you put the volumetric directly into the choreography, it works more predictably then when you have it in an action then the chor. I had no multipass issues when I transferred my dust out of the action and into the choreography.

And if you're rendering with multipass=off, then the dust is white, but when you put multipass on, the dust takes the colour that you set.

Here's my little volumetric fun:
[attachmentid=22545]

lol nice job man!!!

Caroline,
Another superb take on an exercise. Outstanding!

Great information on the coloring of dust and effects if used in Action or Chor.
I need to investigate that. You may have discovered a bug.

Name: Joseph Gamblin (Achilles Desire)

Exercise Completed: Exercise 15


Date Completed: January 22, 2007

Instructor: None / Just the book

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement:

Anyone ever seen Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within? It always drove me nuts how the characters were stomping around in ruined cities for half the movie, and there's almost zero dust!

About the exercise, I really wasn't too happy with the outcome. I really do think that you would get better effects by using a particle emitter in the shape of the foot and animate it so that you get some better directional control over the dust. First of all, it seems like the dust is coming up thru the foot. what should happen instead is when the heel is just coming down, the dust should be rushing towards the front of the foot, and then as the foot pushes off, it should kick out the back.

However, I still think that the dust has its uses. You now the kickup from a jet's straffing run that we've al seen in the movies? This would work great for that.

Oh, and I used the hulk instead and just used a little clip. Like I said, I wasn't happy with the results, but I'm too lazy to do it right, esp. when I'm this close to the finishing line.
Click to view attachment

[quote name='Achilles Desire' date='Jan 22 2007, 05:30 AM' post='215444']
Name: Joseph Gamblin (Achilles Desire)

Exercise Completed: Exercise 15


Date Completed: January 22, 2007

Instructor: None / Just the book

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement:

Anyone ever seen Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within? It always drove me nuts how the characters were stomping around in ruined cities for half the movie, and there's almost zero dust!

About the exercise, I really wasn't too happy with the outcome. I really do think that you would get better effects by using a particle emitter in the shape of the foot and animate it so that you get some better directional control over the dust. First of all, it seems like the dust is coming up thru the foot. what should happen instead is when the heel is just coming down, the dust should be rushing towards the front of the foot, and then as the foot pushes off, it should kick out the back.

However, I still think that the dust has its uses. You now the kickup from a jet's straffing run that we've al seen in the movies? This would work great for that.

Oh, and I used the hulk instead and just used a little clip. Like I said, I wasn't happy with the results, but I'm too lazy to do it right, esp. when I'm this close to the finishing line.
Click to view attachment