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 17: Cosmic Bowling
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View the online video:
Web (4.6MB)

Download:
Zip (2.8MB)

Name:  Den Dotson

Exercises Completed:  Seventeen
Date Completed:  Friday April 8, 2005

Instructor:  Rodney (my Bowling Buddy) and that guy on the web tutorials still kinda gettin used to the new web guy

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement: Need to find a way to make the ball roll the whole way.

Here is a link to the 17th completed exercise:

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

Thanks Rodney,
-Den

Now we are rolling...

I just couldn't leave this one alone until I got the ball rolling. Keep prepping that certificate I can smell the ink on it from here.

Here is a link to the rolling version of the Cosmic Bowling Exercise.

http://homepage.mac.com/animateden/hash/CosmicBowling04s.mov

Thanks Rodney,
-Den

Gahh... I'm stuck in a place I can't see your movie... but I will first thing in the morning.

Pardon me while I try to distract you so I get more time to personalize your certificate.

Nice one, animatedene and I expect anyone who`s watch`d it will wonder as to how you made the spining ball?

Den,
Now that is how you bowl! Nice spin on that one.

Now you have to tell everyone your secret.

Ah you want secrets....

Here ya go it is really more about math and patience than anything else. I keyframed the animation on top of the already running dynamic simulation.

I decided a bowling ball should rotate about three times a second. That is a complete rotation every ten frames. So I did some math. On each frame I added 36 degrees to the ball's X rotation.

It took awhile but in the end it worked the best. I tried an action and it didn't look right. The simulation seemed to fight with it and the ball wobbled instead of rolling.

-Den

Nice job!

Doesn't the asphalt bowling lane tear up your bowling ball?

Scott

Name: Tom Jansen
Exercise: #17 Cosmic Bowling
Date: May 9, 2005
Comments: I really liked the way Den's ball rolled, so I used his technique (props to Den). Hehe.. of course, wouldn't you know that I went through and added the rotation frame by frame all the through.... before realizing that I had the ball rolling backwards!! D'oh! I knew something didn't look right. So went back and fixed it up again... frame by frame. All better now.

Now... I'm not a great bowler (actually, my greatest bowling accomplishment is to get a gutter ball while playing bumper bowling! It takes real skills to suck that bad!), but I don't think I've ever seen a pin slide quite like that last one

That was all a part of the simulation... honest!

Here's the clip: http://cybersummit.org/AM/Ex17_Bowling.mov

Thanks!
Tommy

Name: Tenez Waggoner
Excercise Completed: 17 Cosmic Bowling
Date Completed: May 25,2005
Remarks/Suggestions: I knew I wouldn't be satisfied without a rolling ball, so I animated it frame by frame. whew!

Hmmm... what is up with that pin sliding over?? Everyone seems to be getting that these days.

Name: Leo Mitchell
Exercise Completed: #17 Cosmic Bowling
Date Completed: 08 June 05
Instructor: Web tut guy

Cosmic Bowling

I almost didn't think that last pin was going to fall.

If your ball rotated that would be a perfection execution of a cosmic strike!

Name: Paula Waslen

Exercise Completed: #17 Cosmic Bowling

Date Completed: Jun 25, 2005

This one was interesting, although I didn't take too much time to play with the settings.

Cosmic Bowling

Name : Erik Kirschberg

Excercise : #17 Cosmic Bowling

Date Completed : 9/17/05

Instructor : Web tutorial and Manual

Comments : I had some trouble getting the simulation to work right in Version 12h. So I opened it in version 11.1b and ran the simulation there instead which worked fine. SOrry for the small size i dont have my own web space yet so i had to make it fit here

Name: Melissa "Elissa" Heldenbergh

Exercises Completed: 18

Date Completed: Oct 18th, 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 haven't used Rigid Bodies beyond this exercise, but this does seem useful for jolly characters and
knocking objects over. Though I understand there are easier plug-ins that also so this. Not really my area.

Name: Dhar Jabouri

Exercises Completed: 18

Date Completed: Nov. 01, 2005

Instructor: Online tutorial.

Comments: The ball didn't turn the way I wanted, but hey, it's a strike

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

This video is really small, I have posted a larger file on my TAMO page. My TAMO page

[attachmentid=10741]

Name: John Kuepper
Excercise Completed: 17
Date Completed: Nov 11, 2005
Remarks/Suggestions:

Ages since I submitted to this thread Rodney

Heres mine:-

Great to have you back Chris.

Name:Marc Vancouillie
Exercise completed #17: Cosmic Bowling
Date completed 12/06/05



Instructor:t.a.o.AM book and reading
in this topic what people have done before me.[attachmentid=12041]

Name: Splinesmith(Kurt Lange)

Exercises Completed:17
Instructor:the manual.

Remarks/Suggestions for improvement:N/A

Name: Douglas Karpp
Exercise: Exercise 17: Cosmic Bowling
Date Completed: December 26, 2005

[attachmentid=12628]

Name: Jody Krivohlavek

Exercise Completed: Exercise 17

Date Completed: January 5, 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:
I got the sliding ball as well. Didn't bother to tweak with it.

Also, contrary to the tutorial video, you have to turn the pin constraints to 100% or they won't budge! (V12.0q)

Name: Ross Klettke
Exer Completed: 17
Date completed: 1-24-06

remarks-- Tried to delete rotational data put in by the rigid body simulation and then put in several keyframes to control the bowling ball's x-rotation but encountered circularity error or something. Is there any way to change the curves view back to what it was in previous versions? I'm using v12q and the curves timeline, especially when I try to move a keyframe up or down is scaling very weirdly...

So end story is that the ball doesn't rotate

Name: Micah Jank

Exersise Completed: 17, Cosmic Bowling

Date completed: January 25, 2006

remarks-- wow im better in the movie than in real life!











http://media.putfile.com/Bowling-Project

Mike Dalton
Exercises Completed: 17
Completed: March 9th 2006

Notes: I didn't like the camera-move in the Chor, so I changed that. I think a simple "aim at" camera constraint to the ball (with some tweaking) works better.
I had to crack into the rigid body constraint keyframes to fix the "sliding pin" syndrome too.

Name: Bob Koonce

Exercise Completed: 17 Cosmic Bowling

Date Completed: 3-25-06

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

Excellent job Bob. Keep at it, your almost done.

Leo

Name: Stephen Molloy

Exercise: #17

Date: March 31, 2006

Instructor: Web

Excellent work Stephen. Only two more to go, unless your doing the Wookiee and the Cooper tutorial.

Good luck with the end of them

i skipped 3 and i'll go back to them later

giraffe, show some back bone and fire smoke

What is the best way to render a Mov. file to fit on the this website (settings) any help would be greatly appreciated

Name : John Booker

Excercise : #17 Cosmic Bowling

Date Completed : April 5, 2006

Instructor : Web tutorial and Manual

Comments :I figured the format out... I didn't add a roll though...

[attachmentid=15768]
[attachmentid=15767]

He shoots. He scores!*

Figuring out how to get work published (formats and size constraints that is) is an important part of the over all TAoAM experience. In the end... nothing works quite like success.

Nice work... very colorful too.
We are definitely going to have to devise a quick method of adding roll to really bring home this exercise. Hmmm....

*I should've said 'SteeeeeeeRIKE!" but hey... it sounded good at the time.

Excellent job John. I like the over all lighting of it. Rendering this project small enough to be put on the forum can be quite a challenge, but you nailed it.

Keep up the good work

i have finished the project but it is to big for the forum and i cant load it on youtube.com or zippyvideos.com can emile it to some one so the can post it?

Name: sam wiley


comments/suggestions: i found a way to get rid of the remaining pins that the ball didn't hit and dose any one know why the glow disappeared?

Name: James M Glover

Exercise Completed: Exercise 17

Date Completed: 6 Aug, 2006

[attachmentid=19365]
Does this count as a strike?

My computer choked on the ridgid body,
but I found its easier to roll the ball with physics...

HOLY!

I am NOT bowling with you... EVER.

You're going to have to reveal all your secrets... what is it? Top Spin? Steel cored ball?
Seriously... that's very cool.

Name: Glen Clarkson
Exercise: 18. Cosmic Bowling (Dynamics)
Date Completed: 8/24/2006

Notes: I have rendered, hear me roar!

Bowling for Cosmics

I can't seem to load the Cosmic Bowling project.

I get the following message and if I try work-arounds it crashes the program.

Exception #004. Loading Cosmic Bowling Objects

JohnnyB

JohnnyB,
I'm not sure what to diagnose.
Not enough information to go on.

You might try to turn off any unnecessary settings (hair etc) and see if that helps.
I haven't seen anyone else report a similar problem so that is both good and bad.

I'll reload the exercise here.
What version of A:M are you using?

When you installed, did you have it copy all the files to the HDD..?
If so, try to load the project from the CD,
I had one of the projects corrupt some how,
but it still loaded fine from the CD...

That did it! Cosmic Bowling loaded fine from the CD. Thank you

Johnnyb



Rodney
See below. I'm back on track. My version is 13.0e. I had to download the update and since then things haven't quite been the same. But I'm soldiering on.

JohnnyB

Exercise 17: Cosmic Bowling
John Bailey
August 30, 2006

http://media.putfile.com/Strike-23

[attachmentid=20143]

No problems, once I loaded it from the CD (now why didn't I think of that? Duh!). I even scored a strike.

Thanks to all for the hand holding.

JohnnyB