Meet Martha Mouse.

Because I'm a lazy twit and hate to rig, I borrowed some DNA (body, rig) from the Witch (in Scarecrow of Oz) - Head/face modeled, rigged by me (not finished), texture, hair by me.

Original Witch was designed by me, modeled by Ken Heslip, rigged by Ken? using Squetch (ver 2) by David Simmons. Squetchy ball by Robcat.

4 pass - ave 23 seconds/frame - Global color = white, AI=50%, AO=0%, rim 20% (zbuf shadows), 2 suns (no shadows), reflections - 1 level, dynamic hair, dynamic constraints.

I may tweak some.

Hehe thats a cute mouse the furr is wonderfull

very nice work.
You deffinantly have style

Cute Great work!

Cute, but to qoute you.....

"If you're really doing "pass the ball" - the ball is supposed to enter from left, exit right - to fit with the other clips."

hee hee - Hoisted by my own petard, eh? Whatever a petard is, that is. I'm sure I need to be hoisted by it

Actually there are at least 2 balls that enter from the left, not counting the first one that enters left half of screen. And there is 1 that exits right. So technically - it follows that rule.

When I put all 3 of my clips together - Ballarama-lama-ding-dongI think it works ok. In the 1st "pass the ball" - it seemed to work with all different balls, and even 1 clip that entered right and exited left. This is just for fun. It don't really matter. Except I think my comment was directed at Vern - and if ya don't keep Vern in line, he's liable to Newtonize us all. So he needs to follow the rules. The rest of us can do whatever we want.

Thanks all for your comments.


(and well lookee here - the topic is back for viewing by the unwashed masses - well, just the contributing unwashed masses - as it appears the unwashed drug pushing guests can't see this topic at all, unlike the other special topics - where drug deals are being made on a continuous basis, ad nauseum)

Nice mouse, creepy ball invasion. A word for when you tweak - I recommend looking at your holds/timing to get more "snap" to your movements. It feels just a bit on the floaty side.
Did I mention I love the mouse?

You're right. I was actually glad to see you did this, I like it

hmmm...Floaty you say? Uh ...in Meeska clip? or the others? or all? Can you give me more info as to where ? (sorry I didn't put a frame counter in)

When I said I might tweak - I wasn't thinking floaty tweaking ...The problems I see (with Meeska Martha Mouska clip), which bother me are :

1) penetration of ear with tail, and tail with ball

2) tail movement is non-expressive - didn't put any effort into it. Movement needs to be more deliberate, more lagging with body, more changing of shape as Meeska turns - Tail movement should be more interesting. Finger, hand positioning needs more interesting poses.

3) The ball movements also need more expressiveness - might require some additional rigging - to suggest a head/body. I don't like how the final lean in of the balls towards the mouse is done, needs anticipation and a better coordinated "ganging up" on mouselady. Balls don't always look like they make good contact with the ground. Not satisfied with portrayal of differing personalities of balls based on size (sluggish, frenetic, etc) as they creep up on Meeska. I was getting uncomfortable about the length of time of the clip...as I think it's about 12 secs? - They are supposed to be in range of 3-9 secs.

4) Hair penetrates ears & movement of head hair is too springy. Maybe this gives the feeling of overall floatiness? I'd like to solve the penetration issue without using collision detection - things seem to go wonky with CD. Might try isolating groups of particle hair - and assign bones to move the groups.

5) Don't like the texture mapping on her sleeves and legs. The color & type of shoes needs to be changed.

6) reflections are too bright (don't know what to do about that)

7) Dodo brain did this at 24 fps, rather than 30.

But FLOATY? You saying my bal..er the balls are floaty? Eh Jesse?

(thanks Luuk)

Great style and movement!!! Really really good!!! The only thing I noticed was that the sleeve colour is very similar to the background colour, and at about 4 seconds in its kinda hard to differentiate (is that how you spell it?) the two. Other than that...amazing!!!

Floaty could be hair springy-ness.
Also, use the "reflection blend" property to get less "bright" reflections.
The balls themselves are not floaty =) Cleaning up tail movement to be more expressive will help immensely.
You work always has a dreamy quality to it, very dance-like and choreographed. (In a good way)
I still love your work even if I am quick to give helpful critiques, sorry if I'm being too Virgo for you I sometimes do that.

It looks like you have a intense light in the back. Reducing the light from the back might solve this. Maybe using reflective blend will help too.

Thanks - I have blend set to 50% now - but the reflective filter is set to 0% (will try 50%). I wonder what it's filtering? Also fall-off is set to 0"

Also - not clear to me where the particle hair bakes are going - looks like in document & settings in a file with the material name and extension par- that seems weird - I would have thought it would go in a file either with the chor or projects name, in the same folder as the chor or project. I only use chor - so maybe I need to make a project as well.

EDIT - yay! 50% filter, 50% blend seems to reduce bright reflections - falloff still 0" - anything else made reflection go away. Tried soft reflection - didn't like

Awesome - the muted reflections really help your Moose..er...Mouse stand out more clearly!

Very well done men , I thing at least one of your balls need to enter from left to fix the other videos , but the animation is great.¡¡¡

Men? ...um...uh... Soy una mujer. Si, es verdad - una mujer loca vieja. Pero - no problema - Gracias Senorita!

Y, tambien - hay dos bolas que entrar a la izquierda, pero es facile a no mirar. (Ay caramba! Hablo espanol muy malo)

La más vieja mujer talentosa puede hacer mientras que ella ve ajuste y ella puede ser hostil tenga tan cuidado

I shall translate John's words for everyone:
"Your pig ate my elephant"
My spanish is rough but that's basically what he said.

I knew it! I just knew it!

Well...maybe not quite...I'm lying. I thought he said "His elephant wears girlie shoes"

what are you two babeling about

Your gay elephant it seems.

Oh wait - Maybe John called me an old elephant who wears girlie shoes? But I don't think his pig is gay.

sounds like you two might have picked up the swine flu ...

Hi nancy...I like your pass the ball, this one and the others, and your Spanish is not bad, I think jaff was confused whit your name and avatar ...so I´m not a younger too, I´m 47 and very happy to share this forum with you and AM users all around the world...gretings..forgive my English

Gracias, Nino - I was joking. I hope Jaff understood that, and I hope I didn't offend him. I apologize if I did. Lo Siento. I understood that the confusion was a language issue. I am always impressed when non-native English speaking members post on this forum. They (including you and Jaff) always seem to speak/write much better English than I would be able to speak/write of Spanish, French, etc.

And I also enjoy very, very much, yours and Jaff's animations.

That´s OK Nancy...I think the confusion was a language issue as well...so let´s playing the ball