This is pretty good! Except the ending has a linear interpolated drop-down, which looks very mechanical. Also why didn't you loop it? Could also use some feather wiggling, see reference of real eagles flying.
By default the blending for height is set to linear dodge so under details in the height will propagate. Select the height channel and set the blending of your layer to replace , if you are inside a folder you also have to change the blending of the folder to passthrough.
by modifiers I assume you mean deformers? Which are available in the "animation" set under Create Deformers, from there u can create a lattice (ffd), wrap (NURBS patch deformer), and non-linear deformers (like bend and flare).
Clear Sky is the newest, but I think the original (especially with the 2009 Complete mod which fixes bugs and updates the textures) is a little bit better. Clear Sky's Zone was a little too crowded and not as unnerving, and the ending was very linear and rushed.
Hey Ryan, I read your comparison thread, which of the hack solutions to you recommend linear dodge(additive)? I'd like to test the photoshop method and the crazybump method and see which one suits my workflow better.
things seem to deform alright. Kinda hard to tell since there is alot of pop'ing in the animation, and the moves very linear. Make sure your keys/curves are matched and smooth for looped animation, and definitly need overlapping of animations of body parts.
Is this mari 3? if yes, use mari 2.6 ;) 3.0 is a color space nightmare. Alternatively try putting a sRGB to Linear node on top of your diffuse channel and make sure all channels use the right color space.
that's because you only set one key , by default the "Default In/Out tangents for new keys" is set to linear, if you change that to stepped and then run your script it will only change on the time keys are set. (3rd one in the picture)
Not sure what's your problem here, multiplying a texture by a large number works just fine for the Spec Power input. I'd guess the brightness difference in your texture is too small or it's some sRGB/linear space issue.
I (along with most artist) prefer Hansoft. Visualizing burndown charts and dependencies are really nice, because artists and animators work in a pretty linear fashion, making this quite simple. Programmers and Project Managers seem to prefer Jira.