Rodney

You might have to point out the specific post you mentioned. The Forum itself has a Friends feature and you can use that to buddy up with other people. They'll get a message that you've added yourself in as a friend. Outside of that we mostly just all join in and help each other out here. Its something of a 'everyone is your buddy' system. As you interact with other you're sure to meet and make a few friends here too. More than a few people have made some good friends while working through TaoA:M together or helping each other in a project.

Rodney, you have definitely come to the right place. A room full of stuff eh? You've been reading my mind haven't you? If you are up to the task perhaps we can discuss it here: A Room Full of Stuff

This topic is a place holder for Rodney Sirratt. He'd like to build of room full of stuff. So would I. What kind of room would you like to make Rodney? What kind of stuff do you want to fill the Room with?

Jim, You are missing a plugin from the HXT folder. I'm not familiar with the plugin. (Try to move it elsewhere... so A:M doesn't try to load it... and see if that helps) Finding that original plugin and replacing it in the HXT folder should help. If you've got the plugins elsewhere I'd look there first. as its got 2005cd in the name, it may just not be compatible with v15 Worse case scenario you should be able to copy and rename another plugin to that name. Also, check where your plugins should be located via A:M in TOOLS/Options. I don't know what you mean by this: A screen captured image of your desktop would help.

JPEG is a lossy image format. What that means is that the image can degrade over time as the image is saved or (especially) converted. Once the image data is lost it cannot be regained. Targa is lossless in that the image format retains enough information to recreate the same image data even through conversion. There are other reasons TGA works better in many cases. TGA stores Red, Green Blue and Alpha Channels. The Alpha Channel specifies the transparency of every pixel in the image (255 shades of grey for 255 levels of transparency) JPEG has no transparency. There are reasons to use JPEG over TGA. JPG images easily display on webpages. TGA images have to have a plugin or extension installed to be viewed on a webpage. (But once you have a TGA image you can easily convert a copy to JPG or other format too) JPG can be set with very good compression sizes to maximize quality yet maintain smaller file size. If you desire a mid ground somewhere between the two image formats investigate PNG. Its a newer image format that can be displayed on webpages, has transparency and can be compressed considerably as well. Here is a useful writeup on the JPG format I found at www.faq.org: Note the part about errors I've highlighted below. Targa format is less likely to experience these errors.

Some of these images have a heavy ink feel to them not unlike some of the early Marvel comics work of Jack Kirby. I like that style a lot. Any updates? I'm curious to see what happens next!

Ah, but some people do not know. Thats why we are here.

Its better to attach Bones to Control Points. Then you can attach Nulls to the Bones. Exercise 9: "Flower Power" in the TaoA:M manual will grant you the power you seek and more.

Read your topic about Nulls again. You'll find the your question is already answered. Null, Bone, Light, Camera.... same/same.

Sure is. In fact, there are several ways. If you haven't watched the videos that take you through the manual that's covered there. In fact, work your way through all the exercises of the TaoA:M! Videos: http://www.hash.com/2007web/vm.htm Manual: ftp://ftp.hash.com/pub/docs/TAOAM.pdf One way would be to simply type in the frame number in the frame number box (on the scrub bar at the bottom of the screen). Type in 1... move something. Type in 5... move something.... etc. etc. Another way would be to open up the Timeline and move/scrub to the appropriate frame. Try both ways!

Here's another tip about Nulls. If you create a Null in a modeling window the Null is placed at the 0,0,0 coordinates of the model. You must go into Bones Mode to move it or enter the desired coordinates into the Nulls translation properties in the Project Workspace. In an Action window where the mouse pointer is at the time you Right Click will determine the location where the Null will be created. Lights and Cameras work the same way.

Jeff, Right Clicking is our friend. Try this: -Open your Model window -Right Click -Select New -Select Null Wala! Note: You'll need to be in Bones Mode, an Action or a Choreography to see the Null

As far as I know you can export out of A:M to .x format but not import. To import from .x you'll have to convert to another formatfirst (3DS, OBJ, DXF etc).

I'd be very interested as well. If there is no other solution the thought that comes to mind would be to test a completely transparent patch image applied to all of the body mesh. That should vanish the mesh for you. I'm not sure what elements are there that might confict with that method however. Having a small test project would tell us.

In case you have trouble finding your Exercise 2 post... its still there. I just moved it over to the TaoA:M forum area: Exercise 2

I know he did not just call Robert fat. Robert... you don't have to take that! One of the first models you want to grab besides the ones used in TaoA:M is the new Thom. You'll note more than just hands differentiate him from his older brother with the same name. Mark Skodecek has equipped him with the 2008 Rig which makes him a real joy to animate. You won't find a Dynamic Pose like Keekat's in Exercise 1 but those dynamic poses are in there. You can make them! Open up his Properties in the Project Workspace and see what makes him tick. So, by way of downloading a model, here is your initial introduction to the A:M file format as well. Model files are text files with the .MDL extension. How phat is that? AMv13_2008_Rig_Thom.mdl

Mark, What Holmes said! You've got a knack for designing your projects smartly. That really helps get you through that first intitial 20% quickly. Just the little things like limiting lipsync through the device of narration... that alone will be a considerable timesaver. I started a post about planning last night for the ABC321 forum area but yours is a living and breathing casestudy of the benefits of developing a plan before getting under way. Props to you. I'm glad to see your muse has found you again. I don't want to interupt the flow of your creativity by asking too many questions but take good notes along the way. Record everything. Those notes, sketches, doodles and such will be useful some day.

First things first... the quote thing. Keep in mind there is almost alway more than one way to do the same thing. There is a more direct way but this is what I do. I select the portion of text that I want to quote from the author's post. - Hit Control C on my keyboard which copies the text into the clipboard - Launch a reply via the Reply button at the bottom of the post - Hit Control V to paste the text into my post - Select the text again - Hit the Quote buttom to add the Quote tags around the text (its the icon that look like a word balloon). - Enter more words/text/questions - Hit the Submit button That's it. Do that a few thousand times and you'll get the hang of it. Again... I assume you want to upload your image from the exercise here. Since its kk (keekat)... that seems to validate you are in Exercise 1. You've got two options: 1) Render your image 2) Screen capture your image Learn how to do both! In A:M follow the proceedures in Exercise 2/Exercise 3 to render out your image. Make sure you render to an image format that is webpage friendly such as .JPG or .PNG. In the same area where you type your message to me you'll find a Browse button. (Look for it on the right of your screen) Browse to the location of your image file and select it. *Important step people forget* Hit the UPLOAD button to upload your image as an attachment. Submit your Post Smile and press on or frown and try again. Assuming you are on a PC... for screen capturing the image that is currently on your screen try this: Look on your keyboard for the Print Screen key (its usually above the Insert and Delete keys and has Prt Scr on it) Hit that key Go into any program that will accept image being pasted into it (Microsoft Word, Windows Paint... lots of programs will do this). Paste the image into the program by either hitting the Control and V keys at the same time or... going to Edit/Paste on the Toolbar Menu. You should see the image of your screen paste into the program. Save that image (preferrably as a .JPG image - PNG if the program supports it) Follow the procedures I outlined above for uploading image to the forum. Good luck! P.S. For everyone like you that asks these questions there are 10 more people who say to themselves "I sure am glad he asked that question!" They were just to shy to ask.

That's why we are here. Assuming you are starting with Exercise 1 you will need to find a format to render to that the forum accepts. Several format will work but I recommend: .PNG format for still images (you can use .JPG if you want as well) .MOV image for movies (you'll want to adjust your compression setting or the filesize will be huge!) Read ahead a little in the manual. Rendering is discussed in Exercise 2. If you have any specific difficulties let us know but try to be specific. Narrow down the possibilities for a little bit.

Thats pretty innovative.

Thanks for all the great tips Rusty! For everyone else looking in please feel free to cast your tips, tricks and suggests into the mix. What you type will always be new to someone and more often than not we forget. Post them if you've got them. Someone out there will always learn from them.

Robert! I need you here. Sports is not one of my strong suits. But I sure can appreciate the arcs. Welcome to the A:M Forum! (We sure have been collecting a lot of Roberts around here!)

When me mateys sails down to the blahs... we heads up to de deck... where there be plenty singin' an' dancin' and merrytimin' for all. Perhaps somewhere down the line you might consider taking on an apprentice or two? I know you like creating the stories yourself but it'd open a few doors of opportunity for other A:M Users which I'm sure they'd appreciate. The apprentice would gain some very useful experience on board your ship. The burden of day to day chores might lift a little from off your shoulders too. This wouldn't be so much about entering a teacher/trainee relationship as much following the way of comics. It'd be more like placing your mark on the moving pages of a Wannabe flipbook with the apprentice filling in those spots, freelancing inbetween the marks. I'm sure it wouldn't all be smooth sailing. More than a few times when its down to the wire you'd still have to complete the job yourself. You'd have that to look forward to.

I want to encourage you to purchase the CD if that is the way you want to go but... you have the whole program already. For the $299 you'll get the permanancy of the CD, the hard copy Manual and Technical Reference as well as the Extra projects, models, materials, tutorials and such so its still a very good deal.I hope you don't think you've got only part of the program now though. There is only one Animation:Master and if you've got v15 you've got it already. I visited your website but my browser crashed so... maybe I'll try that again later. I might have had too many things open on my end. Regarding the greenscreening. As long as your anchorman isn't a real human being it sounds like you won't need to use green screening. If you do find yourself needing to green screen... A:M can assist with that too. Good luck with your projects and keep us posted on your progress!

Here is a topic the goes into detail how to apply a sequential series of images (or video) as a decal on a TV screen. If you do a search for 'television' in the Newbies forum you'll find more discussions of the same: Decaling a TV screen Some older topics: This one doesn't go into specific procedures but echos the thought that green screen is not the most desirable solution in many cases. http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=20970 There are quite a few related topics of interest in the old CG & Live Action forum. It should be noted that most of these go into different areas than what you need here.