Rodney

There are other links in the forum that walk you through the process of connecting to your Library but I have these handy so... As Gerry suggests go to TOOLS on your menu and select OPTIONS (You can use the shortcut keys 'Control P' to get to the same place via your Keybooard. Try it.)

When you say your Library doesn't come up... Do you mean that no Library... even an empty one... appears? Seeing no Library would be an indication that you need to go to |View| Libraries on the menu and activate your Libraries. Alt 5 is the shortcut key that will turn the Libraries off and on. If you see at least one Libary, empty or otherwise, we can press on and connect you to your Library. If you don't see any Library we've got a different problem.

Why are you doing that? Not to answer for Robert but... the whole DVD, all the parts with the characters, is a demonstration of that. You can drill down into the Bones properties and set the Translate limits so they don't move. In this particular case you could change the Manipulator Options of the forearm bone to 'Rotate Only' and you'd never have to worry about accidentally translating the lower forearm again. Only the Rotate manipulator would appear.

Ah. Very different things. Thanks for the clarification Robert. Note to self: Experiment with the Alias Edges post effect.

To bring this discussion back around to .GIFs. A lot will depend on the program you use to convert your images or image sequences to GIF in. There are many programs that will do this. AVI2GIF comes to mind. But not all of them support transparency. For this you'll have to experiment. When worse comes to worse and you are in a pinch you can make the background the same color as your webpage and then link the GIF animation in. If you don't need the transparency that'll help a bit. Animated GIFs are just a little more complicated than still GIF as you must specify the color that will be transparent in the image. The more capable programs (those that cost money) should convert your Alpha Channel automatically. I have a feeling masking your animation with a specific color background may be your best bet. Then you can select that color in the program you use to convert to animated GIF. If you want to go that route I'd recommend a freeware program like AVI2GIF. With that you can render out of A:M to AVI and then convert to GIF. No transparency... but quick.

I may be completely off base here so take this as a guess. As far as I know this is now accomplished by Multipass. Once Multipass is set for 4 passes above the Soften option will appears. You can change the percentage there. As long as the image is high enough resolution you should get the desired effect of aliasing (or anti-aliasing) via multipass. Turning the Alpha Channel on (with image formats that support alpha channels) should take care of the rest. guess> Edit: Looks like that was a lucky guess. Here is a very old quote from Jeffrey Dates (emphasis added in bold): This of course was from before A:M had Netrender's Multipass feature included. If you've got the current version, you've got Multipass.

As Nancy suggests the Gif format does support transparency. Programs that allow it will let you choose a single color to designate as transparent. Often this'll be a color not used in the image such as bright pink. When the image is displayed the view then keys the pink as transparent. I suppose it could be said that Gif images support one alpha channel but I think that is a stretch of the definition. Images that support an alpha channel have a grayscale layer (the alpha channel) that specifies how transparent any part of the image (each pixel) will be regardless of the color. Gif images are still RGB images whereas Targas, PNG and other formats that support alpha channels are RGBA. (Red Green Blue and Alpha channels) Of interest to A:M users, the Alpha Channel was invented by Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith. Ed Catmull of course being of Pixar fame and the guy who Martin Hash studied with. (I'd be more accurate with some of this wording but my daughter is kicking me off the computer. Julia says 'Hi' and 'Bye') Edit: Here is the wikipedia write up on alpha channels.

I ran across this topic while looking for a few links on alpha channels and in reading back realized how much fun this one was for me. I'm not sure what all we settled on but we definitely explored things. I'm not sure how deeply we've discussed Filters, Mirrors and Shadows elsewhere in the forum so those subjects may be still ripe for discussion one of these days.

For anyone that doesn't have the Library data necessary for The Art of Animation:Master tutorials here is the file you need: ftp://ftp.hash.com/pub/misc/LittleData.zip Its in the following directory on the Hash Inc FTP: ftp://ftp.hash.com/pub/misc/ If you download this file all that remains is to tell A:M where it is. You don't have to have the libraries to access the files however. Maybe we should cover that too.

An email or two through support@hash.com should get you running smoothly but... I think we can address your issues here so the community at large can benefit. We'll be happy to help guide you to the solution. There are several things I don't know about the particular setup on your end. We'll work through that as quickly as possible. There are two primary steps in getting you connected to your Libraries: 1. Have the library and data 2. Have A:M connect to the Library The links Robert posted provide all the standard procedures most people use to connect to their libraries. Now we just have to tailor those to you.

RightClick RightClick RightClick RightClick RightClick RightClickRightClick RightClickRightClick RightClick RightClick RightClick RightClickRightClickRightClickRightClick ...and don't forget to save! Just thought everyone should be reminded to right click and explore their options and save from time to time. This message brought to you by the Right Mouse Button Channel.

Hmmm... yes, I think it reads better. What do you think? Probably need to see it in context of its final setting.

Boolean cutters can be very useful tools. Animated Boolean cutters... even more so. But you need to plan ahead and close your objects. Note that we can get away with boolean cutters cutting into geometry that isn't fully enclosed but when we do we are risking rendering abnormalities when objects are seen at certain angles. The only way to ensure optimum results is to use enclosed shapes/volumes in both the cutter and the target object. For this we need to plan ahead as we model and close both cutter and target. If the operation is really simple and the image static you might be surprised with what you can get away with using unenclosed shapes. Just be aware of the risk in rendering as you do. I haven't tested booleans enough to know when and where we can break their rules. Hopefully someone else has and will share what they've learned.

If those .mov files are referenced in every chair that'd certainly slow things down. If unnecessary I'd remove them. If necessary I'd consider substituting smaller proxy images for them, turning them off or temporarily removing them or using sequential images instead. (I'm sure I've missed other options)

I want to add this link to the mix. Here is the official write up on Specified Booleans. ...and here is pretty much the same thing without images:

We've got to find a good way to suggest that everyone Right Click often. So many options and solutions are revealed via a simple Right Click. Every new user should set aside a day to do nothing but Right Click and explore whats there! Roberts suggestion to Save first cannot be stressed enough either. If you save first you can always abandon any effort... throw it away... gone forever... with the confidence that you can return again to your last Save and press forward again. A good workflow in A:M will always include Right Clicking and Saving. Doing both often... makes even better sense. Maybe we should request a Save function via every Right Click menu. That'd help us emphasize both of these essentials.

I'm drooling already. Way to build up the anticipation! The banner looks nice. My suggestion would be to bring Squetchy Sam down and to the right so that he isn't on top of the lettering. This would let you increase the size of the fonts considerably and make the smaller words underneath more legible. I figure you are wanting to have Sam be on top of the 'I' but perhaps the ball could be there instead? Perhaps with the other 'i' over there above Rig it won't work as well. Anyway... the pose looks great to me.

I don't think A:M is pausing here. Its working. If you have any textures or bones or groups A:M has to rename those as it gets them out of the paste buffer to avoid conflicts. Its also possible A:M can hang if it encounters an event where its not sure what process to perform. I don't know whats going on deep inside of A:M but lets say it gets to 'Chairseat999' as a group... does A:M know what to do to create Chair seat 1000? (only an example here) You should investigate creating your more complex models in a Choreography. You can start by doing something simple and work to the more complex. Save out of the Chor as a Model every once in awhile and then reimport those models in. Try this... Drop 4 empty models into a Chor. Offset each of the models Xaxis Translation by 100cm from each other in their properties (i.e. -100, 0, 100, 200). Now copy and paste a chair or some other model into the that original model. Go back into your Chor. You'll see four models. Switch to Modeling Mode - Shortcut Key F5 (still in the Chor) adjust some splines and see your changes effect all the models Switch to Muscle Mode - Shortcut Key F7 (still in the Chor) adjust more splines and see your changes only change that model You can build up very complex models individually and as groups in this way. If you save often and reimport those models you should be able to continue to work quickly with less lag time. Save decaling and rigging for later if possible. If the models don't change in the Chor they'll automatically get updated when you update the original model. If you plan ahead your can optimize your effort by dropping multiple models in between other models to fill in the spaces. The next thing you know you've got one giant model. Note: I'd have to test with huge models to determine the true difference in realtime responsiveness on that scale. I'm not sure I have the patience for that yet. I know I've not explained this well enough. Bottom line: This is one way you can create large complex models without the lag time.

Cindy, First things first... other than the artifacting... that is one very nice render (the modeling, the animation/camera work etc)! It'd be nice to see a wireframe or shaded wireframe rendering as that'd show us where the patches are. I think we can guess by the artificating however. Its it possible that you've got the older porcelain material on the model? (any materials applied to that area for that matter?) If yes, if you take the material off will the artifacting go away? I ask as several years ago A:M changed how porcelain materials work. Also... don't hit me here... silly question that has to be asked: Did you check your normals?

Come on Kyle. You know how to import/open and apply actions. You are going to have to convince us you don't.

Thought I should add this to the mix as most people don't know about this tutorial. The classic tutorial on modeling a soccer ball surely must be the video by Alain Desrochers (Alweb here in the forum). The video itself (one from Hash Inc's SIGGRAPH videos) is hard to find as its out of circulation but the tutorial is still online. Modeling a Soccer Ball - by Alain Desrochers It makes for a pretty good modeling exercise.

Not at all. Its important to be fully grounded in reality before launching off toward distant stars. I'm must admit I'm a sucker for those bouncing balls. I've bought books just because they contained a snippet of something I thought worthwhile or representative of one artists take on this rather simple(?) exercise. I haven't pursued the math of it all because I know in that way for me lies madness. I'm not chasing after reality here or I'd just go out and bounce a lot of balls. One of the reasons the bouncing ball exercise is so important is that it teaches us how to move shapes, forms and masses in time and space in a believable way. If objects in a scene move consistently enough they create their own reality. Thanks for that Excel spreadsheet. Thats rather clever. I'm trying to think of how I'd implement it differently... or adapt it to other purposes... and failing miserably. I need to consider spreadsheets more in my daily wanderings. If nothing else they make really great dope sheets. Regarding Channels... woo boy... welcome to A:M! (Sorry... can't help you on a Mac. I thought it'd be up there on the menu.)

Great tips. Keep 'em coming! Here's one that's only been available in the past few versions: Sometimes people like to add their own programs and utilities into A:M's Menu. This is accomplished via |TOOLS|Customize and adding the programs in via Tools tab. This is nothing new... that functionality has been there for dozens of years. But now we can assign shortcut keys to those Custom Tools. I happen to find this very cool. This is quite handy for launching pre and post processing and other automated tasks with the click of a key or two on the keyboard. ...and of course you can minimize those programs and continue on working in A:M. For instance you could run Rusty/Glenn Anthofer's Library Manager via shortcut key. The next time you open that Library it'll contain the updated resources. It might be handy to set repetitive tasks up via a 'Begin Session' script (batch file with PC or action script with Mac) then close out the day with a whack of another shortcut key to launch an 'End of Day' script. I haven't used this functionality a lot lately but I really should. Guess I haven't had that much need for automation of late. At a minimum it can save a few minutes during the course of a day.

Steve, It looks like somewhere along the way you turned off viewing signatures in your Forum Settings. Not that you want to turn it back on but you can do that via 'My Controls' at the top of the forum. Look for 'Board Settings' under the main menu. Viewing Signatures should be the first option on the Board Display Settings menu. What were you thinking. Didn't you know... all the great links are in the sigs!