Rodney

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!

I've never seen a shortcut key for that. I don't think any of the icons in the timeline windows are exposed to keyshorting. The closest functionality to that is probably having both views open at the same time. To increase productivity I suppose one could open several windows to animate in with optimum views and Alt Tab between them. This doesn't toggle back and forth between spline and keyframe views though.

Of course there are some Shortcut Keys that aren't listed. These undocumented shortcuts can be great timesavers too. Take the Shift Key for example. Draw a spline. Hit the Comma key to select it. Now before you hit the Lathe Icon hold down the Shift key. Note that the Tools menu for Modeling pops up. Here you can easily enter the number of Cross Sections you need. Try the Shift key with the Lock Icon as well. Model something. Select it all. Press the Lock key. Note that because everything was selected... nothing gets locked. Thats not what we want so lets try that again with the Shift key. Model Select Shift + Lock (Note that you get the same results at this point) Click the Lock Icon again Everything is locked The Shift key is also the only way you can access some functions. Older hair methodologies for instance.

(Updating old links) Here is a PDF file generated from the HTML Shortcut key list. If you are up to the task, learn a few of these in your area of immediate interest. It'll add speed to your workflow. KeyboardShortcutListing.pdf

Another excellent video tutorial Robert. The insight into rigging, both from a general standpoint as well as TSM2 specific, is appreciated. Thanks!

Chris, Welcome to the forum! I'm trying to figure out a good way to say 'thanks for having that problem'. The solution you've arrived at is something I wish could be added to the original tutorial video. It covers the basic setup of the two actions but doesn't attempt to go beyond that or get into troubleshooting. (Its great we've got the forum for that!) Great use of Jing to capture your screen. In the image intensive world of computer animation we really need to leverage that technology. One thing I've learned from visiting the forum today is that we need to make more mistakes! Then at least we'll know what we are learning. Nicely resolved Mr Bill!

Another discussion referenced this topic and I see an opportunity to close a loop and continue the discussion on transitioning from one action to another. The video mentioned here is what I want to link: The "Path Ease (walk, then wave)" video can be found at the very bottom of Hash Inc's Video Manual page. There are three additional videos at the bottom of that page. Don't miss them! The Video Manual (TaoA:M) page: http://www.hash.com/2007web/vm.htm Direct link to the zip file containing the Walk then Wave tutorial accessible at the bottom of that page: http://www.hash.com/ftp/VM/pathease/pathease.zip Get up to date on this discussion and learn more by reading through Chris's question on Actions in a Choreography. Note how the use of screencaptured images in his discussion refine the issues in question and help others see what you are seeing. Note to self here animation:masters; use a little screencapture in your workflow every day. Record yourself at work. There is a lot of good information, links and videos to be found in these discussion so... don't miss it!

Glad to see you've got it going again Matt. As Gerry suggests, any insight you can give into steps you took or installations you made will be of benefit to others as well. If we have a number one goal here in the newbies forum surely that must be it. Namely, to get everyone up and running with A:M quickly.

No. No. No. No. You don't have to purchase the websubscription. You've already got a good thing going with the CD. We just have to get the program installed because your system has gotten finicky. Download that installer I linked to and you won't have to be concerned with the installer on the CD. Most likely the one on the CD is several releases earlier v15a or v15b... or something earlier than v15e. You'd want to install the v15e update even if you had A:M up and running. There is a very good chance that updating to v15e will solve your problems. I give it a solid 85-90 percent chance. ...and the update is free!

This book is more expensive than the other best known book on A:M (by Jeff Paries) but its definitely worth every penny. Is it better than Jeff Paries book? I'd have to say yes, but for the price of Jeff's these days its easy to buy both books. Jeff's in my opinion is a bit more accessible to the layman. David's book: Very practical. Very technical. Very thoroughly covers most features up to about v13. If I had to do it all over... I'd buy it again. (and hopefully read through it more thoroughly!)

Matt, Its been awhile since I used A:M with a CD. I've grown accustomed to the websubscription. There are several things this could be but (guessing here) if your PC has more than one CD/DVD drive is it possible that you installed while having the A:M CD in the other drive? My guess is that the installer on the CD isn't the latest and greatest so I'd install that before you wander too much farther. The latest version is v15e: http://www.hash.com/ftp/pub/updates/windows/AMCD.exe For those a bit shy of directly downloading exe files or in need of other installers go to the Latest Info forum area: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=33836

This what you are looking for? Feature Focus Forum

Congrats on making that a reality. I understand that element has stumped more than a few people. Gerry is going to want to get your insights into that. So... now we'll have volume control while watching Subject 99? Too cool!

Have you considered actually filming the water effect you want? I mention this option because thats what the Hollywood-types often do to get realistic water effects. They then composite the video footage with the 3D elements to finish the shot. Filming water flowing from a hose might be pretty straightforward against a green screen. Its hard to get more realistic than real. To get the water to interact with your 3D elements you'll have proxy realworld objects (also green'd) standing in. For best filming you might have to dye the water. Assuming you don't want to get real-ly wet... can you post an example of the effect you are after? At any rate, to get realistic fluid effects you'll want to consider layering your effects whether they include real world elements or not.

Zee classical tutorial on za spider's web is courtesy of Jeff Paries (pairee?) It was good for A:M '99 and the basic idea should still work well in current versions. He uses 'Render as Lines' but you could also extrude the drawn splines a little to gain the effect. http://www.digitalproducer.com/pages/creat...in_animatio.htm Edit: Added a PDF version of the Tutorial. Note that the references to 'Add Lock Mode' are no longer necessary. A:M's standard stitching capability makes splining a web even easier. SpidersWeb.pdf

Very nicely done Kyle! I like the sound of that word... 'finished'. Thats the sound of progress being made.

Sure. - Open Project Workspace via |View|Project Workspace on the Menu Bar - Find Material in the Materials Folder or in the Model - Remove Material by using your keyboard's Delete button - Save the Project under a different name such as: "CanCan with no materials.prj" (Can you identify the two places you can remove the materials in the image below?)

A short term work around might be to switch back and forth between OpenGL and Direct3D but why do this when you could just fix the problem? Most display issues relate to graphic cards. You -could- update your graphics card but that'd cost money. I don't recommend it. Updating your graphics card -driver- is free. If its not your graphics card driver at least you'll know after the install. If you don't feel comfortable downloading and installing drivers from the manufacturer enlist the aid of someone locally to assist you in the process. This was before you changed your driver settings right?

I believe that is your graphics card related problem that never got fully addressed. I recall you had some success switching from OpenGL to Direct3D (I think it was you anyway). Thats not a fix though... thats a workaround. The fix is updating your display driver. My graphics card is an Intel Integrated Graphics card. The most recent driver is from earlier this year. If you can figure out what card your system has I'm sure the manufacturer has a newer driver for that as well.

As others are sure to be interested in rotoscoping here's a link to the wikipedia writeup on it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotoscoping