Rodney

You've lost me a bit here. Is your laser a beam of light or a model made to look like one? What I see thus far in your request: - Assign a a value to a model that causes a part of another model to dissappear. Depending on the effect you want you could use Boolean Cutters, Material Effectors etc. They all automatically assign their values to the model so... the answer is 'Yes'. You can do that. Not sure what you are after here but easy enough to try. Do you want this other model behind or inside the first model? A picture they say is worth a thousand words so maybe you can sketch it out? Stick figures and basic shapes often work best. Edit: If the laser is created using a light you should be able to change its length and even animate that length over time.

Ken, Read the rest of the post you quote from. In it I state: The reason you can't find them is because they aren't there. To understand this further we would need to understand a little more of the history of Animation:Master. Specifically how it was designed to allow animation without any Timeline at all.

Yes. I'll give Kyle a lot of credit though. For a 12 year old he sure is dedicated to learning all there is to know about computer animation. I think he can be forgiven a little for forgetting a lesson or two here and there. There is a lot to learn! I'm learning too. The questions Kyle and others are asking give me good insight into how we can tailor what we are doing online to help everyone work through TaoA:M. For example: When TaoA:M was first released there wasn't even a forum. There was therefore no instuctions on how to upload images and such to the forum. The Timeline and many of its enhancements weren't in the public spotlight as much either. That was largely a realm only visited by the animation cognocenti. Hence a lot of questions about these areas arise these days. Of course animating and the Timeline are going to lead to a lot of questions. Thats why we are here of course. Perhaps we can put together a basic tutorial (like Roberts) and Sticky it in the TaoA:M forum? Kyle, I keep harping on TaoA:M for good reason. Master those concepts and the rest of the journey is going to go a whole lot more smoothly. Many of the questions you are asking have been asked there many times before. But keep asking those questions! We need more of that here. Understand also though that as people are taking a considerable amount of their valuable time to answer it'll be a good idea to review those responses thoroughly. Thanks to everyone for taking the time to answer Kyles questions!

The short answer is that you've animated it that way so... A:M is following your directions. Upload your project file to the forum and we'll take a look at it. Alternately if you can upload a screen capture of the Timeline we'll be able to see better what you've got there. I'll look again at that and see what can be explored further. I think I know which part you are referring to.

Phatso has the right answer here of course. I wouldn't commit myself entirely to working on TaoA:M so I would never expect someone else to do that either. The idea is to take what you learn and apply it to your projects. Thats the who idea behind TaoA:M.

Thats an interesting challenge. I would think it would be very easy to do but have never tested it as you describe it. This is an ideal place to explore the possibilities. I'd love to see more people use Dopesheets as usage leads to enhancement in the future. Without getting into the heart of your challenge one workaround immediately springs to mind. That would be to create each scene separately (the images aren't that important) in order to extract the audio later. Then combine the three separate audio tracks in a new Choreography. Another way that it could be approached in v15 would be to use A:M's new Non Linear Editing capability to adjust your animation to precisely sync it with the dialogue. For this you would use the timeline and (most likely) separate the Actors so each could be edited separately. I would think there would be several other approaches as well but... you are the one determining the criteria. This may be one of those places where the Dopesheet alone is not going to solve the riddle.

As Robert hints at there is going to be a lot more to animating your character than just modeling it. While it will seem like you are taking a detour from your goal working through TaoA:M is the surest way to success at it. These is one of the things everyone learns as they progress through TaoA:M. You'll have it mastered in about 5 minutes.

Actions have an option for Blending in their Properties. There you can also adjust the percentage to have the actions blend more toward one action or the other. The order of the Actions can be important too. (I'm trying to recall the exact influence the order has but have forgotten) There is also an option to Add or Replace the action which can be animated over time. Of course this also means you can have a whole lot more than 2 actions at the exact same time as well. At some point you may want to Bake all of your actions so that they become 1 combined action. Then you can start adding to them again. This is extremely useful when dragging and dropping Actions you've saved. From a Library of standard Actions you can quickly build up your character animation. In some cases without setting a single keyframe in the new performance. To test drag and drop two actions from your library onto a character from the Library. Experiment with changing the settings Add, Replace and Blend and see what effects they give you. Change the order of the Actions. Then go into the timeline and break a lot of stuff there! It'll work but you've got to tell A:M what it needs to do. You are the Director after all.

Dave, That still image DOES NOT do justice to your animation. I could almost feel the G force for a little while while watching. Nice!

Buy me a copy and I'll write you one. There are still some netrender reference files on the Hash Inc FTP. This one is from 2005 (Look for NetrenderReference.EXE) ftp://ftp.hash.com/pub/updates/windows/Am2005/ There are also these (very) brief write ups from 2004: http://www.hash.com/am2004/NetRender/DefaultOptions.htm http://www.hash.com/am2004/NetRender/Sorting.htm

Hopefully some Mac experts will chime in and help you optimize. I'll edit your topic to include the word 'Mac'. Mainly though, I just wanted to welcome you back! So... WELCOME BACK!

I'm just now seeing your WIP. Looking really great!

Not true! Many A:M users are quite happy helping anyone no matter what their version might be. Just understand that you are sure to get a few people suggesting an update is the reasonable thing to do. As this is also Hash Inc's forum it would be a rare day indeed to see someone suggest that you not upgrade. Thanks for understanding. One of the reasons I suggested moving on from this topic is that while Whisky is right in many ways its not proper to beat that dead horse here in the Newbies forum. Life will be easier if you upgrade but there is no requirement to do so. The Newbies forum is a place people can explore A:M before, during and after updating.

I know everyone is having fun here but probably best to move on to more productive subjects? Hopefully everyone is finding the files they need. It should be noted that anyone that isn't using v15 has a built in disadvantage and will always be a step or two behind those with current subscriptions. That isn't anything that really needs to be debated. Thats reality. The nature of the beast. If I could buy everyone the upgrade I certainly would.

What version of A:M are you using? I ask as in earlier versions you had to track down the plugins and install them separately.

That'd be TaoA:M and it is still very much in effect! While participation in the TWO movie is mostly limited to rendering at this point graduating from TaoA:M is the first best way to let Dr. Martin Hash know you are interested in participating in future projects. Ken hints at one already in the works! Now is a great time to work through TaoA:M as we will be digging as deep as you need us to go. You can find more information or get started with TaoA:M here. There is additional curriculum related to TWO available through Hash Inc and individual schools (TWO University). You should see more of that in the future too.

Animation:Master has Shortcut Keys that can save you a lot of time. You can also assign your own shortcut keys to improve your personal workflow. Access this option by going to TOOLS/CUSTOMIZE on the main menu on the KEYBOARD tab. Attached is an example PDF file that was created by editing the list A:M generated. It lists only commands with assigned keys. Click here for an online walkthrough of the process Note: This link will be good for about 2 weeks from date posted. or download the tutorial to view on your computer. For those that want to skip the tutorial here are the steps to access the custom list: Steps: Go to TOOLS/CUSTOMIZE Navigate to the KEYBOARD Tab Find and Press the EXPORT Button The Keyboard Shortcut List will be generated in the v15 directory assuming you have v15. ShortcutKeys_AssignedKeys_.pdf

You'll need to resize it to the allowed dimensions. Freeware utilities like Irfanview (http://www.irfanview.com) or XNView are useful in resizing images.

Concerning the manual... you can download an electronic version of it by following the Support link at: http://www.hash.com (direct link to the resourse page is HERE ) Assuming you have v13 or later: - Open the Project Workspace - Right Click on the Image area and Import/Open your JPEG You can do this even easier via dialogue boxes that pop up when applying decals, patch images and rotoscopes. If you have an earlier version of A:M you will have to convert the JPEG image to Targa or BMP format first... then import it. Programs such as Irfanview (http://www.irfanview.com) excell act converting images from one format to another.

Kyle, I would say you are well ahead of the game. I sure wish I had A:M when I was 12!!!

Short of doing some dynamic simulation I think I understand what he's trying to say here. Its related to my suggestion to pan the background (I think). In essence moving the air and environment (the space) around the bird versus moving the bird itself. I think the classic pterodayctl flight through the desert scene (by Eggington Productions) uses this basic technique. As far as I know it's still on A:M Films. Your shots are a lot shorter than that one but the same principle applies. The idea might be to animate the scene without the bird first. Then add the bird at the appropriate key locations. Not trying to make this any more difficult than what you want it to be. Have fun with it any way you want to pursue it. Just adding suggestions into the mix.

How about project files. Are there any of those?

Nice addition. I have a soft spot for the GIF format too. There was a time GIF animation was pretty much the only option available to many of us. Anything else wouldn't easily fit onto a floppy disk.

Cool.

Are you sure you looked at the plugin's instructions? http://www.sgross.com/plugins/plugin3/index.html