Rodney

That demonstrates how the door works very nicely. One does wonder why he doesn't just phase through the bars of the cage to escape... his ears betray that he can walk through walls.

Hee Hee. Neat John. Can't wait to see what you intended.

I like it. Good storytelling with a single image. Makes us wonder how got in there and what is going to happen next. If I had to pick something to pick on it might be... How the heck did he get put in that cage? I don't see a door... or hatch? Adds to the mystery I guess.* *On second look that may be a hing over on the left?

Stian, Beautiful detail already and I know you've got a lot more on the way. I remain in awe of your talent (and patience!). Color me impressed.

Which models won't load for you?

I thought maybe the umbrellas doubled as weapons too. No? I must have imagined that.

Miguel, While the ground plane is usually an early candidate for deletion you may also opt to turn the object to Active = OFF. For objects you may want to use later this if often a better choice than deleting. You can then animate the Active attribute over time to pop things in and out of existance.

Congrats on your delivery of A:M! One of the most useful key combinations I've found is SHIFT Z (Zoom to Fit). It might not always zoom in as much as you'd like in the Chor but in a modeling window it'll work well for you. In the Chor I often hold the Z key down while dragging a box around the area I want to zoom in on. That'll work in the Modeling Window as well. So as a suggestion you might experiment with the following: - Change to your desired view - SHIFT Z (To zoom in) - Hold Z down and drag a box around the part of the model/chor you want to view (as necessary)

Part III in David Simmons's Squetch Rig Installation has been posted. It covers rigging the face and application of the Installation Plugin. Squetch Rig Installation (Part III)

Presenting Part III in a series of tutorials on Squetch Rig Installation by David Simmons. A thorough understanding of the Squetch Rig will have your characters performing in no time. If you have not yet reviewed Parts I and II please download and view those first. Squetch Rig Installation (Part I) Squetch Rig Installation (Part II) ...and now on to Part III! In this tutorial David covers rigging the face and using the Installation Plugin programmed by Noel Pickering to install the rig. Squetch Rig Installation (Part III) with David Simmons (47.2MB Zip file) Presentations are in MOV format encoded with H.264 which requires Quicktime 7. Other formats will follow. Commentary and exploration is always encouraged. Let David know what you think! ---------------------------- Additional Information ---------------------------- The Rigging and Relationships forum has an onongoing discussion of the Squetch Rig. There you will also find the plugin and files used with these tutorials. Download the Install Rig Plugin!

Yes, the files can be easily copied to your harddrive and then be used via Library residently on the PC. You may want to create a new library for the files however as not all resources will be in the Libraries that provided on the Extra CD. I think only one of the Libraries made it onto the CD. Adding the libraries to the Extra CD was a fairly last minute and materials, actions etc. didn't get into the libraries. The actions on the CD are mostly intended for the model that they are filed with (example: the horse running action will only work with that particular horse). Note that on some older operating systems you may need to turn the Read Only attribute OFF once the files have been compied over to your harddrive. I seem to recall WinXP turned them off automatically when I copied them over. We could probably make a new Library for everyone to download that would solve part of that issue. If anyone is interested let us know. Its not hard to do.

The going may be slow with everything that is on my current schedule but I'm bound and determined to rig a character with the new Squetch Rig. Cybergirl may be the first to get the treatment from me as I'd like to rig her as I work on Steve's model that he is donating to the cause simultaneously. So... stay tuned! ...and check out David Simmons's tutorials via the link above. Thanks to Javier for the outstanding model.

Thanks Steve! I have yet to donate the Cybergirl model that Javier Poot modeled as part of our grand experiment. I promised to donate the model to the community way back when. We can add that to the mix too if there is interest. Cybergirl Cybergirl 2D to 3D project

Thanks Martin... my apologies for being too tired to link. I appreciate the save.

You have a couple of options. First and foremost I'd say you should check to make sure A:M is seeing all Libraries. Look for 'All Libraries' in the dropdown menu in your library window. If all looks good thee next step would be to make sure A:M knows where your library files are. Go to TOOLS/OPTIONS and look on the FOLDERS tab There you'll see Libraries on the drop down menu As I imagine it won't be there you can add a path to your Libraries by clicking and directing it to your CD. Example: E:\Data\Libraries\ Linking to the CD may cause some Read Only issues so perhaps better still than the steps above would be to reinstall the latest update to v13 and look for the checkbox that prompts you to save all data to your harddrive. Checking that will copy your files to the Hash Inc directory in the Program Files folder on a PC. It should connect you to your Libraries too. Heath Hash has a short tutorial that describes the same thing with pictures. Its linked a couple of places here in the forum.

Alright! This is gonna be cool.

Beautiful rendering, setup and animation. What a great idea you've come up with to keep animating. Hope you eat more lunches than you have to buy. If you can afford the time it takes to render separate elements; backgrounds and characters at a minimum your tweaking time will decrease to make up the difference. What you'll gain will be the ability to reuse some shots; duplicate images... there is no end to the flexibility you'd gain. Really looking forward to your next shot. Do we get to see your friends web comic too?

Cory, No wonder then that your animation has that cinematic feel. Your experience shines through in your reel. To me it looked as if it were made by someone with an understanding of cinematography. A lot of demo reels don't have that. Not that I've seen all that many mind you... "Despiser" eh? I'll have to look that one up.

Beautiful model Ken. ...and big congrats on your first paying gig! May it be the first of many many more.

Steve, It looks like we have something in common. I definitely need to dig into rigging so there is at least some hope that I might animate some of my own characters some day.

The Workshop might um... work... a little like this: We try to rig our models... We make really ridiculous mistakes... People laugh at us... We all learn. Something like that. David could probably tell us whether it would be wiser to rig the same model so we could compare notes or if rigging different models should work well enough.

If there is enough interest we might even do a Rigging Workshop where we all grab a character of our choice and rig it with the Squetch Rig. It's something I know I'd enjoy doing and it would be even more fun and educational with others joining in. I might even rig a model for the Extra DVD in the process.

Everyone still with us on the Squetch Rig Installation? Need a little more time to absorb the information before moving on to Part 3? Let us know!

Mark (Niels, Gerard and everyone else), While not a full solution one possible assist you may get in the rotating of your pivot is the Pie Cutter feature in A:M's Chor window. I mention this because the feature works with all bones (root and otherwise) as well as groups of objects in the Chor. To assist in lathing... nah this won't do anything for you. You might be able to control some more precision with lathing using Emilio's Sweeper plugin though. A related note of importance that sneaks by many an A:M user is that Named Groups store your Pivot settings. If you don't name your group the pivot location is disregarded but if you name your group A:M will remember the settings of translation, rotation etc. for that Group within the Object. I've noticed what appears to be improved control of these Named Group pivot settings in Grouped Objects in the choreography objects area of the PWS. Attached image just shows the Pie Cutter increment feature displaying the degree of rotatation (in this case via the root bone) in a Chor. In my case I've got it adjusting in 5 degree increments but (as has been mentioned) you can change the increment in TOOL/OPTIONS on the UNITS tabs. I believe the smallest increment available is 1 degree which is about all the precision I generally need. I guess I could wish for Mils but who else would use them?

Outstanding work Cory. Color me impressed. Your demo includes a lot of things I'd never seen from you. The last time I saw a collection of quality animation shorts like this was from some guy named Victor Navone... wonder whatever happened to that guy? In other words... Keep on animating! Look forward to seeing you in the movies.