Rodney

Joseph, You are going to have a blast. Its like coming home all over again. Not only is the water fine... its ready for you to dive right in! Come on now... you can give us a challenge harder than that! Choose from a fine collection of surfboards, skis, scuba gear, fishing boats, jet skis and speedboats and get ready to hit the waves! Translation: Welcome back! *As far as paying the full fee for an upgrade check with Steve Sappington (steve@hash.com) first as they will mostly likely have you on file. You can send the extra savings to me if you feel the need.

With renders like that you'd better be sticking around. Don't make us have to drag you back.

Your TGA images will have to be in sequential order to import correctly. For instance: image001.tga image002.tga image003.tga ... If you miss a number the import will assume the sequence is finished. Helpful Tip: When you render out to TGA in A:M you may want to use a file name such as 'image000.tga' in the dialog box. A:M will see the 0s and know that you want the image names padded with 0s. You don't have to use 3 zeros of course but thats what I almost always do. If you just want to import the image or sequence then Right Click in the Project Workspace on the Image header and import your image there. You can also Right Click and choose 'Save As Animation' to quickly export out to other formats. Rodney

Nice! One Q though... Shouldn't the beams on the front and side bend with the building or is there something else going on there? A few Bias tweaks would get them in line if they don't have CPs in the middle. Looking forward to seeing more of your project. Rodney

Definitely fooled my eye. Ahem... post more images please.

Looking nice. I'll suggest spending a little time adding detail where the walls meet the floor and ceiling/boards. Using a little displacement will go a long way here too to make it look built rather than just rendered. There is a thread on a basement corridor (I think it was by one of the Bradbury brothers) that has some good tips on lighting and adding detail. Not all would apply in your case of course but some would. The wood at the ceiling for instance could benefit a lot from another map added to it to make is seem less modern and perhaps more hand hewn. The marble(?) columns you might want to experiment to get some differentiation. If you are mostly happy with what you have just adding the grunge maps would go a long way. Its a very clean dungeon hallway as it is right now. The repetition of rock pattern (mirror image) on the left side wall is too noticable right now too.** I like it! **Unless this is the location of a secret door made invisible by a magician in which case... disregard!

Very nice! As has been said these are great characters. They look like they'll be fun to animate. I like the stark lighting style and the stark character color too. Is that the lighting style that you'll be using in animation? I like. Is that hair you are using for the whiskers are is that modeled geometry?

...and for earlier versions of A:M you can just render to TGA and then use a freeware utility to convert to JPG or your other preferred format. I like and use Irfanview almost daily. www.irfanview.com It's a PC image converter/veiwer and I've found it quite useful over the past few years.

I believe what you are looking for is 'hooks'. Technical Reference write up on 'Hooks' If not hooks you may just want to build the model by placing the parts where you need them. Shapes don't need to be connected in every instance.

Wow... I blink and you really have progressed! Nothing to critique just enjoying the show.

Thanks John! Animated Distortion is an awesome tool that could use some more documentation/tutorials. Definitely on my 'to do' list. Its fun too!

Thanks Mark! Tincan's tutorial is a real classic.

Hey... no smiling and posting without links allowed! What did you find?

Teresa, No problem. We'll hold the fort down for you here. Hurry back and good luck on your school work. Outstanding prioritization!

Ooooo yeah. Go Noah!

The classic attack on this problem is to insert a Null at the center of the location where the object will turn upside down. Adding a 'Aim at' constraint then keeps the object oriented in relation to the null. The old manual (available on the Hash Inc FTP - look for it in the 2002 directory) has a tutorial demonstrating this technique with a plane flying in a loop. Good stuff. As Jandals demonstrates there are several attacks. Adding a Null may be the easiest however.

You've hit on the answer Filip. You must assign (or drag and drop) the distortion cage to a bone. Depending on which bone you apply it to will dictate what gets distorted. You can have multiple distortion cages assigned to different bones. I've never tried to assign more than one cage to the same bone however... I should probably try that. Edit: Just in case... You create the animated/fixed distortion cage in an Action Window. Right Click then select [New] then [Distortion]** Going by memory here... Rodney **Added: As JohnL3D demonstrates via his linked project below you can also add the distortion cage as an Action Object. I need to play with that. Thanks to John for his movie and project file. You rock John!

You can find them on your A:M CD. If 'E' is your harddrive they would be somewhere like this: E:\Data\Models\Primitives

I can. Bandwidth, blocked internet sites and firewall issues. The world just isn't fair to us animation fanatics. I'll catch up later with ZachBG's work though. Looking forward to that. Go get 'em Zach!

(I'm going to read into this too much here but bear with me) While I think there is a morale to the story here there really doesn't have to be per se. Its enough just to know that these 'creatures' live in different worlds and react differently to the same event. This story says a great deal about Trolls... and quite a bit about faeries too. The simplicity of a common fishing trip joined with the complexity of MURDER really sells the shock experienced by the remaining faerie. There is an emotional rollercoaster going on here... and a lot of it is shown off screen in the audiences imagination. The story poses some pretty serious questions without giving the answers. It lets the audience formulate both the questions and the answers. Thats pretty great stuff storytelling-wise. This story has a very 'Heavy Metal' or 'Epic' feel to it (as in the comic book magazines). Definitely a mature story on its own merits with or without the nudity. The fact that you keep it simple without getting gratuitous says even more. Pretty simple... yet serious stuff. I'm impressed.

I like to do what Luckbat said with one critical difference... After selecting your model (or whatever part you want to C/F/A) hold the SHIFT key down and select a spline closest to the side you want to Flip on. Ken Heslip and I both did mini tutorials on C/F/A in the Tutorials forum. There may be others too. Copy / Flip / Attach Tutorials Note that this did not work in one of the latest Alpha versions I tried but I haven't tried in awhile.

Dennis, I downloaded but haven't had the chance to play yet. This is great stuff from many angles. Besides just being great fun its inspirational! Keep it up! Rodney

I like the story/storyboards Will. That's a keeper.

Congrats!