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dmouncey

*A:M User*
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Posts posted by dmouncey

    AM users in the UK

    in (2003-2004)

    Posted

    Thanks for your support and suggestions everyone.

     

    Will definitely need to get the BECTU guide. There are a few links in the Edge magazine that could be useful.

     

    Saw something somewhere about Aardman doing a fruit squash commercial, their CGI stuff looks quite interesting.

     

    I think in the end I will need to re-train to carry on my professional 3D work, judging by the range of jobs around, and keep AM on as a hobby.

     

    Good to see a few AM'ers around in good old Blighty.

     

    Cheers,

     

    Doug

    AM users in the UK

    in (2003-2004)

    Posted

    Hi everyone just wondering if anyone has any information on Animation Master users in the UK particularly the Yorkshire area.

     

    I am due to be made redundant at my current place of work and would if possible like to transfer my AM skills on to my next job.

     

    Any help greatly appreciated,

     

    Doug

    playback help

    in (2003-2004)

    Posted

    What rate of compression are you using? What size are you exporting out?

     

    If your computer can't handle the rate of video you are exporting you will get jerky playback.

     

    Try using a different codec on the Quicktime export settings and try a lower rate of compression, low or medium to start with and see what your system can handle.

     

    Doug

    Mass of domestic flies

    in (2003-2004)

    Posted

    Tricky one this. I think you can only limit swarms and crowds with particle systems in AM to simple objects like boxes and cylinders.

     

    I suppose you could create your hand object, animate the action of the hand picking up the person, and then use an animated texture map of flies projected onto this object.

     

    You could create a pose that transforms the hand object to a blob type shape and use this end pose as the starting object so that the flies would appear to be swarming normally, then keyframe the change to hand shape.

     

    You could create the animated texture map in AM using swarm flocking and render out with an alpha channel. This way you could layer materials/decals on top of each other on the objects and give a feeling of depth.

     

    With the right tinkering with transparency and the textures you might be able to get a realistic swarm together.

    dope sheet

    in (2003-2004)

    Posted

    Create a new action.

     

    Press right mouse button in the action window and choose New: Dopesheet from the pop up menu.

     

    You can now type in a sentence to sync up against your audio.

     

    Doug

    Render Problem

    in (2003-2004)

    Posted

    I've just had a similar problem with a scene I am working on.

     

    It involves a number of characters sitting round a table with tealights on it. One of the characters is eating fruit.

     

    Within this I had particles for the hair, particles for the flames on the candles and particles for juice droplets (blobbies) from the fruit when the character is eating.

     

    When rendering out AM would manage all the hair and flames but not the blobbies as well. I has set a pose to get the juice droplets working and as soon as this was set to on the rendering time would go sky high and make Netrender crash out.

     

    I had to work back through all my particle materials to work this out and compare render times without the certain materials.

     

    Eventually I decided that the juice droplet effect could be missed out without causing much harm to the rest of the animation.

     

    Doug

    Hair problem

    in (2003-2004)

    Posted

    I am having a little problem with some long hair on a female character I am working on.

     

    I have used Colin Freeman's nifty little hairbrush utility to create a directional map for the hair so that it is combed backwards (into the z axis).

     

    This is fine when the character is in the modeller but when I bring her into the choreography then the hair wants to move in the direction whichever is the z axis on the choreography.

     

    So if I rotate a character 180 degrees then the hair annoyingly covers over the face.

     

    HairProb.JPG

     

    This seems to happen if I use forces without a directional map any way.

     

    Does anyone know of any good techniques to working with long hair on a character? I just need the hairs axis to move with the characters axis or maybe there is another obvious solution I don't know.

     

    Please help!

    What is the big yellow bone in every model ?

    in (2003-2004)

    Posted

    I think from my experience that the yellow bone is your model bone. This is the bone that controls your models position, scale, translation as a whole in the choreography. This is different from your root bone

     

    ie. Rotating this in the choreography will make your whole character rotate. If you then rotate your root bone the model will add this rotation on top of the model bone's.

     

    You can scale, position and mess about with this by selecting and dragging or going over to your model propertie and editing Bone Position.

     

    I think for ease of use in the choreography I would leave the model bone at 0 on the y axis (or wherever your models base line is) in the middle of the model. I usually make the bone's length either a third or quarter of the whole models height, so when I come to scale in the choreography I know roughly what factors to enter to achieve the desired results.

    Freeze hair

    in (2003-2004)

    Posted

    Thanks for your suggestions.

     

    v10.5 does have a Dynamics on/off setting but this doesn't seem to make any difference to the hair moving when rendered out.

     

    I really need to be able to render out using NetRender with full shading so I don't think that turning off particles after one frame will really help.

     

    My problem is basically this: I have a female character with a full head of flowing hair. The hair looks fine in the modeller but when I come to placing her in the choreography her hair, particularly at the front, moves around wildly as if being blown by a constant breeze. This is even if the character is completely still.

     

    My thinking was if I could either turn all movement of the hair off, or export a model with still frozen hair in a certain position then I may be able to overcome this.

    Freeze hair

    in (2003-2004)

    Posted

    Does anyone know of a way that you can freeze hair on a character and then save it?

     

    Or alternatively can you stop hair from moving around without putting "Stiffness" up to 100%. I want the hair to look as it does at frame 0 all of the time.

    Cityscape?

    in (2003-2004)

    Cityscape?

    in (2003-2004)

    Posted

    Could you gradually build up the blocks/buildings you need and hide whatever you are not using.

     

    You could use a rotoscope on the top down view as your base plan so you know which bits need to be where and then gradually build a block in a separate window and insert into your main model or choreography.

     

    If you insert into a choreography you have the option to export as a model if this what you need.

     

    Does your city scape need to be viewed at all angles? If you only need to view from the front for example then further from your camera you can have layers of flat polygons with bitmaps projected onto them which will give the impression of having buildings there, with a sense of perspective. You could still have things coming from behind and in front of these buildings.

     

    This option would just leave your foreground that you would need as full 3d with attention to detail and taking up your main processing power.

     

    Someone else could probably give you advice about using cookie cutters/alpha channels with your flat planes as I am not to great at it myself.

    Purchasing character models

    in (2003-2004)

    Posted

    Does anyone know if there are any commercial sites or individuals that deal in full character models in mdl format. I am looking for something similar to this site: [url="http://www.its-ming.com/"]Its ming[/url] It would be better if the characters were pre-rigged but it doesn't really matter if it's just the mesh. Cheers, Doug

    Whoopee!

    in (2003-2004)

    Posted

    A dongle is a little piece of hardware that fits in the parallel port of your computer. It has a pass through port on the back so you can still use your printer. It works with the software allowing you to use without the HASH CD or to use Netrender. I have heard dongle used in the U.K. for other things as well - a bit like widget. I think it just applies to any small items you add to something. Doug

    Aim Roll At problem

    in (2003-2004)

    Posted

    Brilliant, that works a treat.

     

    Adding the bones between the neck and head gives you a lot more flexibility for using the contraints, and my previous actions controlling the head work as well.

     

    I think I'll make sure this is added to all my character's rigs as well.

     

    Thanks,

     

    Doug

    Aim Roll At problem

    in (2003-2004)

    Posted

    I have a scene with 4 characters sitting round a table.

     

    I need their heads to turn in unison to a focal point as the

     

    conversation passes round the table.

     

     

     

    To do this I set up a Null in the centre of the table and attempted to

     

    use Aim Roll At on the Head bones of the characters to make them point

     

    on the Z axis at the Null.

     

     

     

    When this is used the Heads do point to the Null but are 180 degrees

     

    out, ie. The heads are backwards. I tried to use the Roll Offset to put

     

    another 180 degrees on put you can't seem to go above 0. The value kind of

     

    clicks to 1 or -1 and then resets to 0.

     

     

     

    I would change the bones around the characters themselves so that they

     

    point the other way but this means editing other actions that use the

     

    bones as they are.

     

     

    Is there any way round this at all? Is Aim roll at the best thing to use? Why will

     

    the Roll Offset not go above 0?

     

    Any help greatly appreciated.

     

    Doug Mouncey

    Beam of light

    in (2003-2004)

    Posted

    Any one know how to create a beam of light, ie Light from a doorway that sends a beam across a dark room.

     

    I am sure I have seen a tutorial for creating this effect with windows somewhere.

     

    The door will be fully shut to start with and then open fully. At the moment my attempts make the whole room light up but not a beam in the shape of the projected doorway.

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