Russell

When you extend a spline with the intention of making a hook, press Shift-A instead of A. (A lot of longtime A:M users will forget to tell you do that, because this behavior was introduced with the stitch feature back in version 10.) Ta da. The man gets a cigar. All is well in Mudville and I even upgraded to AM 14.0. Thank you for the help and also to all of the other great people who helped!!!! Russ

Well I give up. What's the trick? I have a Intel Mac and no matter how I drag and click and tilde or whatever I can't get a hook. I created as new model and tried hooking a spline and I still end up with a CP. I made sure that I could find the mid-point, 50%, and the quarters, 25 and 75%, and still no joy. I checked the keyboard assignment for "attach a CP" and reset it to make sure I knew the key. I still can't get a hook. Russ

mmm... I thought tey were hooks. How can I tell a hook from a non-hook? I checked to key assignment and it indicates " ` " for the attachment of a spline. Russ

How do I know if I do?

I started in modeling a face per the excercies. I created a nose and added an eye. So far so good..then I tried to tie the eye to the forehead and the cheek. My smooth curved splines suddenly became sprung wire angles. I tried adjusting the bias handles and things seemed to get worse. I kept tweaking the splines in the problem area until I would get them "kinda'" like I wanted and wamo zamo my tweaking had changed the spline bias for another area. I went back and watched the tutorial video. The instructor didn't seem to have a problem with his eyes and nose attaching nor did the example in the manual. What did I miss and what should I know to keep my models face from suffering from bubonic plague. See attachment

Robert Thank you thank you. A most detailed explanation. I've already gone through it a couple of times. May the force be with you. Russ

Welcome to the community, Russ! To solve your problem, it would be easier if we could see the Action file...you can start a thread somewhere like the WIP section and post it there. Dave I posted the file in Newbie Forum topics. Thanks for the reply. Russ

I have been working my way through the projects in the manual. I keep returning to excersie 6 "The door's stuck" to try and resolve a major problem I have been experiencing. I will create a path for Shaggy from offscreen left to just infront of the door. I assign the action of walking to the model of Shaggy. The animated character "Shaggy" walks neatly onto screen and pauses in mid-stride before the door. So far OK. I then advance the frames by 5 and position Shaggy standing with both feet firmly planted in a standing at rest posture. In addition I move the right hand to the door knob. At this point I will run the animation to see how the motion flows and, to my consternation, Shaggy no longer walks from off screen but instead slides along on planted feet. I have tried "holding last frame" setting "Transistion to next action" with no success. I would appreciate any help in this problem. By request I'm posting, see attachment, the file here for disection. Thanks Russ Shaggy_and_the_Door__s_Stuck.prj

Hello. I'm Russell and I just received my AM a week ago. I retired last year from EDS where I managed large UNIX infrastuctures for major US companies. I started in computers as a graphic artisit in the mid 80s but soon found myself a computer techie. I have always wanted to get back to graphic arts and most specificaly animation. Now that I'm retired I wish to indulge in my long time aspiration hence the acquisition of AM. I have been working my way through the projects in the manual. I keep returning to excersie 6 "The door's stuck" to try and resolve a major problem I have been experiencing. I will create a path for Shaggy from offscreen left to just infront of the door. I assign the action of walking to the model of Shaggy. The animated character "Shaggy" walks neatly onto screen and pauses in mid-stride before the door. So far OK. I then advance the frames by 5 and position Shaggy standing with both feet firmly planted in a standing at rest posture. In addition I move the right hand to the door knob. At this point I will run the animation to see how the motion flows and, to my consternation, Shaggy no longer walks from off screen but instead slides along on planted feet. I have tried "holding last frame" setting "Transistion to next action" with no success. I would appreciate any help in this problem. Thanks Russ