Mr. Bill

I'll have a look at the link. I used to have a program called Video Wave 3. I know I still have it, but I don't know if it can do what I want it to. Thanks, Rob. Bill

Thanks, so much, Robcat - especially for your warm welcome back! Glad to be back. I am a little embarrassed at my question, honestly. I know I have been getting little sleep this last week or so, but no sooner had I hit the send button than I realized that I had been looking in the Render Mode setting and not the Render to File button. Sorry about that! I KNEW I remembered seeing all that. And, yes, I have been going back through the tutorials...just blew past that little item, I guess! I am interested in hearing what you have to say regarding my second and third questions. Thanks. Mr. Bill

See next reply.

Hello. I am a previous short time user who got derailed by life 5 years ago and am just finding my way back. I have the CD of v13 and have reloaded it on my computer. It is working fine but I have a couple of Q's: 1) Where can I find info regarding resolution; is AM capable of TV/DVD broadcast quality? 2) Where can I learn about the new features in v17, and what about additional plugins that would work in v13? 3) What, in your estimation, is some good yet not terribly expensive video editing software I can buy to assist in this process? I have looked around a little and have yet to find any real answers to these questions. Whenever I have searched on Google or in this forum, I have been unable to narrow it down to address these. I would have to spend a lot of time to find these answers myself, so I am hoping you can direct me and save me some time. Thanks, very much. Mr. Bill

Hello All. Can anyone tell me why my Flower Power petals will not generate shadows? It looks like petal1 might be, but none of the other 12 petals do. The Stem and Leaves cast shadows when rendered. Thanks. Mr. Bill

Well! LOok at that! I didn't realize that a toolbar would go off the screen. No wonder I couldn't find it! It fixed the problem. Thank you one an all for the tag-team effort. Mucho appreciado! Mr. Bill

I have to admit, it looks like it is reacting to a mirror mode, because if I grab the points that HAVE selected and move the whole group, another set of opposite points will move in a mirrored fashion across the y-axis. Only thing is...I can't find where to turn it off if it IS on. Help? Thanks.

Hello. I have been working on the "Flower Power" Tutorial. I have viewed the video tutorial and gone through the book. I can't get my click-drag to select all the points in, as example, the stem. I am in front view in model screen and I have lathed my spline. It looks fine. However, when I try to group those points together by click-dragging as he does in the video, it only selects visible points. It does the same thing with the rings: I will resize the middle of the top 3 rings, then look at it from a different view and realize that it is oblong. Can anyone tell me why this is happening? Is there a function turned on or off that I am unaware of? Thanks for your help. PS. I have already exited the program and reopened it.

Dropdown menu? when i right-click onthe "shortcut to" i dont' see ease. I haven't used ease on this prject; one could, but the defaults worked ok here. Actions that are "cycles" ( "has stride length = ON) wont' have an ease property in the chor timeline. I was afraid that would happen. You were replying to my original message while I was editing it. I realized that they don't have ease percentages on cyclic actions; only on non-cyclic. As for the drop-down menu, I was referring to the triangle that opens heirarchy. Sorry about the mislabel. If you wouldn't mind reading my edit, maybe there is another insight or reference you may have for my current problem? Thanks.

Thanks for the Project visual. I will look even more closely at it soon. One thing I noticed is, the actions that are cycles have no ease percentages in the shortcut dropdown menu. I know it is in the spline, but what if you want to continue a walk cycle and then interrupt it with a skip and let it go back into a walk? I haven't had any luck dropping two of the same walk cycles yet, so this seemed like the way to go from what I know at this point (which isn't much, admittedly). When I did the cycle interrupt it worked, but the skip is in slow-mo, and I thought maybe an ease slider independent of the spline could remedy that, because it seems like it is reading it as requiring only a certain percentage of it's total cycle, inasmuch as it is part of the overall percentage of the choreography1 (or whatever the whole sequence was default named.) In other words, if it 'thinks' that only the percentage range in which it resides on the spline is supposed to be shown (say from 25% ease to 33% ease on the spline) then it may only be showing from 25%-33% of the cycle and spreading it out over the section of time allocated, making it a slo-mo view. That's all I could figure out about it anyway. Any thoughts or tut's I can view on that one? Thanks.

Not a problem, Dhar. I just thought maybe there was something that could make it even easier/faster. We're always looking for that, aren't we? I figured such was the case, i.e. that the program wouldn't accomodate that irregularity. But, hey! It can't do EVERYTHING, can it? If it did, what would there be for us to do?! I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

Well, Dhar: When the character moves (at least in this test cycle) he bends and swivels his stem-body in order to gain momentum. He shifts his hips side to side and, in faster sequences, his upper body and head move side to side as well. All I can get the program to mirror is arm movement and some head motion. It seems that the side to side action along the X-axis cannot be mirrored across the Y-axis. Is this because I have moved the character's 'stem' off-center? That would seem likely, anyway. So, my question was: is there anyway to make this happen correctly, given this situation, so that I only have to animate his sway and swivel motion to one side? Thanks. Mr. Bill

First off, thanks to Robcat for giving me the link to answer my last question. As usual in the learning process, it answered the Q, but brought many more. My most pressing, currently, is that above: Any links for this one? I am REAAAAAly close to getting this one...I may even have it but it's just too late to try it again tonight, and I wouldn't mind finding out that there is a tutorial that addresses this one, as well. Thanks, in advance. Mr. Bill

Hello all: I am animating a character with a stem and a wheel at the end of it...no legs. I am making 'walk' cycles for him and am having to do all but the arms in every keyframe. In other words, it won't let me make any significant moves of the stem body, and the hips (other than up and down, of course) if I want to mirrorcopy to another keyframe. What happens is: My character becomes a lump on the floor with a head and a wheel. My character has been specially modeled and so has its own rig. So, is there any way at all to use mirror copy with a character like this?

Hello, all. I am new to the forum. I have a problem getting a good transition between a walk cycle (as example) action, and the continuation into more choreography. All I have tried so far is to make the character pose and wave at the end of the action. I have been using 'new/choreography action' then starting the continuation from there. Buuuuuuuut...it keeps making all sorts of strange things happen like: changing my character's position, moving his foot in contorted positions, and even switching the moving leg. Can you tell me how to fix this? It must be possible (and easily so) to make smooth transitions into a new action or choreography. What settings am I missing, or what am I doing wrong. PS. I have tried the channels section of the key frames, but it takes a VERRRRy long time and I have only been moderately successful at making it look so-so. Thanks.