MJL

Great ! Now I can worry about whether or not I've plugged in my pitcher of water! As usual, great work John, (or Matt, ) You set a pretty high bar for us newbies.

WOW ! I should have subtitled this thread: "A LOT of help from my friends" Thanks Everybody! I just got up, so I'll have to fix some coffee and try to absorb all this. More Later. Thanks Again, Myron

I'm working on a realistic model of my Acoustic guitar, I plan on putting a mahogany decal on the sides.The grain will be running lengthwise on the sides. I would think that I should "flatten" the sides to apply the decal. I did a search and tried to follow Rusty's wonderful tutorial, but I'm not doing a face, and I think I could get by with a simple overview of the process. Mainly, How do I flatten and once there how do I get it back to where it was? Thanks, Myron

These were already offered, but you can put them on the list. http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...mp;hl=lamp+post

The Spleenster did such a great job with my “Antique” song on his Ain’t No Way video, we decided to collaborate on another. After seeing the finished video, with a cartoon version of myself, other ways to use this guy began to present themselves to me. I felt that it would be to my advantage to have a more sophisticated model at my (our) beck and call. Neither Spleeny nor myself are any good at character modeling so I prevailed upon a friend (now a very good friend) for help. So in between changing among his various hats bringing you “The Scarecrow of Oz” (See The Credits) my friend managed to model and rig a new Avatar for me. So please allow me to introduce, due to the Skill and Talent of Holmes Bryant, my new alter –ego, to be seen soon in the upcoming “Spleen-star Production” - - Two Trains . . . . . . . . (Drum roll Please) . . . . .. THIS GUY:

As usual, excellence abounds in skillful hands. There's really only one thing to say: AAArrrrrhhhhhhtfully done!

Very well done!! Great Look & Great Animation!

I'm so impressed with the improvement my co-conspirator, Mr Spleen , has been making in his modeling and animation. Here are a few images he's allowed me to show you from the video under construction.

Having viewed your many tinkerings, I was under the impression that all your ideas were bizarre.

He looks like a very fun robot, like a kids friend. He also looks like he could express a wide range of emotions. Nice Job.

Here are a couple of models I made for my Pass The Ball entry. I ended up not using the Lampost. Fedora.mdl Street_Lamp.mdl

Thanks to Gene "The Spleen" for starting the "Ball" rolling, and Matt "Bigboote" for taking the helm. This project has pulled me into A:M like nothing else had. I'm past being intimated, and will be doing a new project of some sort or other fairly soon just for the fun of it. Unless I have a relapse, I'm done tweaking and this my absolutely last and positively final, this project is complete, over, done, fini, ain't no more, no way-no how, render. Thanks Again to all who helped when called upon. This Forum ROCKS! Myron__s_PTB_Final.mov

(gasp) . . . .feeling faint....... . . . . . the symptoms . . . getting . .. stronger . . . . . Must . . . Tweak . . . . . . have to . . . . . . . can't help myself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Can't Stop . . . . . . one . . . . . . more. . . . . . . . render . . . . (gasp) PTB_Yes_V.mov

Evidently if you hang around this forum long enough you become susceptible to "tweakit" disease. I changed a couple of things and warmed up a light to give Nigel a little more color. then when setting up the render, I decided to render directly to QT. I'm going to render this clip to AVI and convert it to QT just to see if the conversion program is messing with the color. A sure sign that I've contracted the disease. Is it terminal? Here's the new render: PTB_Final_Yes.mov

I learned a tremendous amount of various things doing this project, But I had to do it, I wanted to legitimately be eligible to buy and wear one of those damn T-shirts. The colors in Nigel's face were a lot warmer in the avi render, but the conversion to Quick Time washed them out and made him look grey. Myron__s_PTB.mov

Thanks Rodney, Is that percentage animatable? X% at 10 frames and Y% at 20 frames?

It's interesting, when I hit the keyframe button when I made a change in the "shortcut to" transparency the object became transparent but the image did not. But when I made the transparency change and did not hit the keyframe button, the object and the decal became transparent and a keyframe was entered in the timeline below the window. Regardless, it is now doing what I wanted it to. On to moving things around.

I'm learning a ton on this project. I made a backdrop and put a jpg decal on it, constrained it to the camera with Translate and Orient Like (with offsets) and got the effect I wanted. However I want it to fade out to invisible for about 60 frames then fade back in. How do I go about this? Do I use transparency in the object, the shortcut to the object or something else entirely? EDIT: I got the backdrop to become transparent in the "shortcut to" but the decal itself does not become transparent, and I can't find anywhere to make the decal transparent.

I was going to post with a problem, then I had a thought, went back, found out the cause and fixed it. Now I'm dancin in the street like I had two scoops of raisins! It's a newbie thing.

Good lookin' Bug. I think I saw a couple of those down by the creek, carrying off some small mammal.

That's the way it usually goes here too. When I go fishin I end up getting more bites from the insects than the fish.

Any articles about prehistoric fish?

Please don't stop looking. And please also, let us know when you find it. Nice work in this vid and nice chicks in the other post.

Okie Dokie, I'll figure it out. thank you Robcat and Nancy for your faithful replies. I shall overcome.

You would only see the movement in the reflection in the ball. the camera is already "aim at" constrained to a null which is centered on the ball. The camera is also constrained to a path ready to begin a "sweeping dolly pan" which takes place after Nigel takes a closer look at the ball. Nigel holds pose form frame 0 to frame 10 Only the camera moves. Between frames 10 & 1:10 only the ball & hand are in frame. During these frames, I wish to be seen Nigel's reflection leaning in for a closer look, then moving back to his starting point, just as the sweeping dolly pan begins. His movements will only be seen in the reflection of the ball. 0:00:00 Begin Pan 0:00:10 End Pan Camera still until 0:01:10 0:01:10 Begins sweeping dolly pan