a.quaihoi

Thanks fellas ! Yeah I just had a tonne of stuff to catch up on, I'll try that now Fuchur, am now def going to play with the STL export !!! Man I requested this ages ago snd now its a reality sweet !

Seriously run a kickstarter campaign or take in donations if Hash needs resources for a full blown Mac version and I will be the first one to donate and while you're at it, might as well make a iOS version that runs on iPad - in NATIVE code - there are kazzlions of freelance developers that could do the conversion for a native mac version for $15k USD, I've been doing app development like this over the past couple of years and its working a treat - seriously get on it HASH - you owe us mac users !

Oh yes, I'm on Yosemite if thats of any consequence . . . same old AM, I'd thought it would be significantly better on Mac by now.

Hey guys & gals finally got around to getting back onto AM to chip away at some old projects, just got myself the new V18 subscription no 64 bit version for mac ?? Running slow as on my twin processor dual core xeon with Nvidia Fx 4800 - what is the SSE4 for mac ?? Or should I just boot camp it, which is what I did last time. Another thing, when I apply decals in shaded wireframe view it doesn't show the texture previews until I render them - is that a mac thing or is it a setting in options for video card ??

Disregard - found some already !

Hey all, I'm creating a comic book digitally and I need a anime girl and guy model to use a mannequin to trace out character poses, I have the web subscription so I didn't get any models with the download, if anyone knows where I can get a girl and guy anime models so I can use then a mannequin to create poses to sketch out characters then that would be really helpful ! Thanks in advance. Aldo. PS. don't worry about the rigging etc. I have a custom rig to use. PPS. no I'm not lazy - I just ain't got the time to model one up cause I'm creating all the draft pages and story plus all the research simultaneously an it's taking a long time !

Watch the Jeff Cantin tutorial on the Hash Video Gallery - it's pretty good - link here : http://amfilms.hash.com/video/117/Jeff-Can...IGGRAPH--99--LA

Hi Guys, since it was raining down here, I had some time to chilax and make a video . . . hmmmm . . . it's not doing it any more . . . Here's the video : You will see in the video, me setting constraints, then putting the model in a choreography, switching to skeletal mode, animating bones randomly, then creating new keyframes, then animating randomly again, then switching back to choreography mode, moving the model and then going back into skeletal and animating bones randomly again - this is the exact same thing I did, but once you get out of skeletal mode it would do the lock thing . . . I did fix another thing though - this model was done in AM 98 - then bought over to 2002, then 13 - then to 15 - so you see I have chipping away at it for a while - BUT - I did notice that when I converted the model over to Am Ver. 15 - the bones were all messed up - so I created a fresh skeleton rig from scratch and this may or may not have been the main culprit ?? Don't know - but that's what I did to fix what I said - create new skeleton, then re rig, save the pose as a slider - but in the video which I did today - I used the on/off as pose and it didn't do it arrrrrrggghhhhh !!!! Maybe also AM was having a hard time to compute the actual choreography I was working on - pretty complex and I have noticed that when your throw really complex stuff at AM it begins to choke and do funny things to GUI etc. Oh well, I love Am for its faults and its powerful set of tools. After you have trouble and your find the solution it gives you a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction :-) Aahhhhh ! PS. I checked the double keyframe thing - there really is no double key frame as once you turn on the " Defcon " you really don't need to tun it off for the entire shot. Thanks for the input. Cheers A.

hmmm . . . I'm not being rude here fellas but after reading all the posts, I think you are giving advice to a novice using overly complex examples, I think that you would explain the concept of a patch quite simply by relating it to an actual physical examples for instance : " Say you are going to make a paper maché sculpture, you have made a " wireframe " of a head out of cut up pieces of coat hangers ( You mums gonna kill you when she finds out ! ! ) The patches are like square pieces of paper that you will stick in between the wire frame head to make the surface of your paper maché model " You may only use square or rectangular pieces of paper for each piece of the surface of your model, but you can also use pentagonal piece of paper sparingly only when necessary " Thus you communicate the understanding of working with AM - with wireframes & patches without using AM software jargon - this would overwhelm the person asking the question if they have not used the program for a while or at all. Remember how you learned a 3D program from scratch and retrace the steps to a novice. Me, I had to make paper models or geometric shapes before I was allowed to touch a computer, to get my head around the concept and fundamentals of the 3rd dimension, X,Y,Z co-ordinates, meshes and surfaces --> which was in direct relation to the paper models we were made to make at the start in the fundamental stages, projection drawings / isometric design ( Architectural / Engineering stuff ). I remember a program called " Ray Dream Studio " that showed you a basic isometric grid and made is very easy to grasp this as well as how to lathe and extrude, maybe AM should implement such a grid design . . . hmmmmm . . . .

This is interesting. Can you make a simple lest case that shows this? I'm not sure what you mean by "character default pose" Definition of " Defcon " or " character default pose " : • Old Defcon : Once the model has been completed and and skeletal system in place, the old method I was taught was to create an action, then set your bone constraints, hip leg kinematics etc. Then you save this action as a pose, so that when you want to animate the character in a scene ( Choreography or even another action ) , you can turn on the " default constraints " hence " Defcon" and start to animate your character without setting constrains each and every instance of the character being used - but doing it this way doesn't seem to work properly any more ver 15 etc. , all kinematic constraints regardless if " compensation" mode was selected or not produce weird artefacts, like they get twisted or reflected the wrong way - this is not apparent when you are setting the constraints in the action window - but the artefacts appear when you actually use the pose in production as in a choreography or another action. • New Defcon Method : Right Click and select " Create New Pose " - then set the skeletal constraints as usual and you have a pose slider which allows you to turn on a default pose with constraints in place in a choreography or action - ready to animate. What was happening is that I was setting the pose as " On / Off " rather then as a slider with percentage of 0-100% - the " Defcon " has to be created as a slider, if you set it as a " ON / OFF " pose then it some how corrupts the ability to animate using skeletal mode after you create a couple of keyframes, however making the " Defcon " pose as a slider seems to not cause this problem. Hmmm . . . I do need to make a video don't I, it's much better explained that way, just have to find the time, have a lot of stuff on at the moment and am practically getting less then 5 hrs per week to indulge in AM, over xmas holidays I was spending like over 18 hrs + a day cause I could in the holidays, but I'll see what I can come up with. I'll post it up here when I get around to it A.

Ahhh . . . problem solved ! It seems that AM doesn't like your character default pose to be an on/off switch - rather a slider. I don't know why I was deviating from what I know - I always do the "defcon" pose as a slider - dunno what happened this time - experimenting or trying to be too efficient !? Either way now I know better ! Thanks for the input Robcat ! I had to sleep on it , then the answer came to me in a dream :-) A.

Helpp ! Can't select Action Mode in Choreography !! Driving me nuts !! Drop a model in, then select action mode to create pose etc. Then after 10 minutes or so the action button gets locked or something - greyed out - you can only select the choreography button - which is already selected. Poses Still work , eg. eyelids etc - BUT you cannot enter action mode to pose model with bones ? Has anyone had this problem before ? Very Very Strange.

Ahah ! Yep I meant Sappington. No no I won't yell at Steffen ! Wow I have been away for a long time haven't I . . .

Hey all, making a piano - up to the keys, is there a quick way to align and distribute the keys ? Eg - like align & illustrator . . . I'm taking notes for required stuff in AM which I'll yell about to Steve once the AM Reports section is back on line . . .

Thanks Rusty & Fuchur ! That's exactly the definition and explanation I was after. Now I know that there is no linear connection with animating in frames / SMTP - this was my confusion and now I can animate using frames and set the transcoding / translating of animation as time from frames in the options menu. Interesting use of tga sequence in Cleaner, hmm, I was talking to the guys at momentum and they told me that Final Cut Pro doesn't allow tga sequence ??? - I'll start another thread on this topic so this doesn't continue here. Thank you very much for your help !

Hi I was just wondering the difference between Frames animation and time based - for instance what is the relationship between the two or how do I do timing, say for instance if I create a animation which is : • animated over 30 frames • with keyframes at every 10 frames How will this be translated to time code ? Meaning if the time code is 30fps then the sequence would yield only 1 second of animation in SMTP So how do we convert or animate with frames keeping in time with actual errr. . . real time ? What do we have to keep in mind for actual time / timing when animating with frames then outputting to SMTP ? Say I wanted the frame animations to span over actual 24 fps SMTP, would I take this figure of 24 fps an keep it in mind and then animate as usual in frames and set key frames per 24 frames and in between keyframes as well for other motion, knowing that for every 24 frames of animation I am creating 1 second of actual animation in SMTP ? Just getting my head around the conventions, everyone says use frames when animating - but no one says how it relates to video output . . . .

Disregard - Just figured it out . . . What was wrong? I never used that option and did it in the pose right away... *Fuchur* I usually create a action --> animate the pose --> then save action as a pose - I was taught this was so that I can always go back and edit my pose from the action, the problem was I think I turned off key / bone / muscle etc. That's why the pose was not recording the action relationship data . . .

Disregard - Just figured it out . . .

it was working before, but for some reason I cannot save a action as a pose ! I am setting a default constraints of bones in an action window and then usually go -- > Action / Save as Pose but now it stopped doing it. It was working fine yesterday ??? Do I have to reset something ?? When I look in the project window - the relationship is empty ? Help !

Hi all, Scene 01. the shot I would like to create is one of a planet exploding with a solar flare, then of an object floating through space, then the object falling to earth as its pulled in by earths magnetic field ( I hate the term gravity ), burning as it enters the atmosphere - then cut. Scene 02. A shot of the sky over a desert , panning down to the horizon line ( think the roswell landscape ), a glimmer in the atmosphere, then the object hurtling down out of the sky and crashing into the ground, travelling along the surface of the ground and into a creator - yep its a typical alien ship crash landing / the style is a mixture of realistic and CG . . . Any clues . . . I was looking into doing it with after effects post rendering, or I could get some one to animate it in say 3D max - BUT I WOULD PREFER IT TO BE DONE IN AM with minor post effects in AE if I can help it , I am not fond of the idea of mixing applications in production . . . AM IS GOOD ENOUGH TO HANDLE ALL FO THIS - I JUST GOTTA KNOW HOW . . . I have been perfecting my modelling skills so, I haven't gone into detail with lighting and material creations just yet - one thing at a time . . .

Hey! Share with the rest of us so we can figure it out too! I just duplicated the model, imported it back into a project, deleted the model patch mesh, added another bone which I called the " parent ", saved this out to my model repository folder as " Custom Skeleton Rig", then imported it into my library, created a thumb nail for it it PS, import the the thumbnail --> voila new custom rig to use time and time again for all my models :-)

Hey Darkwing, I was looking for a tutorial to do a space scene like that . . .

. . . so can you ? And also does anyone know where I can get a good model for earth . . . yep. I'm doing the alien thing . . .

Please disregard - just figured it out !

Been away from AM so long, just got the new subscription happening ! Ok, how do I add a skeleton rig to the library to re-use it for other models ? Not using the Hash supplied rig - I learned how to use AM a little bit by myself with some help of Momentum Animations ( Now Called Perry Animations ) - so I have adopted the momentum style rig - which is soooo much more less ?? complicated then the Hash one - hmmm . . . south paw style. Any way I'll tinker away at it trying to figure it out hopefully when I check back someone has answered this question ! Thank you all !