pixelplucker

That is the tutorial I followed. Problem with adding more splines is I have to hide the prop in order to see the splines. They simply just don't show. Compared to the tutorial, I can barely even see the cp's on my screen in the chor. The scene draw mode override also seems to be dysfunctional. Guess for now I wait for a fix.

Just installed the 32 bit version of 17 and the transparency bug is in that one too. 15J+ transparency was fine so it is something that has been introduced since then. guess it's a bug. Curious if others have it.

Transparent issue, when the patches are close (co-planer) or behind the reference obj they clip out. Transparency doesn't display properly in real time in the 64bit version of 17. Was this an issue with 16 64bit? I don't have 17 32 bit installed atm. Anyone else have this issue? I am thinking it is a problem with the quadro series cards.

Transparency works in 15j+. Must be a bug. My problem with the 32 bit version is the display only refreshes in a tiny square and I have to minimize and maximize my window.

Yes in the chor

I can't see the patches that are co-planer to the obj file. You can see where they clip out as well as the settings on the side which seems to have no affect. I'm thinking it's my vid card.

Not sure if others have this but when I make a material transparent, it doesn't display transparent. Might be my quadro card, not sure. Basically I have to keep hiding the underlying mesh that I am doing a retopo to see where my patches are. Any tips?

I forgot to drag it to the chor, been a while. All works fine.

Trying to get film grain to render and I don't see any difference, I can't see any difference with any of the post effects under 17 64bit.

Gerry is right, the light leaks over the top of the wall where the window is. You may want to extend the wall past the ceiling. Lighting should work better. I'm thinkin the wireframe images have more variation in color over smaller areas so they compress less making the files bigger assuming there is a jpg compressor being used which averages across xxx# of pixels in blocks and reduces the color. I used to us 2%-4% noise to reduce the blockiness that comes with jpg compressing. Not sure where you could add that in AM or if it has to be done in video post. Scene is coming together nice.

On large obj files I takes way too long to import the file as a prop when it has textures. I figured out a work around. Simply copy the file to another location WITHOUT the .MTL file. AM brings it it almost instantly after a small no texture warning. When bringing in the same object with mtl file associated to it, AM attempts to create decals (you will see a progress bar on the bottom of the screen) that seems to take forever and in some cases seems to hang here. I haven't tried importing anything really simple yet. Here is one of the files I was testing on. Horse2.zip

Can't seem to be able to view it here, not sure why.

Is there a way of skipping decals when importing props? Some models seem to take forever to import and AM seems to lag along. If I am going to retopo the model then I don't think waiting for this feature is worth it.

Reflection can work but I would turn it off as the lightning flashes revealing an outside environment. Maybe a background image that is gloomy. at the same time showing the rain on the glass looks like it is on the inside of the window. I would only show the rain when the outside is showing. The lightning effect is pretty nice. Once you make those changes and add the sfx it should be pretty convincing.

I had loads of issues with that plug-in using 15xx, would crash like crazy here so I removed it. The ai wizzard works really nice and the ai generated from a cad program gives much better results just because of the way it creates cp's in a grid rather than user defined. I don't see any really long edges and no edge artifacts.

Did a quickie test creating a path in Moi3d and exporting an .ai. The AI importer for AM works really really well with the path. Moi3d runs under $300. Far cheaper than Illustrator. Moi3d will interpret the path and place segments in a uniform distance where Illustrator and other 2d drawing programs will export the points generated by the user. I think he Nurbs to AI work much cleaner in AM and less likely to have artifacts. moi_path.zip

Don't think you can just rename the extension. The headers are different. Eps file are either binary or asci format. The asci is closest to ai. With eps files there can be an issue with some programs reading the bounding box as an object that would need to be unmasked and removed or ignored. Better written programs will ignore the box and not print it.

The installer for FH 7 on my original installation CD won't run under Win 7 or any compatibility settings i can apply to it. That's as far as i get. Ya Macromedia really screwed up, I stopped using Freehand back in version 5. Ended up tossing version 6 because it was so buggy it wouldn't install on the pc. Macromedia killed Freehand when they took it over from Aldus and eventually layed off the old Aldus crew.

Old versions of Illustrator such as 7 will run on Win 7 64 bit but you will receive an error when it loads because it looks for Kodak's color management system that doesn't install properly. The program runs fine other than that. Not sure why AM can't use generic eps files so long as they are just vector. I used to be able to import ai's and eps files in Amapi even though the plug-in said ai only. There isn't a ton of difference between ps, eps and ai so long as they are all vector. Vector import should be possible with pdf files as well. As far as Photoslop is concerned I thought you could export the paths out to illustrator. I remember doing that way way back when I needed to extract the clipping path on a photo separately. They remove that ability?

Suction cups on your shoes should work fine for climbing metal roofs, though I never tried, I'd be interested in the results if anyone else wants to give them a go.

Can Inkscape export an ai? Thought it was just svg.

If the other metal roofs held up under that storm then maybe it is the way to go. Tin roof could be good if you have some cats you can toss up there. I still like the idea of gym mats.

Metal roofs are more intended for cold weather environments with lots of snow, not sure how spiffy they would look with the hail you get. Might resemble a recycle center after a good storm. Hail that size you might be better off putting gym mats on top. Insurance doesn't cover a new roof?

Nice modeling but if this is for a game, model only how the character will be in his/her final state with clothes and shoes. No need to model feet and toes if they are never seen. Not quite sure how you could go about rendering out a cloth sim.. maybe bake it then remove the underlying geometry prior to export?

Fantastic style, I voted for that in the competition. Didn't know who made it but the effects are nice. Great stuff!