Rob_T

Yeah I would definitely like to know how tie AI plug in works. Just tried it a couple times and got nowhere.

Mind = Blown.

Largent. Thanks man. That's a great tip. Is that the wizard labeled "AI" Is that how you import the AI files? Is there a tutorial anywhere for that? Robcat and Detbear.. Ok without sounding like Bill Cosby and his famous "Noah" set. What's a Boolean? The only Boolean I know is in search engines. I do need to make those little rounded rectangle pads that go inside the holes when the entire unit is assembled so if Booleans are just decals or something that won't really worked. But I suspect that Booleans are something better than that. Is there a tutorial on using them anywhere? I don't recall any mention of Booleans when I did the Tao oh so long ago. Lastly thanks again guys. You rock. Robcat I can't believe you spend 90 minutes on my work. You really are incredibly generous. I know you said something like this is a rare need in character animation but in my graphic design freelance work what I'm coming across more and more is product modeling like this. It's what makes me want to get better at it as more and more of my clients are looking for it.

Thanks Robcat. I grabbed it. it didn't have rounded rectangles like I hoped but it's still a great tool. So here's my next challenge. I'm modeling (or trying to) the part circled in red and I'm having some trouble with the rounded rectangles. I'm not looking for someone to do the work for me (although again thank you for the other stuff guys it helped tremendously). As you can see there are three holes in the outer shell. I've included my project file and model files separately so you can see where I'm at. Thanks fir any suggestions. I learn a lot from looking at your work. Rob chuck2_base_complete.mdl chuck2_outer_shell.mdl chuck2.prj

I guess I spoke too soon. Looks like I don't have a primitives wizard. Explains why I never saw it at least. Ha ha. Yeah I'm still using 15J Oh well. I guess I need to upgrade.

Thanks so much to all three of you. You know Rodney and Robcat... you two are literally two of the top five reasons to own Animation: Master. Seriously. You guys are amazing. Rodney.... get an Amazon Wish List. Robcat. I'll be revisiting yours shortly. Lastly but not leastly detbear, I don't know you well but thank you so much for your help. I love this community. You guys really are the best. EDIT: Rodney I've been using the Font Wizard forever. I can't believe I never noticed the primitives wizard. Herp. Derp

So I'm trying to model this: http://www.casrem.com/zoom_e.asp?immago=testata_s_gr And I've run into my old enemy... the circles/ridges. I have to do a few of these things and I've done some similar stuff in the past and I always end up fighting with the ugly dark ridge that shows up. Obviously I'm not a great modeler. But circles have always frustrated me for this reason and I feel I'm must be doing something fundamentally wrong here. In the past I've just pulled everything into Photoshop and "fixed" it. But I'm hoping maybe someone can tell me where I'm falling down here so I can kick this problem once and for all. As you can see the model is already "out of shape." Really makes me wish there were some basic shape building tools in A:M like there is in Photoshop. You know, make a square... make a circle. Anyway... Any help would be appreciated. I am however thrashed and done for the night. I have to be up for class in 4 hours so I'm going to try and get some rest. I won't be back at this until tomorrow night. Just a couple weeks until me 3D classes actually start. chuck1.mdl

It will be one week tomorrow. Still no power. Still no website.

The price I paid for that answer was expensive due in large part to the pain caused by that pun. You Sir have gotten mean. LOL What's really messed up is that my comic site is down due to the snowstorm in Connecticut, It's been down for three days already and the power company just told my sister it could be one to three weeks before they get power back again. I am REALLY glad I don't live in CT anymore. But with these constant power outages I'm going to have to plunk down a chunk of my hard earned freelance money from this job and hire an actual server. And I still won't be able to switch things over until the power comes back on at my sister's place. Thanks tons Robcat. As always you are a font of information.

Hey guys, got hired to do a custom 3D deep fryer basket for a patent application. I'm rendering the final model and I noticed that the camera (as camera's will do) is sort of warping the edges of the model. The further out from the center of the camera lens the more the perspective changes slightly. Is there any way to get a flat perspective so I can render this model like it was a drawing on a piece of paper? Any help is as always much appreciated. You probably know what I mean but image attached just the same.

Rodney and Robcat to the rescue as always. Thanks guys. Robcat do you have any idea how frustrating it is to learn how to use Illustrator because of Animation: Master? It's a resource hog. It locks up and crashes (even though I'm using 5.5 at school) and it can't do anywhere near what I can do; novice that I am, in Animation: Master. It's insanely frustrating. Yeah it has some tools and does some stuff that is difficult in A:M (but not impossible). But just using the pen tool and trying to manipulate points in 2D when I'm used to being able to rotate around and stuff drives me nuts. And it has a couple 3D tools that really don't even come close to A:M. As for the competing products... I agree with you to an extent and it's one of the reasons I'm considering Video Compositing instead. That said... companies don't look for animators who can use A:M and not those other products. And as much as I like A:M I never felt like I really knew how to use it. The Tao was a really great introduction and I've done some things I'm very proud of but there's so much more to the program and I'm not there. One thing I've learned is that by learning one version of a type of program you progress your knowledge with all types of similar programs because they do similar things. Like when Dreamworks came to the school they don't use a competing product. They use a proprietary one called Emote. There's no way to learn it if you don't work there. But if you know the competing products then it's just a matter of learning the inter-phase. Like for example... loading a rig. I suck at rigging. SUCK! And I never really got the hang of loading and then modifying a rig. It's sooo complex. And if I end up going into animation my hope is to get some instruction and hands on in that kind of thing. And skinning. And particle effects. And materials. And SOOO many others. Anyway, it really is great talking to you guys again even though I occasionally bump into you on Facebook Robcat. And Nancy too! Thanks again.

I know it's been awhile. Bruce and Ken have been helping me with a little project I've got in the works and I've been a little busy as well. I drove across America and I now live in San Diego. I'm going to school at Platt College San Diego and I'm learning Graphic Design (for an A.A.S.) and either animation or video compositing (for a B.A. which will bring my college degree count to 4). I love Animation but the siren call of After Effects is pretty hard to resist. Fortunately I'll be taking at least some of both. After that I have to decide which one I want to specialize in. I've actually shown some of the stuff I've done in A:M to some of the 3D professors and the consensus is I have a rather huge leg up on the other students already. And since I'm twice most of their ages it's a wrinkled, arthritic leg but up nonetheless. I'm still doing Remedy 3 days a week: www.remedialcomics.com and I've still got some pretty big plans for my little comics company. So I got a new computer. A real monster. 4TB of storage, 16 gigs of Ram and a video card that cost almost a grand by itself. I'm updating all my software and moving a lot of things around. A friend whose wife works for Adobe got me the CS5 Master Collection and one of my future professors will be providing me with free copies of... ahem.... competing animation products. So I wanted to install A:M on my new machine. I've got a lot of assets I've built up over time and eventually hope to bring together in a Remedy animated short at some point. I can't really afford an upgrade right now. Soon I hope. 16 sounds amazing. But at the least I was hoping to get 15j on here. I went to the updates page and the posts are still there but when I click on the download links for the CD version I get a page not found error. If anyone knows where I can grab the most recent 15j update I would be grateful. I hope all you guys are doing well. Thanks.

Actually I've been rendering to Jpegs for still images and Quicktime for my motion tests and I keep getting the black background. But I'll give your suggestion a try. Thanks HS.