Meowx

Hahaha. Much better now! Although looking at it now, I'd almost say it would be a lot cleaner without the "SEE" stuff at all. But it would also have less to draw people in. I'm torn! Perhaps just a shorter line like, "Princesses and astronauts, love and romance, treachery and betrayal... and much, much more!" thinking>

Cool! Is that just something you did for fun, or were you going to use it to promote the film? If the latter, I might suggest putting "...is twenty of them." above the "SEE" lines. It reads a little awkward right now.

Delete this: I've had the exact same problem before; having the model bone's visibility toggled in a pose causes it.

I think it's more that it's hard to tell if she's wearing pants or not. The "seams" seem like they're supposed to be pants... but the color is identical to the face. If they are indeed pants, you should probably change the color to something that's not the same as the skin.

Hey there, something I've always wondered about... does anyone know how AM decides which patches should be shown when hooks are involved? For example: I'm adding some pants texture on these legs. You can see the patch with a hook is also making part of the skin decal show up. When I select the hook, it automatically brings that extra CP along with it. When I specifically click that CP and make it go away, the hook's patch ALSO goes away: However, on the other leg? Exactly the opposite. Here, you can see that the "skin" patch is hidden, but the "hook" patch shows up just fine. I'm planning on just decaling over the skin on the one side and then removing the patch from the decal afterwards, but I've run into this a few times before and was wondering if anyone knows what dictates the hook's hide/show behavior. Thanks!

Awesome!

Just go into bone mode and click on the background. This selects the model bone and makes any unassigned CPs flash.

The guys on these forums are ridiculously knowledgeable and friendly. If you have any sort of question, never hesitate to ask - responses are far quicker than most message boards. I browse new threads multiple times a day, you never know what random helpful thing you might learn!

Gotta say, bug reports in German are far more fun to watch!

Bat wings do suit the character better, but agreed with paradymx - go smaller like cherub wings. Or go bigger! Right now they're kind of neutral sized, and don't quite seem right... their size isn't stylized like the character is.

Alright, that gives me a bit more insight into the whole shebang. I don't quite agree with the whole "shoulder the burden" outlook - standard business practice for most software packages outside of pay-to-play MMOs is you buy it, you install it, you use it. The company comes out with the new version next year, you look at all the shiny new features, and decide whether or not those features are personally worth it for you to spend the money on the upgrade. That being said, A:M is very much a product like no other - like you mentioned. There is no massive campus at Hash, Inc. with thousands of employees pouring over the code. There is no $1k+ price tag leaving jaws on the ground. Animation:Master is absolutely the best deal I've ever seen in 3D software, period. Honestly, I doubt there would be much interest in the return of the $99 upgrade CD. I probably wouldn't bother, I'd just keep renewing my $79 subscription anyway. But options are always nice. (And I do enjoy my collection of A:M cds!)

Say, a question about the whole subscription thing. As much as I love having the latest up to date version of A:M, I'm not a fan of "yearly dues" at all. We've paid money for the software, after all. I used to go years at a time without updating, and it suited me just fine. Now, however, we're pretty much forced to shell out for the upgrade every year just to keep the software running. Feels more like we're renting than owning. (Unless I'm just absolutely blind and there's a way to upgrade without subscribing.) Is there/will there be a way to get upgrades without the leash in the future? Does the $300 box get you a subscription as well, and then you're forced to go update to keep the software running? Or is it just a free to use forever A:M like the old ones?

See, this is why I like them all facing the same way.

Another suggestion - holds never completely stop the motion. Try the action yourself in the mirror - it's impossible to completely freeze yourself solid like that, and looks very, very unnatural. The actions will typically "follow through" on a hold - that is, the hand moves a bit farther back, the body sticks a bit further out, etc etc. Here's a nice little video about holds from the Killer Bean guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpgMqebug6Q

As long as you don't name each version after different kinds of cats. My response to "are you using leopard or panther?" is "I have no idea."

Huh, weird. Just tried it out (3.5.16), worked fine for me... I hate browsers. Getting stuff to work on every browser on every OS is a nightmare.

Awesome resources! Compiled Rob's link into a PDF for easy reading: http://www.modenstudios.com/Lesson%203%20-%20Composition.pdf

I remember when I first came to the forums, I was actually confused by the version numbers and had to go do a get info on A:M to see which version I was using - because the CDs have always been A:M 2001, A:M 2004, etc.

Ha, cool idea! Would be neat to actually see it in action, too! Did the gifs in my original post work, Rob? They also cycle back and forth. What browser are you using?

I don't know... I've noticed a very subtle difference in shading when normals are facing the other way. When two opposite flipped patches are next to each other, correcting it can actually be noticeable. Random lathe object; two renders: one with normals facing in, one with normals facing out. Subtle shading difference. (animated GIF)

Lookin sharp! When do we get to see it transform?

Not so much a question, more just a cautionary tale! I was working on a character and noticed some rendering artifacts on a 5-point. Shift-1 and sure enough, normals were flipped the wrong way. Corrected it and then noticed that there were some MORE normals nearby in the neck facing the wrong way, too. Started fixing them and was surprised at how many there were. So, just to be safe, I went and turned off "show back facing polys." EEP. Embarrassingly, there were quite a few normals facing the wrong way. Extrusions in particular seemed to be pretty nasty. This got me wondering, so I went back and opened up a model I had finished a while back. My reaction: Sooo I've been fixing THAT whole model over the last hour. Remind me to turn off back facing polys more often! (Also, how accurate is it to just re-find normals? I was going to, but then I was like nah, don't want to go over the whole model again.) Before and after shots (animated gifs, cycling back and forth; click em if they don't work):

Ha yeah, just noticed that the posts are from the beginning of the month.

Looking good, Rob! A suggestion; text doesn't read overly well on a collage of images. Throwing in a ~65% black background area, like this: ...will greatly enhance its readability. (Just a quick text mask there with some bleed from the raygun dude, you'd do it on a separate layer under the text of course.) Obviously like you said, just a mockup. Also, I can throw you a copy of this image with alpha/background removed if you're still in need of any more "cool graphics." grammar nazi edit: "The Art of Animation:Master," a collection of tutorials to get you started in every area of A:M. "A:M Technical Reference," "A:M Data CD," And...spaceThe A:M Forum. Beginning to think, "It can't be done?" helpful user-forum kinda awkward, just forum perhaps? Just as important and helpful as the manual itself, -spaceEnhanced Selection Filters (bold) -spaceV16 for PC (bold) -A zillion stability enhancements (I would not actually put this on a flyer.) See A:M users' images and movies - everyone from beginners to advanced users:(return) hash.com/stills amfilms.hash.com Follow us on Facebook:(return) facebook.com/animationmaster Also, period space vs period space space - you do both in the flyer. The correct way is actually period space, NOT period space space. If you're younger than me (which... is probably not many people on this forum), chances are the teacher that drilled "period space space" into your head knew better, too. Double space is a holdover from typewriter/monospace days, when there needed to be a way to better distinguish the full stop. Pick up any current magazine and see for yourself - only one space after the period. First page looks otherwise free of errors!

Can we get a side view of the splinage where the mouth/nose bit connects to the head?