Meowx

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?

Yeah, undo + delete don't really play well together. You'll get your cps and patches back, but any surface details (properties, materials, decals) are gone for good. You'll typically have to reassign 5 points as well. When I get to a point where I want to delete part of a model that has some decal (or whatever) already assigned to it, I'll make a copy of the model first.

Hooks will only appear if you specifically tell them to. To make a point, have the "add point" tool (A) selected and left click. (first example) To make a hook, have the point selected and right click (~ on a Mac) when you drag it to the line you want. (second example) Animation_MasterScreenSnapz001.mov

If you select a CP by dragging over it and selecting it, you're selecting two (or more) splines and it won't show both handles. If you select a CP (or spline) by just clicking it, you will always get a handle.

A note; by default, bones should attach to their parent as long as you click near the end of the previous one. For example: AnimationMasterScreenSnapz001.mov Here, I have some created some simple mech leg geometry. When I switch to bone mode, I add bones by hitting the "A" key. By clicking and dragging near the end of the previous bone, the new one is automatically attached to its parent. Afterwards, I can switch to a new perspective and align the bones as needed.

Seconded!

Jason (-at-) hash (.) com Which one? Or is either acceptable.

FINALLY got a chance to sit down and watch the whole thing, superb work! The modeling and animation both have a very traditional anime feeling to them, you did a great job with the look and feel of the film. And gotta say I totally agree with Rodney on the mascot bit; the main character in particular is very colorful, original, and well done!

hoping to avoid that much work... but it's sort of "all there", you know, the patches, the perfect particles to send whirling. only, the reality of doing so probably won't come with a make-a-dragon -button this time either. and it is fun what happens in imagination when thinking about problems+techniques you know nothing of! If you want an "exploded view" that shows all the parts inside something, you need to model all the stuff and put it inside. There's no way around that. Can't make something out of nothing. If you just want to blow something up - to shatter it - that's what the explode plugin does.

Right click -> Refind Normals may do the trick. Shift-1 gives you the little yellow spikes to tell you which way your normals are facing; you can use Patch Select mode (the pink button on the right) to select individual patches and flipping them without trying to futz around selecting each little CP.

I had no idea there was a site for AM films!! Learn something new every day. I'll be using this in the future for sure!

Another "bad" time to use hooks is when you're making something for use with AM Cloth. Hooks make AM Cloth an angry panda.

Neat character!! A tip for editing - sounds come on or after what you see on the screen. When you see a "hit" on the screen, rule of thumb is the sound effect comes one frame later. Most of yours were before. (For example, in "Take 1," the sound effect for his hand hitting the words is about 2 frames before the actual hit. It should be 1 frame after.) This makes the audio track feel out of sync. Keep up the good work!

Been putting off the texture work on this one for a while because it's a bit intricate for a prop, but finally got around to finishing it tonight. A ridiculously heavy two-handed sword.

Holy thread necro. I'm... not entirely sure what you're asking. Or what it has to do with hooks. Can you post a screenshot?

The Simcloth will disappear if there's too many collisions. You may have already figured it out, but be sure to change your Chor's default Collision Tolerance setting. By default it's 3, which you probably don't want. Try setting it to 0.3 or 0.1 as a starting point. (Choreography -> Properties -> SimCloth)

Those are really nice looking, especially for a first time modeling feet!!

Looking really sharp! Like I said, no love lost for A:M. And make no mistake, I'm well versed in the trail and error process that accompanies stuff like getting everything to look right in cloth simulations. "Staying still" was bad phrasing by me; I meant more the character staying still than the cloth itself. End results like these: are something I'd be very, very impressed by someone pulling off with A:M cloth in anywhere near the amount of time it would take in something like Maya (or at all). Or something like this: There was actually one clip in particular that just about made me cry, like, WOW. I wish I could do that with A:M. Can't find it. It was an arm, flexing at the elbow joint with a very finely meshed silk shirt blowing and rippling around the arm as it pivoted back and forth. Don't get me wrong. I absolutely LOVE everything A:M can do, and appreciate it, its creator, and its community to absolutely no end. A:M cloth is absolutely fantastic considering it doesn't have an entire fully funded development team behind it. But beyond simple uses, it can get a bit ehhhh.

Anybody how says A:M can't play with the big boys simply hasn't seen stuff like this! Truly impressive Ehhhh... on the contrary, that clip kinda highlights how AM cloth isn't anywhere NEAR the cloth tools available to the "big boys" in terms of practical usability. The jittery-ness of cloth-on-cloth trying to figure out how to sit still, for example. Absolutely no love lost for A:M, mind you! Just saying.

One thing that Darkwing touched on but didn't really explain: you don't want to have more than four splines connecting at any one CP. This creates the creases you see, and will look horrid when animating. Darkwing's above illustration is one solution to the problem.

I've been having that problem for quite some time, actually. The bump map seems to change values from patch to patch. I posted about it and AM Reported it, but haven't heard anything about it since. I've noticed that if you turn up the percent enough on your legacy bump, it will produce this problem there still as well. And no idea HOW it happens... seems random. Sometimes patches are fine, sometimes they do this.