markw

This was for Thumperness to show how to get a single spline to show up on a render. He wanted to use it for a bowstring but it can be useful in making the edges of some geometry in a model really show, as well as for ropes, cords, cables etc… Its maybe not as polished as one of Rob's vids but hopefully clear enough to follow. Render_As_Lines_Bowsting.mp4

Just to say I've seen your post Thumperness. Busy at the moment but will try and post properly at weekend. Have a good Thanks Giving.

Who'd of thought such a great animation example was under our very noses all this time!

Happy Birthday from me too And thank you, thank you, thank you for all your work making A:M still better!

Certainly for me, when you turn off "render as lines" for the single spline bowstring, it will only disappear when in "Shaded Only" mode. You will still be able to see it, if you are in "Wireframe" or "Shaded Wireframe" modes. Both in the modelling window and the choreography window. However, the string will not render.

I think its just the order you have the named groups of the model arranged in the PWS. If you drag the groups with materials on them to the bottom of the list then those materials can be seen. In general in A:M whatever is at the bottom of a list will take president over whats above it.

Well this is very embarrassing and no I won't be posting PRJ I think. I spend a lot of my time in the real world working and constructing in millimeters and I was sure that the rulers and grid in A:M were in millimeters too. Totally sure. But no, I just checked the prj before posting it, they are in cm! Looks like I'v been making my A:M worlds 10x bigger than everyone else's. Wonder for how long? Think I might go have a lie down now.

Why is the Choreography so small? This has always puzzled me The poll is modeled exactly 1m tall and then dropped into the chore without further scaling.

I thought about this. I just have not had time to try it out yet. Would this be the best as far as render times are concerned? As far as render times go between single spline sting and a tube string they are as near the same as makes no difference. You will most likely have to make the string much thicker than in the real world for it to read well on screen. The ones in the attached prj are around 2 or 3cm thick! Any way here's a very quick test file to look at. Bow_Sring.prj

This is coming along nicely. I too would suggest reducing the number of spline rings in each of the bow's arms for a smoother curve to them. Another possibility for the bow string you might try, would be to use just a single spline, named as a group with render as lines turned on. I'd space out the CP's making up the length of the spline the same as Rodney suggests. The cord for the monocle on this character was done that way. You can see the settings in the PWS.

It was watching Victor's "Alien Song" two years ago that sold me on buying A:M. Thanks Victor. Have a good one

I think this might be a good example of choosing the right technique for different situations. Whilst walk cycles can work on the flat, as in "Take A Walk", over an irregular and or sloping surface strait ahead animating, pose to pose would be better, taking care that each footfall has popper contact with the ground and that the correct body angle is maintained. Think this may give much better results. To use the spline-path method from the "Take A Walk" exercise the path would have to follow exactly the same undulations as the ground Rabbit is walking on and there would still be no guaranty of the feet hitting the ground properly.

For me a good organizational structure is always a big help to working whatever size your project is. And as you say plan and think ahead. Also a healthy dose of paranoia doesn't go amiss! I have an "Active Projects" folder, which is kept outside of the main Animation Master folder, in my Dropbox folder. Any project that I'm working on has its own folder inside the Active Projects folder and any thing and everything that is related to that active project is kept/copied to an appropriately named folder within it. That way current projects are always backed up online and can be downloaded again, whole or in part, if needed following a disaster! I'v never needed it in earnest yet but its nice to know should my computer and backup drives be abducted by aliens, I still won't have lost my A:M projects! I also tend to work with multiple .prj files within any given project as well as .cho files. Some here on the forum like working more with the .cho's rather than the .prj's as they are self contained. But the most important thing to do is "RENAME AND SAVE". OFTEN. This applies to anything that can be saved in A:M that you're working with. Give things meaningful names and save them in logically named places, with notes if necessary. You never know when you are going to have to go back to an earlier version of something. Most important of these are the model files. ALWAYS save a model, after working on it some, with a NEW name. Otherwise changes to it can propagate backwards through any .prj files that used that model. And when you finally get to rendering out something do it as an Image Sequence, tag or jpeg, I prefer tag's, they do make for bigger file sizes but it preserves the alpha channel which you may need later in post. Again this is a safety thing. Should A:M fall over whist rendering you still have what did get rendered and its easy to cary on from where it left off when its back up and running again. The images can then be composted in A:M (or other film editing software if you want) How much of this could be described as best practice I don't know but it works for me.

Very good Xtaz. The only limit to this software is our imaginations!

Well, I get nothing when I play that. It seems to be an empty AVI file. I'm afraid I have no insight as to the problem with the penguin here. But Rob, try opening it in QT or VLC. It plays for me in Quick Time and VLC but not in Real Player, with that its just a black screen.

There's been quite a few threads on the forum lately referring to baking of this and that in them. Its something I would like to know more about. And I was wondering, as this was not around (except for the baking of actions), when the TechRef was written would someone like to add an entry to the Hash Wiki about Baking? What can be Baked? Why you would want to do it? The pros & cons of doing it. etc... Think this might be helpful for other users and the curious.

No, I get weird results too. Looks like the bias settings are getting all screwed up in the lathing process. I recall a similar thing happening earlier this year in v16 when copying & flipping things.

I'm on a Mac too and noticed the thing with only having one light and a standard camera after installing Jason's new chore. To fix it all I did was change the file name by replacing the underscore in the middle of his new file with a space so it matched exactly the original chor file name. The file name on a Mac should be; Default Chor.cho

Life is full of mysteries. They're what make it interesting

Had a look on Steffan's plugin page and using ReSurface in Front View is a must or you will get something like a battered tin can! Its also supposed to work in a Chor as well. Again used in Front View. So thought I would see how it fared and that did not go so well. As you can see, fine when Modeling but in a Chor this was the best I could get from it regardless of settings. So, it looks to me like it works on both platforms after all when modelling but maybe not at all when used in a Chor. Can someone else confirm its failure in a Chor ?

In the video the grey tube is sitting more or less in the center of the yellow & black cylinder. I selected all the mesh for the yellow & black cylinder, not the grey tube, and then ran the plugin. I don't have a PC to try it out on. But if its only working on Mac's and not PC's that would be unusual. Its usually the other way round with some plugins not working on Mac's. Anyone with a PC want to give this a try? Resurface.prj

No that ain't it, but that topic did lead me to what I was looking for. The plugin is named ReSurface. However I'm unable to get it to work for me. Can any one confirm it's working for V16.0a Do you mean the plugin won't launch, nothing happens when you use it or just bad results? I've never used it before so this was just a quick test in v16a on a Mac. Looks like its working. Resurface.mp4

Has anyone else noticed an odd habit of patches only showing their inside surfaces in Shaded Wireframe mode when trying out CP waitings in an Action Window? All is well until you start to move something. Makes it really difficult to check for correct mesh deformation and spotting any poke through if there's some underlying mesh. Doesn't always happen but it dose seem to happen a good 90% of the time for me. Using v16a and 15j+ on Mac 10.6.8, with an i7 & 8GB RAM Patches_In_Action_Windows.mp4

This is something that appears to have started in v16 and has been reported. What I've been doing, is doing any copying and flipping of things over the X axis in v15, where it works just fine. Then carrying on again in v16.

After that, as always, Holmes has some good tuts. Located here, in the tutorials section. Then, maybe sneak into the The Tinkering Gnome's Workshop and have a poke around in there while he's not looking, for some more inventive uses of particles.