markw

Hi Dalemation It may depend on how you hid him. Try this; in the 'Time Line' set the 'Active' state of the character to 'OFF', that will stop him from being both visible on your screen and from rendering. As this sets a key frame for the 'Active' state make sure you do it at the start of the animation on frame 0.

That's interesting… Here's a shot from my Movie Inspector. Both QT7 Pro & QT X say the same. I see though on mine after it says AAC it is followed by the words "Low Delay". Is that significant maybe?

The mystery deepens! Plays just fine for me in Firefox, Chrome & Safari. My Quicktime movie inspector also tells that the sound is definitely AAC. I wonder if its just Windows systems that are in some way misreading the sound codex? @ sebastian; like the others here I'm loving the look of your renders! The SSAO settings you show are a feature in v18 I take it? Something for the rest of us to look forward to playing with!

Hi Simon There are several ways of getting Windows or just Windows apps running on Macs. This article gives a good overview of the options available: http://www.macworld.com/article/1164817/th...n_your_mac.html The only down side stopping me from trying it is the combined cost of buying both the Windows OS/license and the app to make it work. An expense I can't really justify sadly as A:M would be the only thing I would want to run under Windows. Like yourself it would be just so that I could have access to all aspects of A:M that the Windows user gets.

¡Ah, mi encanta Valencia! La ciudad de las flores y luz. ¡Bienvenido a España!

Hi Phaedrus, I don't have v10.5 to try this but have you tried: Make a square image of the model you want to use for it's Preview icon. Go to the model in the PWS open the Property triangle, go to File Info and open that. Now on the Default Preview icon/perviously assigned image and choose 'Assign Preview Image'. Use the navigation window that then opens to find the image you wish to use. When done re-save the model.

You know you have more than just fans of your work here Mark, we also know the amount of mental stamina required to see any animation project through to its conclusion. Bring on the zombies!!!

I like how that's looking Simon. Looks like she really is putting in the energy to make the swing move. The movement of the seat towards the end bothers me though. It jumps away from her with more energy than can be explained by her just slipping off. Maybe if it didn't move out so far before returning to hit her would look more natural?

Yup this is a weird bug, & I could make it happen on my PC (17g/32)...but there is a work-around. Uncheck "show property triangle" in tools/options/global for the scale to show up. But first delete the one you created when show property triangle was checked. You will most likely have to recreate the frameburn post effect for it to show up (17g PC) - Also- In my QT player I can change the time display to show the frame number (from standard), by clicking on it - perhaps that's not available in your QT player? and/or perhaps I have an old player? EDIT: Forgot to say - the swinging looks good! Just a little stiff in the chains. Maybe some lag, or dynamic constraint could help loosen the chains up? How on earth did you figure that out Nancy ! I must confess I've never really needed to use Frame Burn myself and like you if I've needed to know a precise frame I've always used the frame counter in whatever editor/player I happen to be using. But its nice to know A:M has this function should anyone need it. As for QT 7 Pro I think both Mac and Windows versions still have the same features as each other. I don't think Apple have updated it in a very long time or plan to.

Mark Thank you for your help. I tried your suggestion and it worked. Here is the file with the frame numbers on. swinging4.mov Normally I render to single frames myself, as it can be a bit aggravating if a power cut happens or something else intervenes on a log render. Because these were only taking 10 mins or less it seemed a worthy short cut... regards simon YAY Well you know what they say, "short cuts can make for long delays!"

There is a font scale property for the frame burn post effect (currently set to 100%) Thanks for the screen shot Nancy but my Mac seems to be missing that option Me thinks a bug report is in order!

Hi Simon, Having just read your last post I tried rendering to .mov with a post effect and yes like your's A:M here crashes every time. So that's probably a bug! However its easily avoided by rendering to an image sequence instead. I always, always render to an image sequence as its safer and can be more flexible later. As for your sequence not showing the frame count but only the title when using Frame Burn, I can't explain that, sorry! Maybe restart the computer, it's maybe one of those strange temporary problems that a restart fixes... If I may ask a question here as well, dose any one know if its possible to set different font sizes for Frame Burn? It is really tiny! I've expanded all the property triangles I could see and right clicked on every thing they showed but see no parameters to change it.

How strange? I just tried your swing project you posted yesterday with Frame Burn applied and all went well. As it dose with my own projects. I would note though that after Rodney's step 4 there is a step 5! Where you set this next bit depends on your 'Render To File' preference settings. If your 'Render To File' has been set to use the camera settings then do this; After dragging the effect onto the camera in the Choreography you need to open the properties triangle for it (we'er still in the Choreography here) and go to; 'Output Options' > 'Buffers' > 'Apply camera's PostEffects to renderings'. If they have been set to use the 'Render To File' dialog window itself, then you can do it under the 'Output' tab > 'Buffers' > 'Apply camera's PostEffects to renderings'. If you look very closely at the attached you will see the frame number is put into the top right corner of the frame. swingFRAMEBURNTEST_5.tga

Hi Simon just wanted to say; "Be not afraid of the curve editor. The curve editor is your friend!" I must say that I actually quite enjoy messing around in there tweaking things! And if an animation is to have any subtlety, that's where it needs to be done. If Robert hasn't already pointed you to it he has a short intro to using the curve editor on his page called 'Channel Bias Editing' here: http://www.brilliantisland.com/am/amtutorials.htm Also Barry Zundel has a series of vids on animating, all worth watching, one of which follows him adjusting his animation using the curve editor.

Thank you so much for posting this here Roger. Just got my copy of Camtasia now. This is a must have for me! Whilst Macs can do screen recording themselves thanks to Quicktime X, the version of Quicktime X that now ships with Macs is a dog compered to how smooth the one in Snow Leopard used to record screen vids. A:M and my other graphics apps just bog right down as soon as you start recording with it.

Yeah, I suppose that recording dose make me sound a bit English Thanks for the simple solution Robert. I like simple solutions! That then just leaves the mystery of what "Select Spline #…" & "Select CP #…" is supposed to do…

Hi Robert Well I've made a short video which hopefully will help explain what I was wanting to do. It's not the greatest video partly because Apple seem to have altered how Quicktime X records in OS10.8. and it really slows down the app you are trying to record OS10.6 was so much better at it! Oh well that's progress for you... ID_Splines_CPs.mp4

I notice that when working on SmartSkins, in the PWS you can on a CP or Spline number and get the option to "Select Spline #" or "Select CP #". However nothing appears happen when choosing either. What should happen? However it would be immensely useful it those options did in fact highlight their counterparts in the actual SmartSkin window. This would make altering/tweaking just a few Cps in a SmartSkin much easier to do later on if one was not happy the first time round. Is this in fact what is supposed to happen? If so then I think it's broke

That was quick! Once again many thanks for updating this rig.

Thanks for updating this! I tried this rig some time back without much success and thought it was my incompetence at rigging that was at fault (that was probably still a factor though!) Will give this another shot now. But first I have just noticed that on the example model provided in your zip that the head's left eyebrow can not be moved up on its own like the right can. Is that a problem with the rig or just in the example model?

If I may Nancy?… @Simon, sorry but the future Nancy spoke of is already here for the Mac version of TSM2, has been for a while. Unless you have very old Mac lying around? Nancy you have created yet another amazing character here. It's always a pleasure seeing your creations!

Be still my beating heart I think I may need to go lie down, I feel quite faint...

For your animated decal; Go to the Images folder at the top of the Project Workspace. Right click on the folder > Import and choose 'Animation or Image Sequence...' This will open a window for you to navigate to the sequence you wish to use. Next click on just the first image in the sequence to highlight it and then click the 'Open' button at the bottom of the window. A:M will now import the sequence. Now open the model you want to use it on, position it as you want and hide all the parts of the model you don't want to decal with the image sequence. Next drag the sequence from the 'Images' folder into the 'Modelling Window' and position and scale it just like a normal decal and apply. Also if you open the properties for the image sequence in the PWS you will also see that there are some parameters like start and end points, fps etc... you can adjust. That I think is about all there is to it. I hope this helps. And as for starting a topic/asking a question, you will need to be logged in and then...

Ah I see. You know, I didn't even know it was possible to do that in a Chor! If nothing else, your misadventure can stand as a warning to the rest of us that it can happen! Glad to hear you use Time Machine too. I'm constantly surprised by the number of computer users I meet that don't have some form of backup strategy in place.

Time Machine You do use it, right? If the model was in it's correct functioning state on your HD for more than a couple of hours then you will have a clean copy of it backed up. If its an old model then you definitely will have copies of it saved. Go back to the closest Time Machine backup of the model before things got messed up and hit Restore. If you don't use Time Machine, start! It's saved my arse on more than one occasion!