Ganthofer

What version A:M are you using? I'll give it a try and see if it's working? Haven't used the Dope sheet in a loooong time

I'm not quite sure I understand what it is you are trying to do. Can you clarify? Holding down the shift key when adding CP's to an existing spline preserves the current shape of the spline. If you are creating a new spline, holding down the Shift Key doesn't do anything (as far as I know).

As a general rule, most clothing is built into the model. If you take a look at some of the models provided on the CD or else where, you can see this in wire frame mode in the Modeling window. You will see that beneath the mesh that makes up the clothing, there is no body surface mesh. Only the exposed areas of the body are actually modeled. This is not to say that you can not model a complete body and add a mesh for clothing over it. the Difficulty level just increases, because now you have to either constrain the clothing to the underlying body mesh or use the Cloth Material (Cloth and Deflector) to prevent the body mesh from poking through. The Cloth feature has changed a lot (in it implementation) over the past few years and is generally thought of as an Advanced feature. Skin Tight spandex clothing is ussually just a Decal or texture applied directly to the Models mesh, the same as skin colouration, bump maps etc.

Try this link Libraries - By Heath If your still having problems, provide the OS you are running, what you copied to your hard drive and the folder location you copied it to. Glenn

My time on the Forum is sporadic at best, but the Forum has a great group of members and some one is bound to answer any specific questions you have. Be sure to try the search feature for topics you have questions about. Rodney's signiture has some good links to resources. Glenn

Very interesting characters and statues! did you find how to extrude yet? Glenn

I was playing with toon setting, just out of curiousity and (Rodney) I can't set a negative Bias. Only goes down to .01 and that turns everything Black. Could be I misadjusted another setting, haven't really playedwith Toon much.

Do you remember what version A:M you were using (2006, 2005, .....)?

Answer to question 1: -In the PWS under the Chor, you change the resolution of the camera. You only have control of this in a Chor window. Then the camera frame you see will show the bounds of what an actual render would give you. You can of course render from the Model or Action Window and set the resolution of the out put to File or AVI/Mov, but no in those windows them selves. Hope this helps. Haven't got a clue on 2.

I remember have problems similar to this, ussually when deleting and adding a lot of slines. I don't remember if I ever found a solution that always worked, but here are some things you might try: -close and re-open project. -select the cp behind the offending end cp and press the Y twice to insert 2 cp's between. break the spline between the 2 new cp's. -select all but the offending cp, copy the mesh, paste into new model. What version A:M are you using?

I think this is the tutorial Robcat2075 is thinking of. http://www.hash.com/users/ed/tutorials/fpm/fpm.htm It's by Mediaho (Ed Lynch) Blunt Force Trauma

The 100% vs. 50% in the Task manager Performance Tab is a bit misleading. If Hyper threading is enabled and you run one instance of A:M you will see around 50% (that's 100% of one virtual CPU). Split the graph (View>CPU History>One graph Per CPU) and you should see that one (virtual) CPU is pegged to the top and the other is not doing much of anything. The little bit that shows on the second (virtual) CPU are processes taking advantage of the Hyper Threading. So when Hyper Threading is enable and one graph is pegged at the top, 50% really is the same as 100% with Hyper Threading disabled. When the second (virtual) CPU graph starts trending up is where you can see performance gains (or losses!!) depending on the application and contention for the same resources.

Here are some Forum links that may be of interest OMG! Lightning fast renders!, Zippidy do da! AM and Multiple Core CPUs, Want to get the rendering to be as fast is it can be on this system. P4 Hyperthreading, some lessons learned One thing that I have found to decrease render time (Increase speed) is specific only to Intel CPU's with Hyper threading with Dual channel memory, Oh yeh and XP Pro (I haven't tested it with anything else!). Meeting all of the above requirements( I have a P4 HT 2.8 ghz with 2gb of dual channel DDR2 memory - Oh and a motherboard that supports Dual Channel memory!), and if you are rendering more than one image (a series of TGA's for example.....), You can open 2 instances of A:M and render both at the same time (I ussually render odd even frames, but first half - last half would work also). I use 2 copies of the project and associated files to reduce the chance of file access problems/contention. you must have enough physical memory to prevent Page file(swap) use. I don't have any added software on this PC so setting the Priority (from Normal to Realtime) of Master.exe in the Taskmanagers Processes list doesn't gain me anything. The render time for an individual image (in either instance of A:M) is slightly longer than if you only had one instance of A:M running, but the fact that you are getting 2 frames (2 instances A:M running) in slightly more time than 1 frame (1 instance A:M running). I have seen as much as a 40% time saving. I have also seen frames that have nearly no time saving what so ever, these have been very few in my case though. There are other hardware and software considerations that could probably be optimised (haven't tried these yet to see): -multiple hard drives - each instance writing to it's own physical drive. -video card that doesn't use shared memory -disabling the realtime virus scanning of the A:M files. -removing from startup or disable any applications/services not needed. (this list could be huge and will vary greatly depending on your machine)

Maybe this will help

Yes, Flexible tripod legs like you linked to can be created and animated in A:M. A:M is very (and I mean VERY) good at organic model animation. You don't have to be limited to cylinders and spheres for limbs and joints.

I think Ken's approach might work, but the surface would have to have some curvature to it or at the angle that the specularity shows up, it would be across the entire helmet since it is a flat surface.

If they are both Flat objects, then there is really no reason to put the head behind the helmet. put it in front and the color of the helmet will not affect it. Is there a reason to make the helmet 50% transparent?

In A:M >Tools>Options>Folders>ShowFolders-Libraries -- what entries are listed? for the CD, it should be the Drive letter and path (example E:\Data\Libraries) Also, on the Drop Down for Libraries, try "All Libraries"

The setting you are looking for is in the material. see attached pic. There are three locations you could set it. In the Materials, under Models or in the Chor. You must expand the tree to get to the Sprite system and then below that will be each sprite and there you will find "Opacity Over Life". Hope this helps

Interesting design. insect based. What's the story on the wings? The bottom one is flat the top one is arched up.

I have found this to be true in both V12 and V13a9. If I click off the point or press ESC and then select again, the graphic of the sphere is back. It seems to be the same for Bias Handles and Manipulator Properties Box.

Welcome to the A:M Forum Here is a link to basic Splines Basic Splinesmanship I There are 2 basic way to get sharp corners (and a couple of complex ways). -to make a spline that goes through a CP angular instead of curving, there is a Button called Peak. It's ussually above the Lasso tool on the right. If you select the CP and Press the P key (to Peak) and the O key (to Smooth). -the other way is to make 2 splines cross and join at the intersection, then delete the tails. Useful Links

Welcome To the AM Forum next, let me suggest that you "do try" and find the answers in the manual or by using the Forum search feature. I realize that in the beginning, its hard to even know what words to search for. Now to your question : - Patch color - named groups made up of CP's (Control Points). Similar to Exercise 9: Flower Power. You can model all as one mesh (providing the model lends itself to this method) and then select the Patches and give the group a name, then in the PWS under Groups> named group properties Surface, you can set (among other things) the Diffuse color. This works well if the Splines follow where you want the color changes. You can also use Materials instead of (or in conjunction with) Surface attributes and apply them to the Patches, Named Groups or the entire model. - Decals - This is covered in Exercise 10: FW-190 Fighter and mentioned in Exercise 11: Giraffe. There are a couple of tutorials on making and applying Decals. This requires some type of paint program. Hope this points you in the right direction. Here is a link to the Useful Links Forum page.

I believe you need to open an Action window with you model. then under the Models User Properties you can turn off the rigs poses.

Here is a trick that may be helpful (maybe not !). I used it on book covers. For all the keys that are the same (Identical) size and shape: - make a model of a key ( cut it out of your full model ). - make a set of images (same aspect ratio, over all size can be different ) - position and apply one image, then add all the other images to this key model. - make a model of the rest of the keyboard. - in an Action for the keyboard, add the key model as an Action Object for as many copies you need. - set each key to display the proper letter (I set the % to 0 for all the unwanted letters ). might be able to use a Images sequence, but I don't know how you control which frame is displayed. there is only a frame number selection and obviously you don't want the letters changing every frame . Just a thought.