Ganthofer

Pictures worth a thousand words? Does this help clarify Robcat2075's solution?

It looks like adding a Fractal or a Normal Map makes the Specular show. (example with same image added a second time but set as Fractal)

In the bones view, the bottom ring of the body looks like it's the only one attached to a RED (Pelvis) bone. If that is true, I would add the next ring up to it also. Maybe use CP weights and split 50/50 with the LightBlue (Back) bone. The CP's in the crotch would also attach to the Red (Pelvis) bone. I would use CP weighting with each hip where it joins the Red (Pelvis) area. I'm working on a slight re-splining of the hip and reducing the body rings to 8. Unless you have a lot of detail in the crotch/hip area, the less splines you use to get the basic shape the less CP's you have to try to deal with when CP weighting or Smart skinning IMHO. The model float when dropped into the Action/Chor window. I think it's your foot targets. In your modeling window, they need to be lined up on the ankle joint. The rig is setup to make the ankle joint follow the null. (edited) I've got a little free time, as I'm a bit under the weather and they sent me home to do some mandatory online training. That's obviously not the only thing I'm doing online

Some thoughts on your problems: 1- in the modeling window in bones mode, where are the feet relative to the Model Bone? I believe the model bone is what decides at what level from the ground the model starts at by default. 3- I can't really tell from the pic, but if you would post a side shot in wires it might clear things up (for me ; ) I would probably change the layout of the spline running up the back of the leg (or is that the front? ). I think that reducing the number of splines in the body would also help, unless the body has a lot of distortion to do, 16 splines seems a little heavy and joining to 4 spline legs leaves a lot of splines that don't appear to really contribute to the shape. Just my 2 cents

I realy like the landscape !! A couple of thoughts on the volumetric Light: -make sure that the cone of the light does not extend past the outer edges of your clouds (or what ever you are using as a mask). Especially in line of sight with the camera. see attached image - right has light coneextended past edges of mask (clouds). -the Quality setting. -I prefer the look I get with the Width Softness set to 100%, and then play with volumetric contrast, brightness and Light intensity.

It depends a little bit on how you work in A"M (Modles embedded or seperate mdl files) Disclaimer - there may be an easier or quicker way!! (This is on a Windows PC) Model Files Not Embeded (floppy icon in bottom right corner of Thom Icon to right of Model/object Name) -Make sure you SAVE so everything is updated, you might actually want to close the project and re-open. 1-Import the Model again from the location that the original Model is saved at. -You may want to then "SAVE AS" the second instance of this model so that you can make individual changes to each with out having them conflict. Model Embedded 1-right click on the model name under Objects in the PWS. 2- Select "SAVE AS" and then using it's current name, save it. (remember where you saved it!!!) -The Thom Icon will now have a Floppy icon in the lower right corner, indicating that the model being used is externally saved from the project. 3- Embed the model back into the project by clicking on the triangle (between the Thom Icon and the Model/Object name). Inthe properties click on the triangle in front of "File Info" and change "Embedded" from OFF to ON. -Now you are basically back to where you started, but you have an external copy of the modelthat you can ow Import into the Objects in the PWS. Don't forget to Toggle "Embedded" to ON after you import!

Are you wanting to do this in a Chor or just under Objects in the PWS?

Steffen Gross has this one: http://www.sgross.com/plugins/plugin18/index_e.html It was for v11.1i, haven't tried it with v12 (v13)

OK, the arms still seem a little stiff. This is for the "construction guy" model, right? Does that poxy really match the skeleton of the "construction guy"? Could just be my perception. His shoulders look too small. I think the visual clues would be better if the proxy were expanded to match the overall size and shape of the model. I think it's possible to make a stickman walk like a heavy individual, but without the visual mass, the connection is thin (pun intended).

Ah... for that I'll leave you to better qualified people. I won't be much help in that area, but I'll be interested in what may be suggested. Best wishes.

Paul - didn't even know what a sporan was (had to google it). Worn around the waist and hangs in the front of the kilt, right? Can we see it from another angle? Maybe a side view and a straight frontal shot? Most of the one I found pictures of had 3 tassles (or something) hanging from the front. They either had what looked like a metal "cantle" to open an close? Or a flap that only whent about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way down the front. It looks like you are going for the flap closure, made of leather? with a embossed design? If so, I think the flap is too large (top to bottm wise). Just observations. May or may not help, but there it is.

Maybe this will be of help. Some one posted this a while back. BML Walker I think the arms are to stiff and so they distract from the overall effect. Still giving it some thought.

a couple of suggestions- -his belly should sag with each foot fall. maybe a little bounce like. -more hip movement, twist, right hip forward as right foot moves forward. -his whole body should drop a little with each foot fall and rise to lead his next step. -exageration ... lifting his foot is slooow, putting it down is faster. -a little slower or maybe a bit of a pause before he lifts his foot for the next step. It's a lot of work moving that body around.

Don't want to add a ME TOO post, actually I do want to add a ME TOO post. Love the format!

John, The view from the loft needs to have some reflection (and/or shadow) on the floor, similar to what you can see beneath the table to the right of T-rex. I think this will make his feet less floaty. Also it looks like most of the light is coming from behind him, so I'd darken the side away from the large glass area. Probably render T-rex with the light source from the perspective of the Glass wall. The edges might need to be a little less sharp and/or the the rest of him a little less blurred (could be my eyesight on that one though ) I think he fits much better here than in the Front office.

Jeff, I think what Yves is noticing and what Jim mentioned in his first reply about the chest cavity being sunken in too far. In profile (with breasts hidden) from the top center where the collar bones meet to the end of the sternum, it appears to curve into the chest cavity, while in real life it usually curves outwards. I really like the economy of splinage and the form. Glenn

John You might set the hats a little lower, they feel like they're floating. Maybe try moving the hat to one side on the Heart and angled. Might have to tilt everyones hat then to balance it out.

Just my 2cents. I would definitely reduce the spline count on the sphere. Maybe try it with a 16 or 32 ring sphere. you could probably get by with 3 vertical splines forming the mouth, unless it's going to make really complex lip shapes, as you'll have the 2 corners of the mouth and 3 points along the lip to shape it. So since it has six right now, that should make it possible to at least cut the density of the sphere in half. Keep on splinin'

At least in my experience (not extensive by any means) displacement maps are great, but require a dense enough mesh to give high detail results. It does prevent you from having to model the detail. I believe it only works for detail perpedicular to the surface of the patches ( no under cutting or over hangs). For what you are doing, take a look at this thread, http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6476&hl=rivet R Reynolds has a 4 patch rivet using 100% normal averaging that looks quite good and would decrease your patch count on rivet by more than half. he also supplied a zip of the rivet model.

Just some thoughts that might help, as I am not a professional or an expert on A:M. it looks like the picture was taken from slightly above the pictured persons height and slightly angled down. I would position the camera in A:M to mimic that angulation. There is a dark shadow under the rim of the tower on the left side, but from the look of the shadows (what little there are) the sun was to the left and close to overhead. I would place a light in the approximate location of where you think the sun was on that day based on the orientation of your back yard and the time of day. Fishman make a good point that the color is quite bold. With the lighting in the picture, even if you had a freshly painted Red barn, it would not be so bold. I think lighting in the Chor will be able to correct that. Did you render the tower in a Chor or in the modeling window? The one other thing that I think will make this look more like it is physically in your back yard, is to match the Sharpness( or blurrinesss ) with objects the same distance from the camera. In this case, the person in the picture (who has slightly fuzzy edges) and the trees in the back ground that are more out of focus. You could try playing with the Depth Of Focus option in A:M or maybe some A:M post effects like blur, film grain. This could also be done in a photo/image editing program. keep postin' and show us what you come up with

The scene is rendered from what ever view you are in (pressing 1 on the numeric key pad shows you the camera view). The camera could be constrained to "Aim At" the ship and can be constrained to a path (or path's). Paths don't have to be 2 dimensional, they can also have height.

Bill, This technique gives you just the lines, in any color you want. BUT , it uses transparency and that's set on the Model level (not on the group level) so you would have to attach the ear model to the rest of the model in the Chor and that will take some funky constraints (although I have some ideas on that - constrain a bone in the ear to a dummy ear bone in the model to orient like and translate to. move the dummy ear bone and the ear should follow). Depends on how animated the ears will be. give this a try. Group the ears and set the color (also you can set ambience, Line width and glow) and render as lines. in the model, set the transparency to 99. The only other way to get the mesh ear look (that I can think of) would be a transparency map and applied to the ears.

Here's that animated Tank Tred Tutorial - http://www.lowrestv.com/arm/search3.asp?So...sc&keyword=tank

The models are coming along nicely. I know there is a tut on animating a tank tred. can't seem to find it at the moment, it might be on the ARM . The HASH A:M site has the basics and then check the ARM for specific tutorials. As for rigging, the vehicles should be fairly simple as they don't appear to have to many moving parts. For the Pilot, you might try the 2001 rig that comes on the CD. You could rig it with just minimal bones if it's not going to be fully animated and in a lot of animated closeups. If it's heavy on the physical action, you'll need a fairly good rig so you don't have to tweak all the kinks out when the arms and legs twist and distort due to a simple rig. For the acceleration problem, have you tried creating an action for the acceleration and using a constrain to Path in the Chor? Just start a new action, Set the time to say 3sec (300) ,move the ship (for simplicities sake) in the x direction the distance you want it to travel from Zero to Max velocity (say 1000 cm). Now expand the Action in the PWS down to the Transform.Translate.? (this may be X,Y or Z depending on how the bone was oriented when you set up the rig) under the short cut to the model>Bones>"bone name". What yo will see is a (red/green/blue) line going straight from 00:00:00 (0) to 00:03:00 (1000). This is linear and if played back it will have a constant speed. What I do is turn on the SHow Bias Handles and in the PWS channel for the axis in question, left click on the point and you should see the bias handle show up. It will be in line with the graph. Make the Bias horizontal. This will give you a smooth acceleration. You can play with the bias handle length to change how quickly it gets up to speed. The trick is to match the ending slope of the channel to what your constant speed is going to be after the initial acceleration.

How do you pronounce that "Pzu"? I think he's been out in the sun to long. Kind of matches the parched earth in the last pic. But Seriously, great looking charater. Any reason he has no nostrils? Love your work