Heiner

Having 3D-Coat sitting on my HD, thats a awesome news. 3D-Coats automatic UVing features will make life with AM so much more easy. So thats the good news ... the bad news: Has somebody figured out what extensions to install to make it work? So far I am not getting it up and running ... Regards Heiner

Correction, it works as you suggested, i was trying to rightclick the wrong element! Regards Heiner

Hi Mack, unfortunately its not as easy as that. I tried that before and then after you mentioned again, but what I get is a downloades copy of the whole website, but without the videos ... :-( If you would put them on youtube, it would be esy to get them down, and you would save on traffic, just an suggestion. Regards Heiner

Great Work! I really liked the Setup Machine concept of setting up only a simple basic bone setup to make the rig work. This seems really to pick up that idea. One question: Is there a way to download the videos? I am sitting in the Philippines right now, and i had faster connections back in 2000 with my modem ... Thanks Heiner

Unfortunateley it is not all that easy. Like I said, the data needs to be parsed and changed from one formating into another. After I looked deeper into the matter and compared .obj and AM, I found another showstopper. The notation in .obj is simply: vt 0.000000 1.000000 vt 0.249267 1.000000 vt 0.249267 0.000000 vt 0.000000 0.000000 # 4 texture coordinates This is a simple square with 4 cps. In AM it gets more complex (used the same shape as above): 0 1 2 8 7 0.00459129 0.00479008 0 0.334797 0.00479008 0 0.665002 0.00479008 0 0.995208 0.00479008 0 0.995208 0.334793 0 0.995208 0.664796 0 0.995208 0.994799 0 0.665002 0.994799 0 0.334797 0.994799 0 0.00459129 0.994799 0 0.00459129 0.664796 0 0.00459129 0.334793 0 Thats the notation vor a stamp in AM. 12 pairs of numbers. The bigger complexity is certainly due to the nature of the splines. So, and thats is also the point where I have to leave the matter because it gets too complex for my little artist brain ...

Hello there, when a decal in AM is done, it gets saved in the AM model or project file in a special decale section. I did not analyze this entirely, but the info here must be the nr of the patch, the cps involved, the positition of the cps in the xy space, and that should be it. This equals basicly UV coordinates as they are stored in an .Obj file. Now it comes: If it would be possible, to parse the UV information of an .Obj file into the file format and the order as it is represented in an AM model file, it should be possible, to get the UV information out of an .Obj file and integrate it into the AM file by putting it at the correct position in the file. As far as I know, the cps get unique ids in AM and when exported, they keep these. So they stay untouched in the .OBJ, and as long as there is only UV operations done, they should not change and therefore stay compatible to the format and order they are stored in an AM file . If that would be possible, the of creating UVs / Decals for AM models could be done outside of AM, in a dedicated software which uses the LSCM algorythm (like Blender) and then the created UV layout could be integrated in the AM files. Just an Idea, maybe one of the coders in the comunity wants to look into that ... Besides, can someone tell me where to find the troer obj importer exporter? Cheers Heiner

Hi Guys, its time for me again to treat me with a christmas gift, and I want it to be a new AM subscription. Since I am a fan of the Setup Machine Rigg and it is now for free i just want to make sure, that when i get a new subscription vor V18, I can also download V16 (32bit) and use it on the machine where my subscription is running on, right? Please correct me if I am wrong! Regards Heiner

Ok, now I am getting somewhere: Thats my latest Result and I must say that it is pretty satisfactory im my opinion. What is still there in terms of uneveness I think i can get rid of. Thanks folks for the great help! Regards Heiner

Yup, I can confirm, after switchin on the advanced properties, the "Average Normals" turned up! Thanks guys, a short test gave me a nice result, I think with that I will get a huge step further! Regards Heiner

Ok, now I am officially abit confused. I am working on windows 7, and on AM version 18.0 SSE 4. I am not getting the "Average Normals", its simpy ot there ... I attached a screen how the surface menue looks here ... Any ideas ... ? Thanks Heiner

OK, thats good, so I am not just missing something. So, Fuchur, what version is that you made the screenshot of? I will check tonight at home what version I have ... Cheers Heiner

Hi there, the idea with the lesser splines is nice and I already applied it to my model, as far as I see possibilities for it. I go me a good deal farther as you can see in the latest render. Then i wanted to try that "Average Normals" but i am a bit confused. I am on V18 and I do find the option for the "normal weights" and used it, but it seems as if its not causing any effect ... Do I have to switch on any of the Render Shaders as well? Thanks so far, Heiner

Thanks Robcat, good hint and cool modell. I started to reduce my head already and making nice progress. However, I dont think that i can reduce it so much as you did it on your Capone model. @Fuchur: Average Normals looks very muck like what i am searching for. I found it in the techRef, but I can not find it in AM. Its a Material parameter, right? Cheers Heiner

Hi there, currently i am again pursuing one of my favorit projects, which means I am working on an character. I am modelling the head at the moment, and i am quite happy with the outcome so far. Since I am going for a rather realistic look, the model got quite dense, but with the current hardware available thats no problem anymore. What is a problem, however, is that I have problems to get really smooth surfaces in regions where they are needed. That is cheeks, around the mouth, chin and such. To adust all that manualy is almost impossible. It seems as if the problem is not only a issue of the realtime display, but also of the rendered images. As you can see, in the rendered image the dents and uneven spots are a little less, but they are there. I used the porcelain material. What I would need is a function like "smooth region". Anybody has a good idea how to archive that? Is there a parameter in the porcelain material, which can be tweeked to get things look smooth? Cheers Heiner

Wow, thats a cool idea, i will give that a try as soon as I get the time to work again on my character stuff! Regards Heiner

Hello there, after a while of going back and forth, I now feel how i get warm again with AM and now I am pursuing the holy grail of optimizing my workflow. Therfore I would like to ask, if there is a way to copy selected smartskins from one side to the other, without going trough the process of manualy copying every keyframe in a smartskin mirrored over to the other side? Best regards, Heiner

Hi there, i was also suspecting that it is related to some "broken or missing" components. But then, when I try to use that stuff, it works nice. On poses I have sometimes to klick them 2 or 3 times, but then it works. So its not really something i can not overcome, but its anoying because it always makes me think something is not working ... Best regards Heiner

Hi There, I created a relationship with some constraints. Opening up that container just a moment later leaves me with plenty of questionmarks on the containers and i dont know what these questionmarks are all about? What is wrong here? Then a suggestion: I find the AM Project Workspace very useful and totaly cool, however, what I would like to suggest is two things: First I would love to see the rows beeing colored in alternate colors. Something like bright grey line 1, a little darker grey line 2, bright grey again line 1 etc. The second thing, I would love if the different sections in the workspace could be seperated better. At the moment it is just a loooong list and if you want to tell the object section and the Actions section apart, while you have some entries folded open (like a long list of bones for example), then you will have to look very carefully, or rather search very carefully. It would be cool if the sections could be seperated somehow. Could be something like a smaller but empty row, or different colored background. What do you think? Best regards, Heiner

Cool, thank you so much! And sorry If i phrase my sentences sometimes a little weird, after all I am German and used to the habit to phrase sentences upside down :-) Cheers Heiner

Hi there, i am using AM with an one year subscription. Am I entitled to get the v.18 and use it until my subscription ends, or do I have to get a new subscription in order to do so? Regards Heiner

Hi there, since i do like Raf Anzovins rig so much, and since I can not use TSM with my AM, and while I do not like to go always back and forth between two versions of AM, I thougt it might be a good idea to set up a rigg Anzovin style for the current AM 64 Bit version and use that. I know that Raf wrote a tutorial on his way of rigging loooong time ago. That tutorial was called "them Bones" or something, and in it, Raf explained in much detail how he rigged his yellow dog character. If anybody knows where I may get that tutorial or still has it somewhere and would like to share, I would be very happy! Thank you already, best regards Heiner

Haha, thanks its SHIFT + 1 found it when i switched on the "Draw" Toolbar! Cheers Heiner

Thats when i get when i render the Normal map as color map ...

I can not find any option to display the normals, but made a test: Selected one of the patches which is obvious displaying as a artifact in the rendering and gave it a flip normal treatment. It did not change a thing. Regards Heiner

Hi there, i am trying to render a model with a normal map on it, but the result is not very satisfactory. I am gettin all strange square artifacts all over the model. Anyone a id4ea wher this may come from? Best regards Heiner AM_Test_0.bmp