Gorf

Video Studio can output an AVI. Try using "uncompressed" first, then work your way through the other codecs to see what works with A:M. edit: Make sure you aren't using the "DV" codec. If you must use DV, use DV type 2

I'll bet it did.

Turn off "field render" in output options. You don't even need it for TV output, really - unless you plan to composite your animation over field-based live footage such as that shot with your video camera. field render is for CRT TV technology and sacrifices resolution for smoothness. I'm planning a series of composites (nothing creative, just a learning process) and will have my camera in "frame" mode specifically so that I can halve my render times by turning off field render. Field render can be a pain if you get the field order wrong. If you can avoid it, do so.

Can I add my thanks to the list? It's very generous of you to make it available for everyone, Al. It's much better than I would have come up with any time soon.... Gareth

Most video editing software can output video files such as AVIs to a still image sequence. Do you have a video editor (other than Windows Movie Maker) available to you?

Yep - It didn't react to the ground at all - the speeder carries on parallel to a flat ground plane, and I remodelled the "shadow catching" invisible gound plane to fake things like the crater. The first crater is close, but I missed with the remaining dips in the ground - but in mitigation I was doing it all by eye. There's a big chunk where the speeder appears far from the ground but there aren't any apparent gound features to explain it. Then, the shadow disappears completely as the virtual ground rises higher than the bottom of the speeder. When I watched it again, earlier today, I figured it could also do with a bit of pitching forward during the hard deceleration at the end - either that or fix the vehicle's route and speed - whoever is driving it drives worse than I do. It could also do with some dust being kicked up... Plenty of scope for improvement, I think.

Are you kidding? That's a fantastic model - I'd love to use it. To be honest, it's way beyond my abilities, at this stage, so it's unlikely I'll add anything to it quicker than you do yourself. I'll PM you with my address... Thanks for the offer!

Final composite is here. I made the 'speeder from blueprints of the Star Wars ep IV vehicle so no creativity there. It took me about three hours and there's a load of stuff that needs tidying up, mainly at the back under the wings. It passes casual inspection from a distance, though. The driver is a manga character straight from the Animation:Master CD - I think she's called "Haruka". I only changed her robe colour to dusty brown. You can't really see her, though. So on the whole, the only real creativity is the ground plane - which had to be modelled even though you don't see it. That way, when you render the shadows, they are "caught" by the invisible > models and change shape accordingly, matching how the shadow would distort if it really existed and hit the real-life feature. Initially, the whole exercise was to demonstrate the job SynthEyes did with tracking the plate, however the model I was going to make (the AT-AT) was too complicated for such a transient job, so I settled on a simpler landspeeder model. BIG MISTAKE. You can't show how good a track is if the object you're inserting into the footage is designed to float 18" above the ground plane anyway! Just before I abandoned it, Sam decided he wanted a lightsabre fight with General Grievous, so I finished off the project a. to show him how compositing works, and b. to get a feel for producing shadows. His current plan is to have the fight run along the lines of the Star Wars fan film, "Duality".

Thanks, Ken. It's the camera. I was close, though, by thinking along the lines of the rotation limits... The Y rot is creeping up from -53deg at 0.4 degrees per frame. When it gets to -0.3 it doesn't go to +0.1 as might be expected, but -359.9. Then it resumes its creep up to zero at 0.4 degrees per frame. There's no effect from frame to frame without multipass because -359.9 is the same as +0.1. However, with multipass, the camera's near 360 degree spin in the space of one frame is what's causing the artefacts. At least, in my novice's head, that's what is happening. I think it might be one for SynthEyes tech support... Thanks for the help.

I rendered out a shaded wireframe AVI of my chroegraphy - a landspeeder driving round a crater. Everything looked OK so I set it to work on a final, multipass version as a series of TGAs (for the alpha - the crater is "live action") and went to bed. Just before the halfway mark, for three frames, there is a big jitter in the placement of the vehicle and its transparency. I think that it's something to do with the rotation around Y passing the 360 degree mark, and over the four passes it's coming out as a different position. I don't know why it should flash about the frame so wildly, though. There are no keyframes at that point. I've attached a render of four seconds around the glitch - if anyone cares to suggest where I'm going wrong, I'll be grateful! JITTER.MOV

Very good - I think that with vehicles, a low patch count is your friend, because it cuts down on creases and artefacts. The only critiques I can come up with are the specularity of the paint and the material for the back seat, so that gives an idea how good the model is!

Are there any SynthEyes users out there in NTSC land who are successfully exporting drop-frame camera tracks to A:M? I found it after successfully tracking a NASA animation of a flyover of the Victoria Crater on Mars (where the "Opportunity" rover is doing some digging). It seems that for drop frame footage, the frame times in the export from SE are all screwed up. It just seems odd that SE is the recommended tracker for A:M, and yet this doesn't appear to have been noticed. (I got into tracking after getting PF Hoe on the cover of Digit Magazine - it was OK I suppose, but SE is far more powerful. The footage above was a problem piece on their support forum would not easily track in any of The Pixel Farm's affordable offerings.)

Funny the way people read things in different ways. I saw Martin's post as a fun reminder that he doesn't expect work on TWO to take priority over paid work. Perhaps he needs to use more smilies - unless it's me that's read it wrong.

I think they are quite common. One of the Sony Vaio models is so tiny, there's no room for an optical drive. If you build a Dell on their website and opt for a second drive, I think it goes in the optical drive slot. I'm pretty sure they all come with a USB or PC card drive, though.

Thanks, Rob & Caroline. I thought it must be something simple. If I can work out how to use it properly (instead of accidentally) it could be quite useful when modelling... Not my creation, unfortunately. I'm working from a rotoscope of Judge Dredd's gun (the original, not the one they hacked together for the Stallone film)... http://www.2000ad.nu/termight/replicas.html

I'm having a bit of a problem with a model I'm working on. Some of the CPs & splines are pale blue, not the usual red/white combo. I can't select the CPs (even with {Ctrl-A}). The attached image shows the problem areas, surrounded by red splodges. I think what I'm doing wrong is something very basic, but I can't begin to think what it is. Any of the experts care to shed some light...?

Sounds like you're using a DV AVI. Try saving it using a different codec, or in MOV format.

Oh my word. My A:M was ordered on 6th Feb, but only despatched yesterday. I suppose I should be thankful that it only took 24 hours to get to the UK. Looks like I missed the boat on this raffle...

Hi, Everyone. I'm not really a new user - this is more of a "reintroduction" as I had an unexpected six month hiatus. Been using A:M since about 2001, but I'm not really very good with it. Hopefully, the new PC I just built will allow me to become productive with A:M for the first time.

This is the last version before I start trying to get the metallic flake into the blue paint as per Charles' thread. Critique welcome...

I think it's less illegal for you guys in the US than it is for us in the UK. You've got a pretty handy "fair use" concept rolling around your legal system which is useful in situations such as this. You buy the licence to use the software, so you should use it as you see fit... If there's a way to use a product you've bought legitimately in a way that suits you, then I don't see why you can consider it "illegal". "Unlawful" is how we refer to IP theft here, meaning that the copyright holder, not the police, is responsible for bringing a case to court. Only we're not talking about IP theft - we're talking about copy protection. Most companies, Hash included (as far as I'm aware), do not advertise that the CD is needed to start the program up. Don't get me wrong, Hash have every right to protect themselves from IP thieves. However, I think there are other issues that should perhaps be considered here. For example, I mentioned some time ago that it was possible to bypass the CD requirement. Steve asked me to explain how I did it, which I did, in a PM. It's only now, two full versions later, that this method has finally failed me. This means that when I get my regular "Error:" message in the modelling window when working on a complex model, I have to wait until (for example) a DVD has stopped burning and the optical drive is available before I can close and reopen A:M to get the display back. OK, so I can get a netrender dongle to allow me to re-start A:M after a problem stops work; or wait 30 mins or so (it never errors near the end of a burn )? Sorry - but in my opinion, I shouldn't be paying extra (and that includes buying a "permanent" extrnal optical drive for A:M) just so that when something goes wrong that's not of my doing, I can get the thing running again quickly.

Take a look at the sample metal flake I made here, it may suit your needs. http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=23134 Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for. Apart from the helmet thing, I thought the Dredd film was pretty good too. I started the ABC warrior for the last "Mechanical" contest, but the timescale and my abilities were mutually exclusive. Did a lot of work on the bike yesterday, but I'll get it painted before filling the thread with more images...

I was looking through some of my old comics & annuals, trying to decide if anything was suitable for my seven year old (none of it is). There was a pretty good schematic for Judge Dredd's bike, so I started on it. This is the MkI Lawmaster. The Mk2 has cannons. These are the ones from the 2000AD and Judge Dredd comics: the one in the Stallone film is just a disguised Harley, so it has relatively thin tyres. I don't recall the flying one in the film ever being in the comics, but they did start thirty years ago (God I'm old, now) so my memory may have failed me. There are some obvious faults, such as one of the tailpipes going through the rear wheel bodywork, and some of the engine parts haven't been modelled or mirrored to the far side yet. There shouldn't be a gap between the rear wheel bodywork and the ammo box. There are a couple of gun holes either side of the cone-shape laser on the front that have yet to be modelled. There should be a computer console on top of the fuel tank too. My only contribution to the design is to use grooved tyres instead of the slicks present on the schematic. I've cheated with the rifle - it's just the AR42 from the CD, remodelled to an extent so it matches the visible parts of the rifle from the schematic. It's called a "scatter gun" (apparently) which suggests a shotgun, but my failing memory doesn't recall it... I'd love to know how to get speckled paint (as in the "Cars" logo") or even just a good, very dark-blue metallic paint. Anyway - comments welcome, good or not so good...

Does the model have to have hair before you see a time benefit from turning hair off? (Apologies if that looks like "Dumb question of the day".)

<FX: Tentatively raises hand>