Paul Forwood

Well, I'm still puzzled by this. Others are apparently not having this problem with alpha 10. I have reinstalled the update and have done the DIVX update aswell. It seemed to improve things...well...enough to do this test render, but as you can see the dynamics didn't work. The hat, shirt tails and backpack should all be displaying dynamic motion but they're as stiff as this lad's walk! [attachmentid=15310] [attachmentid=15320] Edit:(Managed to get a Sorenson3 version with lower file size so posted this one instead.) A:M 13 is refusing to run this project now. It opens and then freezes. Maybe I should clean out the registry but I don't really know what I'm doing in there. If anyone can point me to clear instructions on getting a clean and solid installation of A:M I would be very grateful. Also if anyone knows what are the bare essential programs to have running on an XP Pro machine in order to give A:M the best working environment that would be really useful!

Satisfying? Yes, but I would like all those wasted hours back so that I can use them more creatively. ;-) I haven't solved the muscle pose problem yet so I'm not completely out of the woods yet. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, an hour and a half later and I am back in the wilderness! I brought in another model with the same problem but deleting all bones, constraints and actions before rebuilding with different names hasn't solved the problem with dynamic constraints. I'm right back where I was with the other model.

Eureka!!! After many frustrating hours of bringing models from A:M11 and A:M12 into A:M13, deleting constraints and then poses, rebuilding constraints and poses, testing and... failing... I finally found the culprit, I think! I tried completely deleting the dynamic bones and constraints that were not working, saving, reopening and creating new bones to replace the ones that I had deleted. When I applied new dynamic constraints and tested them they still wouldn't work and I still couldn't set any of their properties. I just couldn't figure it out. Finally, after doing it all over again many times, I started to wonder if A:M was retaining some information on the old constraints somewhere that was being passed on to the new bones somehow. I stripped out all the faulty constraints and bones one more time and rebuilt them but this time I had the good sense to use a different name for the bones. Eureka!!! It worked!!! So A:M must be retaining redundant data when bones and constraints are deleted. I will send this into A:M Reports. Pheeewww! Thanks for everyone's help!

Thanks, Jody! That is pretty much what I have been thinking. I will try importing a version of this model that was rigged, and works, in A:M 11.1i into alpha 10 and see if it functions correctly.

Oh, YES!!! I much prefer that one, Stian! :-) I would like one too.

Hmmm. Thanks, Ken, but I just tried that and turning off/on particles doesn't have any affect on dynamics here. I am wondering if this is something to do with bringing characters with rigs into Alpha 10 from A:M 11.1i or A:M 12. I will make a simple test model in Alpha 10 that uses the same kind of constraints and poses and see if I get the same problems. Maybe A:M 13 requires all the rigging to be done in A:M 13. I don't think all the TWO models were rigged in A:M 13 though were they? Oh, Happy St. Patricks Day to you!

TSM2 for the main rig. My additions are the intermediate bones for joints, pupil pose sliders parented to the head bone, some dynamic bones parented to varoius spine bones and two pose sliders setup to do some simple eyelid poses with without bones. Dynamics seem to be completely broken in this version. Can't edit any of the values in the dynamic options. Or is it just me? ;-) I'm not sure why you would get an error downloading, Mark, though you may need to have QT7 installed as I set the looping flag with the new QT viewer.

I have been trying to progress with the low-patch model that you may have seen in another thread. I have added a backpack, bedroll and some dynamic constraints, bringing the total patches up to 758 now, but something is messing up the eye poses and the dynamics are not working at all. Are other people getting similar problems with alpha 10? [attachmentid=15255]

Great fun! Nice economical model and good dynamic pose. Excellent work again, Serg! :-)

She is lovely! Very nice m-m-m mouth. ;-)

I haven't used DOF for a long time. I didn't like the results that I was getting after playing a few times. The jitter just seemed to create multiple, slightly out of focus, elements in the background which didn't look like true DOF to me. I wasn't prepared to spend the time trying to squeeze I decided that if I wanted DOF that I would use other techniques to simulate it. Your Mp3 player image seems to display some of what I was talking about, particularly in the speaker grill of the one on the left. The highlights and the embossed logo seem to show at least two copies, slightly out of line, and retains alot of contrast. Real DOF blurs everything outside the field of focus, and also softens it. I applaud you, Stian, for your relentless efforts to push A:M to limits and get the most out of it. Your work is always an inspiration to me. I would like to see this image with various DOF settings but that is something I should experiment with myself so that I can then give you a more informed criticism. Carry on being brilliant, Stian. I'll keep watching and learning.

Another very cool bit of modelling, Stian! The image looks as though it is over-exposed to me. ;- Actually I think it is the high contrast in areas that are blurred by the DOF that spoils this image for me. I love the model and the composition but the render is just not to my taste. Just a personal thing. ;-)

Great work, Cory! Keep it coming! I agree with Jody. You will get better results with Sorenson 3 and it allows viewers to scrub through your animation. What Robert said! Two strands of drool could simulate one strand breaking by pulling out one cp from top of mouth and one from the jaw. Just have them snap back at a suitable moment. Add more cps for more realism and have some hang and swing. :-o

Nice start! One thing that I would keep in mind with characters like this is, 'Will he always walk upright'? If this character will move between human poses and natural mouse poses you may need to rethink the hind legs and proportions of the body to better fit the mouse poses. If he/she will only use upright, human poses then it is probably alright to proceed with the current spline arrangement. I look forward to seeing the results.

One method of rendering a blurred propeller would be to set up your scene in a choreography and have an action rotate the propellers. Render out several frames as TGA images with motion blur on. There are some experienced aviation modellers here who will probably give you the definitive answer to your question.

Nice first project! One thing though. Those planes are going to drop like stones if you don't get those props turning! ;-)

Nice work, Jeff!!!

Don't worry, Aleta, it's an ongoing battle for all of us. ;-) I will try to make it a bit clearer: At the moment it looks like you have this decal applied to one of the sides of your cube that is made from four triangular patches. If that is the case try making a new cube that does not use these triangular patches or adjust your current cube so that the bigger sides are made from four-point patches. Apply your decal to the four point patches and see if it still distorts. Three point patches are better at handling decals now but I seem to remember that there were issues in earlier versions of A:M. Edit: Actually they can still be a problem in later versions, as I have just experienced myself! Best to avoid 3 and 5 point patches where possible or try to limit them to areas that are not so prominant. Is that any clearer? I hope so :-)

Three-point patches have caused problems with distortion in the past as I recall. If this is the dominant image on your object why not make the dominant face of your cube with a four-point patch, or even 4 four-point patches? It could help.

It's a little difficult remembering back to 8.5 but I would guess that you have some internal patches. You might have accidentally extruded some geometry that is sitting in the same space as the original geometry and slightly 'popping' in the corner where you are getting the distortion. This is only guess work though so maybe you should just make a new box and try it again. If you copy this cube to a new object you can right click in the object window and select 'Info' to give you the total number of patches. That should give you a clue as to whether there is extra geometry in there. Or you could just click on a spline, rather than a cp, and nudge the highlighted cp using the cursor keys. This will also expose any extra geometry. Maybe Dearmad will see this and offer advice. He has been making his movie with this version so may be able to shed some light. Good luck with solving this

Really excellent characters, David! :-)

Great job, Jeff!

Have a close look at particle hair. It is a string of folded cards. That is two patches for every segment of every strand. That can amount to alot of geometry. Add surface effects and shadows and you can see why renders slow down, especially at close quarters.

If you just want to have a purple tail with a black stripe you don't need to decal it. Just make two selection groups for the tail geometry, one for the whole tail and one for the black stripe. Set the diffuse colour for the tail group to purple and the stripe group to black. Drag the stripe group below the tail group in the PWS so that it over-rides the purple group. Of course you will need splines to define the borders of the colours. You can remove decals from any patches by first selecting the patches, right click, select 'Remove Decals' from the pop-up menu, select the name of the decal and then click on 'Remove'.

Well, that was a bit of an assumption on my part. I know that I was running into problems viewing QT files recently until I upgraded to QT7. I have just tested this out on my son's PC and a QT movie that has had the loop option set from the QT7 player worked just fine. He has QT 6.? but he also has itunes installed which might be the neccessary component. Maybe someone who doesn't have QT7 or itunes will let us know if they are able to view your movie clip and then we'll know for sure.