Gerard

As far as I am aware it has always been $99 for the upgrade. But you don't have to have the previous version .. you may have missed a year or more (tsk tsk) and can still upgrade to the latest version for $99! I'm one of several people however that choose to buy the updates every year. Not only new features but also general overall improvements make it too hard for me to miss.

Hi Saliz, Lee is right in that the book that comes with the software does indeed skate over some topics. As I mentioned earlier, it is designed just to get you up and running with some very fundamental stuff. You may indeed have skipped a step when adding bones to your model, so if you need a quick refresher I suggest you click on this link here AM: Technical Reference then go to the "Contents" tab, open "User Interface and Environment" then "Toolbars" and finally select "Bones Toolbar". Read the page that opens particularly toward the bottom where it talks about assigning control points. It just might help. Gerard PS. This might seem like a really obvious thing to say, but I'll throw it in just in case you've forgotten ... if you have assigned the CP's to the bones in the bones window, the mesh will still not move when you move a bone ... you need to open an Action/Choreography window to test the movement.

Saliz, the bones will move the control points ONLY after you assign the CP's to them. You don't just plonk bones into a model and expect them to know which points to move. If I'm reading your question correctly it seems that you don't know how to assign CP's to bones. This is one of a number of absolutely fundamental skills if you wish to use Animation Master. I can't stress enough the need to work through "The Art of Animation Master" book that came with the software. Work through this, and in no time at all you will have the answer to your question, as well as a multitude of other necessary skills. If you don't, then I'll bet anything you like, that you will have another 20 basic questions on this forum within the week, and anyone who responds to you will say the same thing .... "have you been through "The Art of Animation Master" book yet?" It's not that we don't like answering basic questions Saliz, (hey, they're the only ones I know the answers to anyway!) it's just that the book that came with your software was designed so that you could come to grips quickly with these fundamentals. You'll still have a ton of basic questions after completing the book which we'll all answer for you, but go through the book and at least get these fundamentals out of the way first OK. Gerard

Steve, you might get some additional help from this page ... 2001 Animation Rig from Eggington Studios. It contains four sections, 3 dealing with setting up, applying and adapting the rig to your models, and the 4th (the one I think you'll get the most out of) details how the rig system works. Some images of the interface may look a little different, this is because the tutorial has been around for a few years now and was obviously done in an earlier version of AM. However it's not so different that you won't be able to follow along. Gerard

I don't use TSM so I can't really help, but I'm sure that if you posted this topic in the "Anzovin Products" section of this forum, you'd get more help. More often than not it's actually the guys at Anzovin that will answer your question on that forum. The forum is listed under "General Discussion" / "Third Party". Gerard ( it may be something as simple as TSM2 not being compatible with AM:V13 ... who knows)

Hi Arthur, You'll kick yourself when you find out what you did. You know how to assign cp's to a bone right?... you select the bone, then select the cp's you want to assign to that bone. Well ... with the steps you are taking, by selecting the model bone and then selecting the model, you are reassigning all the control points to the model bone. This is where you lose the control point assignments to the individual bones. All you need to do is select the model bone and then scale using the ctrl key ... i.e. DONT select the model after selecting the model bone. Gerard

Hi C-grid, You're quite correct ... there are NO keys you can hold down to achieve what "someawfulbridge" was trying to achieve. I was just trying to make available some possible alternatives in light of that fact. Like you, I also discovered the ability to move the translucent box some time ago ... it's amazing what you uncover the more you muck around with this software. Gerard

You can restrict the pivot's translation to the x, y and z axis. As robcat suggested, activate the "Show Manipulator Properties" but rather than just tracking the location of the pivot as you move it, you can actually click on the figures to the right of the X-Pivot:, Y-Pivot or Z-Pivot displays, and type in the new x, y or z pivot position. This same function is also available in the properties section under the title "Pivot" (surprise surprise) so there is no need to open the "Show Manipulator Properties" if you don't wish to, you can just make your x,y and z translation changes in the properties section. It just depends on how you like to work and what is easiest for you. As for being able to rotate in say 5 degree increments ... this is also possible. Go into Tools/Options and select the "Units" tab. In here you will see an entry titled "Rotate snap angle" just enter the angle you wish e.g 5 and click OK to close the window. Now when you rotate the pivot it snaps in 5 degree increments. This makes it very easy to control the rotation. Gerard

Eric, In the action/relationship window, simply select each bone and then click on the pad-lock icon that will most likely appear at the top of the right-hand margin on the screen. Alternatively, you can select a bone and go into it's properties and turn "Lock IK" from off to on. What this function does, is basically lock the origin of the bone to its current position, and only allow you to rotate it. You will find this feature particularly useful when testing what you are doing at the moment ... adding fan bones. You can rotate the lower leg as much as you like to test how your fan bone setup looks without the annoyance of having the upper leg bone being pulled around in all manner of directions. Hope this helps, Gerard

Hutch, It has to do with the default roll methods that bones and nulls have. Bones default to what's called Z-singularity while nulls default to Y-Poles-Singularity. If you go into the properties of the null you can change the method. Under the properties triangle of the null you will see the Roll-Method option, if you now left click on the "Y-Poles-Singularity" that appears to the right of this, you will get a drop down box with the three roll-method options to choose from. Select the Z-Singularity option to make the null rotate like a bone. Gerard

Mike's suggestion to invest in the Setup Machine might be the best option at this stage Chris. Then at least you won't have to spend the next few months learning the art of rigging a quadraped before you can do what you wanted to do in the first place .... animate it! Learning to rig is a long and at times confusing process, and starting with a four-legged creature will make it extra difficult. I'd suggest opening the library in AM and going to Models/Actors/Misc. In here you will find some models rigged with the Setup Machine rig. Of particular use might be the Centaur since it's a four-legged beast. You'd be able to play around with it and check out how user friendly you find the control rig. Gerard

Hey John, I'm also playing with your rig and .... I REALLY like many parts of it. I've been back engineering the Anzovin rig (yep ... totally legal ... ask Steve) and have been building my own rig based on this, the 2001 rig and other ideas. Your rig has made me stop and think ... wow! I hadn't thought of that!... thanks so much. Give me a bit more time and I'll comment further (I'm absolutely stretched for the next 3 months, so forgive me if I seem a bit slow to add my comments/observations .... but I will try). All in all an excellent new alternative, with many promising possibilities. Thanks, Gerard

Of course .... simple really! ... better than my earlier daft suggestion! And if you needed to rotate the locked bone at a later stage, you would locate the constraint and set the enforcement to 0%, so that you could move the bone in the desired axis of rotation. Gerard

Hey Jake, Here is a link to a thread where Bill Young talks about his attempt at puting together a Jason Osipa style face rig for A:M. Hope it's what you're after. Gerard

Doug, You seem to be getting a handle on using the expressions to drive the X and Z scale. Once this is all done I guess you still want to know how to get the Null to control the pose slider, well here's a simple way: This can be done from the bones mode window if you wish. Select the null, it will become highlighted in the PWS (and Properties panel if you have that open). Search down through the properties of the null to the Transform section. Under Transform you will see Translate, Scale and Rotate. Open the Translate section and right-click on the Y option. Now select New Relationship from the drop-down box. A new relationship window will open (it looks just like an Action window). Open the pose slider window if it is not already open ... Alt 4 will do it. The pose should be in the 0% position. Select the null and move it up in the Y direction (I'm assuming that the null's roll handle i.e. it's Y axis, is pointing up the screen) to a suitable height, and then move the pose slider across to 100%. You've now created a relationship between the Y value of the null and the percentage of the pose slider. That's it. Close the relationship window and you're done! Test your setup by opening an action and moving the null up and down ... the pose slider will adjust accordingly. Let me know if you have any problems. Gerard