heyvern

The key for that is coming up with the surface material first... then constructing the face or head the same way faces are built in A:M. The thing here is not to use a different way to model the head or face but create some kind of material that makes it look "cloud like". With that type of look it could be applied to any model and the model would look made out of clouds. I was thinking along the lines of that multipass inter frame jitter effect. This would produce a very "fuzzy" cloud like look. You could create actions that jitter the actual cps of the model more in some spots than others to create a more solid surface on areas that need it, like around the eyes, nose and mouth. Maybe a gradient material, like a spherical gradient thingy... that fades off at the edges would work too. A long time ago I used something like that to create white stuffing coming out of a doll. My thought is not to worry about the cloud material right now, design the character to have rounded cloud like features and then use other techniques to make it look soft and cloudy. -vern

Brilliant effect! You could play with the particles a bit to make even better... have them... spread more at the base or just more irregular. That cone trick is VERY convincing. It is the... illusion of the sand falling down the sides that really sells it. -vern

Good lord man! You feed sand to a baby? I'm shocked. It's like letting children play in big piles of broken glass! -vern

I hear you - I'm no longer a Civ addict. Holy cow! They make games for the computer too? Wow! That explains a lot. I thought that "Solitaire" application was some kind of spreadsheet. No wonder my invoices weren't adding up right. -vern

I would just extrude "one side" of the last ring twice slide it over and connect to the other side and at the top. Faster then using the Y key over and over. -vern

At some point you have to... go solo... you have to let go of the reference and... use the artistic side of the brain. A problem with photo references at least is camera distortion. It can be subtle but a "real" camera is not like the display in AM. AM is "flat" everything is the same scale no matter how you rotate. With photo reference even the slightest rotation completely changes the reference points... they will never line up. Not as big a problem with body proportions I suppose because they are closer to the same position. Another problem is slight changes in angle from one reference to the next. A slight tilt forward can completely mess up reference points. Another problem is the rotation pivot points of the bones or limbs. If after creating a model based on reference or lengths of limbs and you put the rotation of a joint in the wrong spot it won't be correct. Finding the proper pivot point is crucial. Yet another thing is what the body does when it rotates. I noticed from the original images that in the drawings there is all kinds of bending and shifting of different body parts. These small things can change how the parts relate to each other. If the back bends a little when the character bends over, the back gets shorter. If your model doesn't have a gradual bend of all the bones in the back it won't match the reference. From what I could see you are pretty darn close... a bit of tweaking and you are almost there. -vern

Glad you clarified that... I was thinking my hand needed to be an extra 3 or 4 inches long... like some mutant E.T. or schwa. My middle finger would need to be HUGE to reach to the back of my head. -vern

Don't keep us in suspense! Was it the drivers or switching Open GL/Direct 3D???? -vern

Rather than send us the model if that concerns you, start a new very very very very simple project. Recreate what you want it to do. Something small and simple to experiment with and share with everyone. I am working on this hideously complex terminator model. It has dozens of pistons and rotating widgets up the wazoo. I didn't want to spend hours adding bones and experimenting with a huge high patch count model to figure out my rigging so I built a simple version out of primitives that took all of 10 minutes. I used that model to experiment with bones and constraints to work out how the pistons work. This saved me hours of fiddling with the real model. In situations like this simplify everything down to that one element you are trying to figure out. Makes it much easier. This eliminates other things that could be wrong. Maybe the lights are working but there is something in the model blocking it. If you use a simple test project you might find things like that easier. Whenever I have problems with things like this I create a test project that doesn't have a lot of unrelated confusing elements so I can focus on that one thing. -vern

I agree... don't go by one source. I don't even think the artist who drew those references intended them to be blue prints. They are drawn in 2D by hand... you can fudge a lot of things. I bet if you took those drawings and carefully cut them apart and measured they wouldn't match up. Also use the information rather than the visual reference. I've been in situations where something was "wrong" with the arms or legs. I had made some kind of mistake with the length of the limbs. I know where the hand should be at the sides, I know where the legs should be and the hips, I know the hand should be able to reach the shoulder... by using that information without a reference I was able to fix it by tweaking and measuring those distances. -------- A very quick and easy way to check these things BEFORE rigging BEFORE adding any bones is to just use the mesh and the rotate tool. Select the points of say... the arm. Hit the "R" key and move the pivot to where the shoulder should be. Now you can see instantly if the arm is long enough. You don't even need to rotate the points, just look at the rotation "ring" that indicates where the arm would be if rotated to the side. Do the same with the forearm and upper arm. I even put in markers and draw two point splines to quickly and accurately gauge the position and proportions of limbs before doing any rigging or even adding bones. If you want you can also rotate the mesh and then undo it. I've done that before. Rotate the arm at the shoulder and the elbow to see how it looks and then hit undo 3 times or whatever. -vern

The "white box" problem is as old as AM almost. I've encountered it several times and updating drivers always did the trick for me, even on the Mac... I think more recently that switching form Open GL/Direct 3D works sometimes too. -vern

The "white box" is generally assumed to be a video card driver issue. make sure all your drivers are up to date. I have found too that the physical size in kb can also cause a rotoscope of decal to not show at all. I think it is a ram issue in those cases. try reducing the size of the image. -vern

Keep in mind that the red dots will "spread" in the same way that the klieg light does. Depending on how wide the cone is and how far away it is shinning the dots could be so big by the time they get there they don't hit anything. Set the cone of the light to be really really tight and adjust it. It should even work without using raytrace shadows. It is like standing in front of a light shinning on a wall far away... your shadow is HUGE. Or when you point a flashlight at something far away. just a wild guess. -vern

This is just my opinion without any "expertise" but I would think any system bought recently can run A:M. The most problematic stuff is having enough ram and a making sure the video card drivers are up to date. I have a PC that is ANCIENT by any standards... running Win2K and it runs the current version of AM... I have some issues but those are more than likely related to my old flakey system. -vern

Version 9 is... REALLY OLD (they are up to 15 now)... you may not find many people familiar with it although some may still use older versions for various reasons. The problems you may have with v9 might have more to do with your system than the actual software... Was XP even around then? Vista certainly wasn't. It will be hard to get it working if it is an OS issue. When Hash moves to a new version they expect people to upgrade if they want to continue working with new OS's and computers. For instance I refuse to let go of my old Mac... I am hanging on by my fingernails screaming and hollering... for this reason I am stuck with v12 on the Mac... (but I do have the latest version on my PC.) If you can afford $49 you might want to get the latest web subscription version just to see if you still want to use it. It is quite different and more people will be able to help you. AM has changed quite a bit since v9. A lot of new cool features. As far as resources, there is the TAoAM lessons and you can get a lot of help in the newbies section. There are a lot more resources here for learning that weren't available back when v9 came out. 2002... did this web forum exist back then? I don't think so... yikes! Was that back in the mailing list days? -vern

Hey come on! Just because I have my own forum section doesn't mean I can only post there... sheesh. I occasionally make sensible and noteworthy comments that stay on topic... Martin didn't give me that forum to keep me away from everyone else... it was to inspire me to contribute here again... but... it gets quiet and lonely over there all by myself. I want to spread my knowledge and wit far and wide... not that I have any of course but what I do have I want to spread around really thick and heavy... like fertilizer... to help grow stuff. p.s. Thanks for the "BIG BUTTONS" tip. Us old timers need all the help we can get. Now AM will match those shirts I have to buy. -vern

I am sure Danger Girl and Wonder Woman would meet to exchange tips on skin care, hair products and balancing a busy career with family and if their hero costumes work better with heels or flats. No need to jump to any other... sordid conclusions.... you perverted juveniles. p.s. Of course they would have pillow fights in their pajamas at the slumber party with Cat Woman... that's a given. -vern

Many comic book artists make the legs "extra long". I really like that look... and not just because Wonder Woman is hot either ... she is of course... but the long legs just add to that effect. I was thinking I might do something similar with my Terminator model. The long legs give it a sort of "comic" feel. One of the toy models I found has very long legs in relation to the torso and it has a dramatic feel. I was actually thinking of creating an "alternate" model with exaggerated comic book proportions. Fantastic model by the way. Looks great. -vern

My favorite mistake is spending hours tweaking points on one side of a symmetrical face or object zoomed way in so I can't see both sides... thinking the mirror button was clicked... only to find it wasn't. Dang... now I have to delete half the mesh and copy flip attach again. Yes... alternate colors, contrasting colors for selected buttons would be SWEET! A strong contrasting color. I often have to zoom my monitor or lean in close to see for sure the button is depressed... it is kind of subtle... or my glasses are dirty... one of those. -vern

How did that happen? Are you working from a script or making it up as you go? Did it "get too long" because you are adding stuff or was it always that long? Are you using an animatic? You should know exactly how long the movie is and where all the scenes are from start to finish. If you have 40% done you should have enough information to determine how long it will take to finish. You may want to consider cutting it down. Do some editing. Editing can make or break a movie. -vern

I have a small side project involving a "Grizlar" bear... a polar/grizzly hybrid. I suppose you wouldn't care to share that rig? Just the rig. It is fantastic. -vern

On the topic of "render lock".... There is no way to get that type of render when rendering to a file? What is "render lock"? What type of... render is it that makes it different? -vern

What kind of shape is it? I have found that in one of my tests the specular was too small to show very well depending on the angle of the object and the surfaces. A 25 specular size is fairly small. Just a guess. In my example the specular size is HUGE... like 75... a bit much as I said. -vern

This is half of a terminator eyeball. It's what I had open at the time. The specular is way too bright and the reflection isn't much. -vern

I got it! The reason it looks "bright" with transparency is because the object is... well... invisible. If it reflects it will appear "brighter" if the reflection is bright. It depends on what is in the environment to reflect. I set the reflection to 5% and got a very cool effect. the ground plane was reflecting and fading off so the object looks invisible but is reflecting "a little bit". the issue is what would a reflective "invisible" object really look like anyway? If it reflects it isn't invisbile. What about refraction? Experimentation required yes. -vern