heyvern

The real problem is absolutely "thin" shapes conformed to the surface of another shape. No matter how perfect it is... it will never stay on the surface. there will always be some places where a spline or point will intersect the surface it is on. I don't think sim cloth is the answer here either... same problem. No matter how perfectly matched the shapes are something will bend and intersect the surface of the object. Here is something I just thought of last night but have not tested. I think it might work but would have to be a very simple style. Use booleans. Imagine a mouth shape that is a boolean. It "cuts" the shape you want on the irregular surface of another object and leaves the material of the boolean shape. This could work for eyes, mouths etc. The only trouble I see would be that you wouldn't want an actual "hole" in the surface of the object. This might be handled by using a transparency over the hole and not having any shading on the cutter object. It would not recive or cast a shadow. The transparent "surface" would also have the specular and surface attributes of the whole shape. Creating an illusion of a "projection". This intrigues me... The next time I have AM open I may do a quick and dirty test to see what happens. -vern

Here is a sample of what I was talking about. This is an old old sample. I have this project backed up since I've been working on other stuff and don't have a current one available. The face up there in the corner is actually a model. I can click on it at any time and animate it. Since it is always in view I can see what type of emotion it needs for the action. AND since it is in the same choreography as the main action it is always the right length and timing and drops right in. http://www.lowrestv.com/lowres/portfolio/ck/face_cameraB.mov -vern

The main problem with what you want to do is how Hash splines work in AM. Splines aren't like polygons. What you draw is what you get. No matter what you do to a shape if it doesn't have the exact same points in the exact same spot as the surface you want to constrain to it will never "line up" perfectly. That was the problem I had. I could get it ALMOST perfect but then the eyes would penetrate the surface of the object I was trying to conform to. Ramon, the trick I came up with was that "rig" for the face. I created a fully rigged completely flat face. I placed this model inside the same choreography as the "body" or shape I wanted it to conform to. I then put a constraint on this face model so it always pointed at the camera. I then animated the face and body "together". There was body and facial animation that had to work together. I needed to do them both so the acting matched. When I finished I was able to use the action in the chor to render just the face and decal that animation onto my shape ending up with exactly what I needed. However it did require that extra step. -vern

Not quite good enough Ken. He is after sort of a "projection". I had wished for this kind of thing before. The ability to "project" another "object" onto the surface. I even thought of something like projecting the animated output of another choreography as a decal kind of thing. A surface constraint won't align another "flat" large mesh shape to an irregular surface. Small shapes like a tear will work but large "flat" shapes like an eye won't. They don't distort to align with the surface. Aligning a tree or someone walking on an irregular surface works with a surface constraint... but "sliding" a flat shape right on the surface won't. The dream would be the ability to "project" an object as if it were an environment map onto another surface (without having to render it first of course.) -vern

Ramón, I never hated you! We both have... strong opinions and are very outspoken. So we might butt heads every once in a while. ------------------- Ah yes! I get it now. I don't think you can do this. You want those "sliding eyes" over the round head to be actual geometry, a mesh correct? Interestingly, I came across this very same situation. I needed to animate a face on a completely flat surface, a box, that also would bend and move. I wanted to do just what you describe; project a model onto the surface of another shape. The only thing I could do was to animate the face separately and then apply that animation to the box as a decal. I set up a rig so that I could see the face and animate it while also animating the body of the character. This way the acting was "lined up". I then would render that face by itself and decal onto the body or the box. -vern

Ramón! Is that you? Check into distortion grids. That sounds like what you are after. A distortion grid is a box or 3D grid with variable units that can be used to distort an object. I don't have a ton of experience with them except when modeling. There are actually two types of distortion grids. The first one is used in a modeling window and it's settings are found under "Options" in the modeling tab. This one is used to "permanently" distort a mesh or portions of it in the modeling window. The second type of distortion grid can be animated in a choreography. This is good for squash and stretch type effects. The main difference between this and what you are thinking of is that in AM the distortion grid is always a cube. It doesn't conform to the shape of the model. Like I said I don't have a lot of experience with it but it should be covered in the help and you can do a search on the forum for it to find out more. -vern

You can make that base model bone smaller in the model bones mode as well. Sometimes I like having a large bone so I can grab it easier... Sometimes I like having a fairly large model bone so it is easier to access in the choreography. -vern

I think the step missing is probably in Premier. You need to specify that that the alpha in the file should be used. I am guessing since my version or Premier is many years old but I seem to recall that the alpha had to be "intentionally" set. I know in my older version of After Effects how to handle the extra channel was "asked" when importing with several options for premultiply, not premultiply, ignore or whatever. -vern

You can get paid to do that? Hmm.... -vern

Sometimes doin' it by hand is the best. You always know it will work. I often find myself trying to automate a task (not just AM). After some time it would have been faster to have done it by hand... but at that point I refuse to do that because of the work already invested. One case I remember was renaming some sequential files in a folder. I had a renaming utility but it needed updating... then I had to reinstall it... then I had to find the serial number in my email... I could have renamed the dang files 50 times by hand by the time I had it working! -vern

Sorry about hijacking your thread! ---------- I always get question marks in actions. I think in my case it is in actions with keyed bones that don't exist... they haven't caused trouble though. I can't recall seeing them in the chor but I don't use that particular effect enough to know what it means. As for the "thin" dust... I too have not been thrilled with that effect and I am not sure if this can be overcome (not an expert). Have you thought about using "spriticles"? You can make some pretty convincing smoke and flame effects... really cool stuff. I used image particles for a fairy dust trail that looked wonderful... sparkly yet dense... lots of different colors and sizes and opacity. Very convincing and very "flexible"... simple to change the length and amount of the "smoke" or dust trail.. density etc. And they are easy to control... turning them off and on, animating the attributes. There should be some example materials for this on the AM disk, and if you got the ExtraCD... there should be even more on those. I think the Balrog uses it in one of those project files. I've seen here on the forum some fantastic smoke trails done with "spriticles" or particle images... or whatever the heck they are called. I like them because I can see them in preview mode on the screen while animating. I don't have to render to get an idea of the results. -vern

Even companies like Pixar don't have a magic tool to avoid intersection of objects and characters... arms through the body... etc. The animators themselves must carefully pose characters to avoid this. There was an interesting thing mentioned in the audio commentary of "Over the Hedge". The animators were reading the script and kept mentioning how hard it was to have the characters hugging each other all the time. They tried to keep the hugging to a minimum. Rigid bodies in AM is used mostly for dynamic effects like... bouncing objects against each other etc, draping cloth. It is mostly used for specific short effects and not generally used continuously through out an animation to prevent the passing of one object through another. Actually I doubt it would make that any easier and may not work since it isn't precise enough and you would need to simulate those dynamics while animating limiting the freedom of the process. It is easier to simply avoid pass through on a case by case situation than rely on the computer to constantly calculate those intersections. Cloth and hair have options for collision detection but those would be considered "special effects" and usually limited to where they are needed. And they do use more computer resources. There is no simple way to avoid intersection of objects except in "doing it by hand". Linking an object to a hand however can be done using a constraint as mentioned. Even then you must make sure the fingers won't go through the object. -vern

Sounds like a plan. Keep in mind there are almost 600 entries in the database at present. I think a very large majority of these could be culled. Let's say there are 200 worthy of keeping (probably less). Let's imagine, an hour per tutorial for editing. That's still a lot of man hours. My inclination was to stay away from making any edits and just slogging through them and converting to an uploadable format (pdf or rtf) to keep the work load to a minimum. Even then it will be a chore. If we throw in contacting everyone before converting... might as well give it up. That could take ages. Waiting for a response... waiting for the author to update... On the other hand... if the new "tutorial site" exists these could be added at leisure over time... still, I wouldn't be able to move my web site till it is done... but there would still be a copy of the database so they won't be gone forever. I say we just pull a "youtube"... put it up the way it is with proper credit to the author, wait for someone to complain... then take it down or replace it. -vern

I don't know if this would work but if you put rotation limits on the cymbal bones would that limit the intersections when using dynamics? You could figure out how far the cymbals could rotate before intersecting then use that value to limit the movement. -vern

Well... I don't want to create this "new site" myself. What I would like is if whoever did AM films could produce a similar area with categories like the ARM. I don't know how it was produced or what tools were used.. but I would be willing to create a layout that is unique but based on AMfilms so it fits into the style. I think the ARM site category breakdown is pretty good. Maybe some new categories will be needed for newer features of course... like hair... AO... SSS... etc. Maybe a new special section for the TAOAM or learning section. There won't be a need for large image previews. It could all be text which would make it load faster and be... somewhat easier to produce. Talking off the top of my head here... but... I would think that uploading tutorials would be the same as uplaoding a movie for AMFilms. At some point when it is "ready" I could start uploading PDF conversions of tutorials from the ARM. This step could go even faster if others got involved as well... just load... print to PDF.... upload. (RTF Format might work as well.) We would need to make sure credit is given to the author which is in the ARM database anyway. Eventually the ARM could be... uh... retired... and anyone could easily print a PDF and upload their own tutorials just as is done with AMFilms. ----------- I have to admit I have ulterior motives in this. I desperately want to move my web site to a new host. If I do this now... with the ARM the way it is... it would take a ton of work to recreate it on another server. It is "old" and I would probably have to rebuild it "from scratch" almost... and it would be down for as long as it took to do this transfer. It would be wonderful for me to have it... off my back so to speak. My own site is also a part of this database and I do have limited space. So that is another issue. I also feel this is not me "bailing out". I truly believe creating this new tutorial repository for AM on the Hash site would be 1000% better than the ARM or even tutorials on the forum which are hard to search and maintain as well. You guys would have absolute access and control over it. If I got hit by a bus... uh... first off it would probably hurt a lot... but secondly the ARM site would not be around very long (Maybe I should leave it to you in my will just in case. ) I have clients who are always talking about what happens if I get hit by a bus. Doesn't fill me with confidence but I understand their position. I can export the database as an Excel spreadsheet for any volunteers who wish to help convert the linked tutorials to PDF. I have a feeling a huge portion (50%? 70%?) of these tutorials are pretty much... old and useless. Maybe some vetting of the content will be needed as well. -vern

Don't do 3-5 minutes! Start out very very small and short. Start out with something simple... about a minute... or even less! This will give the opportunity to see how hard it is to achieve what you want and still have the chance to complete it. 3-5 minutes is an eternity... depending on your enthusiasm and energy of course. Do something very short but treat it the same as a longer project. Do storyboards, animatics etc... the whole thing. But by doing a shorter project you won't get as overwhelmed. You pull that off then you have all the stuff you need for a longer project. Just my opinion. -vern

The ARM is hard to keep up to date. Links come and go and I just haven't had the time to go through and manage it lately. In the past it was a great resource. But now with this fantastic forum and all of its features the ARM may be nearing the end of its usefulness. Don't forget... I don't get any money to host the ARM site. I do it because of my dedication to Hash and AM and all they have done for me over the years. I couldn't possibly afford to have actual content hosted on my site so the link database for me is the only way to go. Because of that, tutorials that are pulled down from another website will be lost. If you look at the ARM a large majority of the tutorials are very old and aren't even relevant to current versions of AM so that is another issue. It would be hard for a new user to pull out a small portion of relevant info from a tutorial for a version of AM that is years old. Just go back a few versions and you start to lose your way. I hope that in the future with the help of this forum there might not be a need for the ARM. The resources available here as far as space and permanent hosting of files seem to be a much better format for this type of thing. I'm not trying to get out of it... I just honestly believe that the ARM is no longer suited to this type of thing. We need a permanent place for these tutorials possibly hosted by Hash so they can own it and keep it safe. Imagine if this forum didn't have image or file uploads only links to other web sites? It is the same for the ARM. People take those pages or images down and they are gone. I notice that the newest links in the ARM are from January of 2006. I may turn off new members for the ARM and encourage people to post their tutorials here. I would welcome any thoughts on this. -vern EDIT: I would love to see a tutorial repository on the Hash site just like AMFilms! AM films is great and nicely organized. It would be a nice addition and then everything would be in one place. I would even be willing to help out tracking down and transferring relevant tutorials from the ARM to this new spot on Hash. The best way would be using print to PDF. Load the tutorial and save it as a PDF. Just an idea.

Yes, but a man can't live on bread alone... I must... be... me. Some times I get carried away.... -vern

On the mac I think you hold down the option key while scaling the bone in bone mode... Not sure exactly what the key command is for doing this on the PC. So you could select the root bone and hit "S" or scale button and scale uniformly while holding that key... this scales everything together... bones... CPs. I use this ALL THE TIME... I am terrible at modeling to the correct scale and end up with 100 foot bears and 3 inch tall ladders all the time. This works with translation as well. Type "N" or click the translate button and do the same thing. All the points and child bones will move with the bone selected. You could just experiment till you get the right key... there's only two or 3 to test. Or you could just wait till someone who actually remembers which key it is to pipe in. -vern

I'm thinking of getting hair implants and need to decide on a style... Don Hair John Hair Rich Hair -vern

Don't worry. There were bones... and constraints... but my "rigging" talk had absolutely nothing to do with A:M in any way whatsoever. I don't want people to get confused about my skills. p.s. It also had nothing to do with American Idol either. -vern

Great time yesterday! Thanks Don! Yes my "rigging" talk... uh... I showed off a detailed balsa wood model boat with fully rigged sails... yeah... that's the ticket. Dark Skull productions has made much progress from our last meeting. The characters will blow your mind. The detail in my opinion is nearly up there with that "Final Fantasy" movie... without the kissing... and hopefully a better plot... I mean a plot better than FF... I don't think you guys need to redo the plot of your story. (Quite frankly I farted quite loudly on the way home last night and it had a better plot than the Final Fantasy movie.) Watch this youtube video and you will understand why I referenced it several times during my critique of the Dark Skull sci-fi production shots. I kept telling the guys to ignore my comments as many of them were alcohol induced smartass gibberish (I was Darth from that spoof video) ... like... suggesting Britany Spears do a song and dance number in the sentinel hanger bay (The lights around the sentinel alcoves did look like a little like stage footlights)... or having the words "Wash Me" scribbled on the dirty, space ship model. I am still playing around with that "light tube" idea. I am still sure it's been done here before. (lights moved in a straight line with multipass to create "tube" lights). I had another idea on how to deal with the cumulative light at the "ends" (jittered lights are fine side to side but you get a cumulative blast of light from each "end").... use a light list maybe? If you jitter several lights and use only one to light specific models in the chor... anyway... just playing with it. I also demoed my current Lost World project and progress. We discussed the pros and cons of bevels and pose decaling. Does anyone else besides me use a 360 mag on bevels? Is there a benefit for using a lesser amount? Maybe for variation... hmm... use 360 on one end... a different amount on the other end... you get some natural variation.... Hey Rich? Wing Flapping I found these on youtube: This one is sort of what I had in mind but much slower and the wings wouldn't stay closed at the end. And it has those straggly missing feathers as well. My thought would be 1 quick ruffly flap of the wings then setting into the final positiion. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlCe52Y-jRU This one might be useful for using as a rotoscope. It is hard to tell if the motion is exactly what I had in mind exactly but it looks like it and is a pretty straight on view. The key in my mind is the "slow-fast-slow" kind of casual wing flap that birds do when just resting... like they're "showing off". I'll keep looking. -vern

Uh... I don't mean to be stupid... but uh... What time should we plan to be there? I forget when we did this in the past... I seem to recall that the sun was usually out... but I also recall driving home in the dark. In a previous message here... you mentioned six o'clock... is that the official start time? I got lost going to Don's house last time there... I hope I do better this time. I plan to drive the route on my computer using Google maps (love that thing). Maybe you guys could go outside tomorrow and wave while I print the satellite maps... those are real time right? I'm sleepy right now... not that that is relevant in any way whatsoever. -vern

I love seeing the names new members come up with. As the years go by it is harder and harder to come up with meaningful and distinctive online names. catsqueezer... ... good grief. I have never squeezed a cat and I believe this may be illegal in many places. The story behind that name would make an... interesting if possibly disturbing animation. As I see from your avatar this may involve overly affectionate canines... or something in that area. -vern

Man! I would hate to think this project will not be "as good" because Dusan doesn't have enough rendering power... I wonder if there would be anything that the AM community could do to help out? Just imagine this rendered with all the bells and whistles! -vern