heyvern

This is so weird. I don't get the key frames when I use the arrow key after I shift select models in the PWS. I did before. I remember doing it a bunch of times in the past. The best I can do now with my current project is to select all the models in the chor and "force" keys but then they all default to the same translation/rotations. All my carefully placed objects zip down to the exact same spot. I then have to select all the keys from from a previous key or from frame 0 and copy/paste to the forced key frame. What makes this so frustrating is that in the past I was able to select multiple objects and key them at the same time without any trouble. Now I can't. It just stopped working. I keep thinking there is something I'm doing wrong... wrong key filters set... something somewhere. -vern

How does this work? Sometimes I seem to be able to do it but others... not so much. I can drag select a "group" in the chor and move those items but it doesn't put in a key frame for translation. I need to move about 200 model shortcuts together as a unit and key frame the translation. After selecting them all if I use the arrow keys or type in the translation properties only the last one selected will move. In the past I've been able to select a bunch of chor objects this way to set "Active" on or off... but after awhile it stops working. Any help appreciated. -vern

Wasn't sure if people visit my small section of the forum. I tend to get... weird over there. However this thread is very safe and unpolitical . Yes, I'm tooting my own horn. We all like external gratification. (It's probably statements like that that scare people away from the Verns's World forum. ) I just added a new test of the stage crash on the last post. http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...st&p=260577 I plan to have this short animation done in time for the NYCC (NY ComicCon) which Hash will be attending. I will be there myself most likely with some members of the MAAM group on Sat the 7th. I am plowing ahead full steam on this and will have as much completed as possible. I may have to cut some scenes to save time on rendering but things are going well. I would also like to do some kind of "postmortem" screen recording overview of the whole project. I covered a lot of ground related to Newton Physics and Cloth. -vern

There is an ancient topic somewhere on the forum. Most likely in the archives about modeling a soccer ball. As I recall the author of the post included the model. You may want to try and search the forum. Decaling spheres like that is tricky due to the "pinching" at the top and bottom. I don't know what is going on with your decal and the transparency. If you did save out of photoshop as a targa with an alpha make sure it is as "32 bit" and not "24 bit". 32 bit includes the alpha. Sometimes, at least in my old version of photoshop, it defaults to 24 bit and when I hit okay there is no alpha channel included. -vern

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away (my computer upstairs) I was TERRIFIED of fiddling with the animation curves. They frightened me. All those weird curvy lines! What did they mean? They seemed so unfriendly and strange! One day I got brave and approached those channel splines looking for some help. Now we are dear dear friends. We go for walks in the park, drink wine with candle light suppers. Watch scary movies together. One time the channel splines got arrested and I had to bail it out of jail and... well you get the point. Those things are freaking awesome. You won't need your excel motion curve generator unless it's just to look at for reference to create the curves with the channel spline editor. -vern

I turned my "view signature" off once when someone had a HUGE GIGANTIC signature with image and I had a hard time reading some of the topics. It was like trying to talk to someone on the other side of a road while huge trucks drove by slowly. Or trying to read a newspaper when you have a cat. -vern

In the past I would do screen grabs of the mesh from the front, side, back, top etc etc. Each screen grab was then lined up in photoshop and I painted the WHOLE texture in one piece over the screen grab reference so they were "perfect" and lined up in AM. Now perfect is a relative term. I'm talking like 98.7295% or 99.2802% perfect . So the other thing I did was to put a slight soft edge alpha channel on the edges of one of the decals. This would hide any slight offsets. This isn't as much work as it sounds really. -vern

According to that show "Eleventh Hour" kids are getting high by licking toads... I may be wrong though. It could be I was high on toad while watching that episode. -vern

There is a topic on the forum about doing tank treads which would be the exact same thing. Do a search for that topic. It might help. I don't quite understand what you mean by "not perfectly round". You mean the round parts at the ends of the treadmill? That might be tricky. The tank tread technique I saw didn't use any muscle mode animation, just bones and constraints. It might have used path constraints. -vern

Yes, that's the one. Sorry for not posting the link earlier. This plugin is a god send. Previously there was no way to duplicate or copy a model in the chor so it had the same settings as the original. You had to copy all of the properties to the new copy from scratch. Now it's very simple to make copies of model shortcuts in a chor. Plus of course, being able to rotate and offset them. -vern

if it is just for "decoration" then find a good high contrast photo of a spider web. Convert to black and white and use it as a cookie cut decal or transparency map for a low patch model. No need to try to model it with splines unless that is what you need. -vern

Mark, do you use the "muliple copies" plugin? That thing is great. I use it all the time even just to copy one or two shortcuts in a choreography. Some of the more complex models could be zipped out pretty quick. -vern

So... if we zoomed way out on your chor file would we see real things like chairs or rocks or something? ;) p.s. Double "winks" because so many people can't tell when I'm joshing. -vern

Bugs aren't discussed on the forum. They should be submitted to AM Reports so they can be logged and tracked. Submit the problem file with your report. -vern

This seems very easy to install and set up. I will try it on my terminator model and see how it goes. He is very basic and needs absolutely none of the fancy squetch stuff. I haven't put any control rig in the t800 yet because I can't decide which one to go with. Once I commit to one it's going to be a lot of work to set up. -vern

Yikes! That's nearly a 400mb image. Just out of curiosity what would you need a file so huge for? Large out put printers wouldn't be able to handle a file that big I wouldn't think. At 300 lpi printing (4 color offset) that would be more than 30" x 40". Just curious. I could only image this would be for some sort of super high resolution specialty printing. -vern

Robcat that worked GREAT! That's the solution I was trying to work out in my head. Theoretically you could have the object turn end over end changing the pivot. -vern

Sort of like men as we get older discover hair growing out of previously "undecaled" areas? Hair decals was one of the first things I tried with hair way back when I started playing with hair. I can't remember if I used a hair decal for my Dave Bowman image contest entry. I think I did... but I can't remember. I used it extensively for Larry Liger's head and mane hair. Saved a lot of time. I used a hair color decal for his leg tiger stripes. -vern

The "not responding" can happen if you try to close an application that is... uh... not responding. You click the close "X" and you get a pop up. I've found that sometimes this means a bad thing or it just means that AM is busy. I would recommend waiting at least a few minutes before assuming something bad has happened. After some time it will be obvious especially if absolutely NOTHING is happening including the render bar at the bottom not progressing at all. I've been burned many times assuming that AM is not doing anything and forcing it to close only to discover it needed a bit of extra time to get going. -vern

No, not just a "PC" thing. I've found I can select the "model bone" even when in the skeletal posing mode in a chor. The model bone can be selected. However selecting the model bone in that way still is selecting the "model bone" the way it is in the pws chor action. Now that I think about it, not being able to change the rotation point of a model in the chor is kind of sort of a lack. Alas a lack! There are ways around it but nothing that is really really really easy like moving the rotation point in the chor. -vern

Just ignore me. I'm not a "PC" guy. I am still a Mac guy who uses a PC. I have no clue. -vern

How did you uninstall? Using the uninstaller or just throw it in the trash? That screen grab of the window looks... really freaky strange. There is another issue here. The problem you had previously with disappearing presets was very odd. This "re-install" issue is also very odd. There could be other issues regarding your system that we can't help you with and that have absolutely nothing to do with AM. You must completely uninstall AM, every file associated with it. Maybe some stray AM files didn't get removed and are now causing trouble. It could be some system files are corrupted. Maybe you have bad sectors on the hard drive. Maybe a bad crash trashed some of the files associated with AM. Maybe the registry got corrupted... this is all guess work. My last PC was a total piece of junk before I "retired" it. At one point AM would not run correctly. It launched but I had even weirder problems than you are having and that was with the latest version (15). None of my problems were related to AM, it was my flaky system. I submitted issues to Hash that they couldn't replicate to save their lives. I had other programs besides AM that also started acting flaky. As it turned out it was all kinds of things together that were making things weird, bad hard drive, bad ram, bad power supply bad fan etc etc. Not saying your machine is "broken" but you want to rule that out. I see from the screen grab you are installing from the 2007 cdrom. Is that the installer that doesn't run? That almost looks like the installer wizard window... part of it anyway. And that color palette thingy... I have no idea what that is. The icon for "AM" in the tray is not the icon for the application. It looks like the icon for the installer. Maybe the CD got damaged? You may want to consider getting the web subscription for the new version (yours is two years old). Or at least make sure the CD or you system isn't damaged. -vern

I think he is unchecking the "advanced" check box. When you do that you see "presets" that have "preselected" render options. Those presets just describe the render settings. They aren't actually controlling those settings for those types of things. The "preview" preset is generally used for "preview". You can assign any render setting to the camera or main view you want. Am I correct or do I have a mistaken understanding of those presets? I always use the "advanced" settings. It's just easier to have the control. -vern

I would call or contact Hash to find out about any changes. Just like before the CD is needed in the drive to launch AM. Quite honestly I never used the serial number. I often forgot what it was during re installation and would type any old number and it worked. The CD is the copy protection. I have the web subscription now and it works GREAT! I love it. A lot of people DO buy multiple copies of the web subscription or they buy the cd AND a web subscription. The price is very reasonable even doing it that way. AM is worth the money. Wow! That 5 pack IS a bargain! WoooHooo! How long have they had that? I have to see if I have 4 friends to go in on that with. Reminds me of that MS Office educational package with 3 serial numbers. Good grief that's just like the old upgrade price. -vern

Also AM does support 3DS files but not in the way you think. You can bring 3DS in to AM as a prop but you can't "animate" the polygons. You can animate this 3D "object" like rotation and translation but you can't deform the mesh like you can with Hash splines. You can import and convert 3DS to Hash splines but they probably won't be connected contiguously and splines and polygons are not interchangeable, the splines won't line up in the way that makes AM so good at organic modeling and smooth animation. There is no "back and forth" work flow from polygons to Hash splines. Most people use this work flow for games when the end result is polygons exported out of AM once to use in a game system or other application. -vern