heyvern

Yes, imagine the light's "max" intensity you want is say, 85%. If you key it 85% on frame 1, then on frame 20 key it to 0% it will slowly fade from 85% to 0%. If you want the lights to "flash" on and off the quickest easiest way is to use the "active" on/off property. This is a "step" or "hold" key frame value. It's either on or off, there is no inbetween. This will work but if you want "realistic" flashing of lights with a tiny bit of dimming and brightening like a real light (a real light would have a small barely perceptable brightening from 0 to full brightness and visa versa) then you would want to put key frames just before the light goes on or off and key intensity... So... something like this... Frame 1 - 85% Frame 15 - 85% Frame 20 - 0% frame 35 - 0% Frame 40 - 85% Just making those numbers up. 5 frames might be too long, or not long enough. You can experiment to get what looks good to you. the key is that doing it this way will add that extra touch of "reality".... if you need it. Otherwise you can just use the active property and put in single key frames to turn the lights on or off. -vern

I still have mine! The spiral binding is a bit rusty now. I was going to post a photo of it but it's in a box in the basement and it's got some strange mold growing on it and I'm afraid to touch it. I remember many a time reading it in the "porcelain library" trying to learn about "Euler angles"... that could be where the mold originated. -vern

Silly question I'm sure but how are you turning the lights on and off? Are you keying the intensity or using the "active" property? Keying intensity would be a gradual fading of the light from the last key frame. Or it might be that turning on one more light isn't changing what you see. It isn't adding any more light that is already there. Like... using a snow machine during a blizzard . Are you sure the lights are all pointing in the correct direction? I am not aware of any limits on lights but there might be some kind of limit to how that many lights are displayed in real time. Post the file and maybe we can figure this out. -vern

Now I just need a really big printer... http://www.tamasoft.co.jp/pepakura-en/ -vern

To be perfectly honest... I prefer the gas station attendant be anonymous. I think it's funnier without knowing who it is. People could imagine it might be the clown... but how did he get there so fast? Also the joke doesn't work as well if there are a lot of people getting tricked. It works really well with just the one poor guy being tormented all alone in the desert. This is one of those classic stories, like the road runner and coyote, or Tom and Jerry. Just two adversaries. When I first saw that animation I thought the clown car would catch up to the hummer and the guy would just laugh until a whole pile of clowns started getting out of the car and... well... that didn't happen so I don't really know what the clowns would do after that... but I imagined a LOT of clowns... an army of clowns... using the flocking plugin... lots of clowns... I'm sleepy and my brain is wandering off on little journeys... I will dream of clowns. -vern

Boolean cutter shapes must be closed. You only have a 4 point lathe or tube. Those are EASY to close. Select the end cross section spline. Hit "E" for extrude. Move that spline out away from the rest of the tube (if it didn't do this automatically when extruding) Not hit delete to remove the extruded spline but leave the points.. Now connect two of the points in the middle. Delete that point and the other two points. You end up with two 3 point patches on the end. Then you can scale this down and it will work as a boolean cutter shape. You can do this at both ends. Another way to close a 4 point lathed or extruded tube is to extrude an extra section. That section is made of 4 points but is not a legal patch because the spline around it is a continguous spline. You need to brake one side of that cross section spline and recconect with a new spline that has 4 points, two dangling ends. Connect that spline to each end point from where you broke the cross section making sure that you don't connect the END cps of the new spline but the inside two points. this creates a legal patch because there is that non-contiugous spline on one side of that end extrusion. -vern

Fantastic job! Great animation, great timing, there weren't any "awkward pauses" (can't explain what I mean any better). Timing is something so important to an animation like this. It's hard to get right. One thing I would love to see... a "final" animation. This is fantastic as far as the story and "basic action" but it would be great to see it go one step further. It looks like a really well done animatic. I'd love to see better rendering, more detail (better ground textures/detail and background image). Some interesting expressions on the faces in close up (more acting). The main character really drives this and there are places whee some really over the top facial expressions and acting could make if funny as heck. You do that and this could really kick arse. Just some opinions. p.s. You still have plenty of time. OPEC is lowering production to raise prices again so it should still be relevant for a while. -vern

I don't know how much time you have or what kind of extra effort you want to go to, but if you look for the BVH tutorial on the forum there are BUNCHES of dance moves available probably for free in BVH format. Worth a look. I made my Happy Bear character dance once using BVH. It wasn't "perfect" but if you just need the variety quickly it might be an option. I don't know off hand if there is any major modifications to the rig you already have. I think it is a matter of installing a BVH rig on top of what you have and then adding BVH as actions. There was a great tutorial that had the rig needed and instructions on modifying it to "match" your character. -vern

There is a constraint on the end of the control chain. The last bone of that chain whatever it is called. That bone gets dynamic constraint pointing to whatever the object is that should be holding or controlling it. Look at the properties of the constraint in the sample. These are the two items you would change for this type of thing if you assigned this type of constraint on your own: Target = shortcut to null (or whatever you want to target. I don't know) Targeting = none The "null" is what I'm using to move the chain. You can use whatever you like or, leave it like it is and use a constraint to translate the null. There is also one more dynamic constraint on a bone in the middle of this chain, bone 25. It has no target and none for targeting. Not sure exactly that is needed but it doesn't seem to work without it. -vern

It should work fine. Are you moving the nulls on frame 0? Nothing will happen on frame 0. You must be on a frame past 0. Don't move bones inside the cable model itself. Only translate the nulls in the chor. Once you get it figured out, one null represents one object to constrain to (beast or machine), the other null the other one. It doesn't matter which is which. It would work either way. -vern

Here's the project file it should be clear what is going on: verns_cable_project.zip -vern

Yeeeeeeehaaaaaaaa! It worked! Piece of freaking cake. Same rig, same setup. All you need are two nulls in the chor. You use a translate to constraint on the LAST CONTROL BONE of the chain, NOT the geometry bones, that second set of control bones. The last bone of that chain is constrained to Null 1. That null controls one end of the chain. Then you constrain the MODEL BONE of the chain model to THE SECOND NULL. Moving that null moves the whole model EXCEPT FOR THE LAST BONE OF THE CONTROL CHAIN! Works like a freaking miracle baby. Let me know if you need more explanation. I will post a sample shortly. -vern

That "stretching" problem is due to the "tentacle" setup example. It won't work well with your set up. I am working on a better solution that should solve your problem. Here's the main issue: that first bone in the chain CAN NOT be constrained to another bone because the constraints are only rotation constraints. Moving any of the bones won't MOVE the geometry bones, those bones that actually control the mesh. So when you constrain that last bone in the chain to the other bone only THAT bone will move, causing the stretching of the splines. My NEW rig solves this by putting the geometry bones as children of the control bones. So, you get the same smooth bending result BUT when you translate the last bone the other bones move along like they should as part of the chain. The above is a short explanation and NOT a tutorial by any means. I haven't worked out all the details (the dynamics example for instance). I will post it as soon as I can. I am using the same concept for my own project. I need some swinging, hanging cables and ropes to add some detail for overhead machinery to raise and lower a brick wall. It's the same concept, I want to have each end of the rope or cable attached to a different moving point. --- Possible work around you could try on your own... but it might be tricky and I haven't tried it myself The main problem is that the FIRST bone in the chain won't effect the position of the mesh. Moving the last bone however will move the cable. If you could possibly figure out a way to constrain that LAST bone to a bone OUTSIDE of the model and the model ITSELF is constrained to one of the ships, moving the MODEL will move the WHOLE THING EXCEPT THAT LAST BONE. This might give you the correct behavior. I just now thought of this and will go and try it myself. Be back in a few minutes. -vern

Make SURE it expired first before buying a new one. It should tell you it expired, it wouldn't just "not launch". If you don't know for sure it expired make sure first. -vern

I'll give it a shot when I have a chance. -vern

Found this link: http://www.garycmartin.com/octopus_setup.html This pretty much covers the idea. However I was very "rigid" in my spline and bone set up. I made sure all the cross sections and bone positions were "exact". I also only used ONE set of extra control bones instead of two. Using two makes it "stiffer". Like I said, I'm working on another similar rig. Basically the same concept but the bones are parented in a different way for better control with "tethered" objects and dynamic constraints. -vern

I'll give it a shot. Are you mainly interested in the "tentacle" bone technique or the physics or the cloth? I'll assume it is the tentacle bone constraints. There is probably an ancient tutorial out there for this but it wouldn't hurt to update it. The one I have on VHS is for AM 8.5. -vern

Neep more info. "One side of the line"? Which "one side"? Along the line or across the line? A cp or point can be "peaked" or "smooth" it can't be half and half. I think what you might mean is how to move the bias handles independently, so one side is "flat" and the other is curved but the point itself is a "point" or peaked. When you peak a point you can change the alpha or gamma of the bias by typing in values in the properties or by grabbing the bias handles and moving them. These bias handles need to be turned on by clicking the bias handle button at the top in the tool palette. The point must be peaked to get independent movement of the alpha and gamma on either side of the point. If this isn't what you are looking for let us know. -vern

Update: My thought of using that "tentacle" trick isn't working exactly as planned. The problem is that the vector or mesh bones are not a chain. They don't translate. The rotation is applied to each bone but not translation at both ends. Basically it was for doing tails or tentacles that are fixed at one end (not both). So with this set up you can only move one end. If you move both only the end moves. I think I will switch to using some sort of fan bone system based on the exact same concept but using the original geometry bones as the targets for orient constraints and "fan" bones as children of the original bones. Since the fans will be children of each bone it will behave correctly when moving the nulls to change the position of both ends. I also found that changing the dynamics properties can create different types of cable "stiffness". Cloth still has more options for creating stretchable cables or strings, however some of that could be done with the dynamic set up but with cloth it's in one spot, the material. Here's a quick movie showing the "tentacle" technique in action. Notice how the cable maintains the shape better: cable2.mov And here's the model file if anyone is interested: verns_cable.zip -vern

There is one small advantage I discovered using the cloth spline constraint technique. You can change the "stiffness" or material of the cable by simply changing the cloth properties. You could make a thick electric cable, a strand of silk or a rubber band using the same rig set up and just changing settings in the cloth material. -vern

Yup, I agree. Your way much better less work. Any kinking or collapsing is actually "easy" to fix... uh... easy in that it fixes it but it does take a bit of extra set up. You don't control the bones for the mesh directly. You would use the set up you have with the 30 bones. Then a second set of say 15 bones. Each of the 30 are constrained to the 15. Each bone getting 100% to one bone and 50% to the next. This will spread out the bone motion, sort of "softening" it a bit. I've even gone so far as to have 2 sets of bones... 40 to 20 to 10 for example... you could take it even further for a really really smoothly bending shape without any chance of kinking or collapsing at all that only needs a few bones to control. It does take a while to set up all the constraints though. I think this is used in the TSM rig for rigging tails and or tentacles. I remember this technique from years ago on an ancient VHS Siggraph tape I bought. Then you would link the final smaller chain of bones to the dynamic objects. -vern

Newton physics can't do "flexible" objects like tubes so well (same problem that makes rag doll physics difficult for rigged characters) like a rope or cable. Dynamic constraints really work best constrained at one end. Cloth can be connected at both ends like a rope or cable and react to forces and gravity. This is an extruded tube. In the tube model is a mesh assigned cloth. This mesh only has 3 long splines. Only one of the long splines is needed for the path constraint but you have to have some patches for cloth to work. In an action each bone of the long chain for the tube mesh is assigned a path constraint to one long spline of the cloth mesh. There are 20 bones in the tube or cable mesh so each of those constraints increments the ease by 5%, bone 1 5%, bone 2 10%, etc etc. There are two bones on either end of the cloth mesh. I haven't worked out exactly how to do this perfectly but I assigned half the cloth mesh to a bone on one end and the other half to the other end so the bones can be moved in the chor for like... two connected space ships etc. A single spline on each end is not assigned to the cloth group so it will stay "fixed" and go with the bone. For this example I "curved" the cloth mesh in the action so it would "fall" and bounce around. I suppose if you wanted to simulate zero gravity just turn off gravity. Moving the bones around would "move" the cloth causing it to react and move like a cable. Adjusting the cloth options would make it stiffer. Unfortunately I was in a hurry and didn't rig the cable tube properly so the joints "squish" and twist incorrectly. With a properly rigged cable it would bend smoothly and not get those twisted flat areas. cable.mov -vern

Maybe you could rig a chain of bones for the "tube". Then use cloth for a single spline. Use a path constraint on the bones pointing to the cloth spline. Use incremental settings for the enforcement of each constraint so the tube bone chain is spread out evenly along the cloth spline. Now the tube will act alike a flexible cable but maintain stiffness so it won't collapse. Or maybe changing the collision distance on just a cloth tube will keep it "stiff"... a couple of things to try. -vern

Rodney once again you inspire me. I am thinking maybe we change how we think of "2D" model creation. It wouldn't need to be "perfect". A shape made up of several geometric shapes "stacked" would be just one shape visually. Even using bunches and bunches of 5pt patches could cut down considerably on the patch count. Hooks are a bonus too. Using hooks works perfectly for this technique. The ambiance setting can help however the beauty of using AM for this technique is having access to the same shading and lighting features. Ambiance could blow out some of those crease artifacts but limit some of the rendering options. -vern

That's why I thought this "2D" fill feature would be so cool for AM. With that flash export AM could become a kick arse SWF animation production tool. I mean real vector Flash not VIDEO Flash (someone always chimes in with "But I put AM renders in FLV files all the time!? ). Some people are "scared" of 3D, it would be cool for AM to just stick in this feature to expand their potential customer base.... I say "stick in" which is probably what Martin is mumbling to himself he will do to me for saying this. They wouldn't have to spend any effort to support it in the traditional sense. It would just be another patch option. Flash now has bones... but they stink something awful. Imagine AM bones warping 2D shapes. I see it in my head... I can imagine it... there I go daydreaming again. This is one of my all time favorite ideas for AM though. I would use it a lot more with my current work. Like ten times more. -vern