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pixmite

Craftsman/Mentor
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Everything posted by pixmite

  1. Sorry - false alarm - I went 2 years back instead of one. guess I need to delete some old emails
  2. Is version 18 incompatible with my version 17 web subscription? Version 18 asked for a license key upon startup. I tried the one that came with my version 17 subcription and it gives me the subscription expired message. What am I doing wrong please?
  3. Ok Here's the next generation. I still needs a bit of work to smooth out the transitions between the formulas, but I'm quite happy with the result. It looks like a pretty realistic elbow up to about 140 deg of bend. The model has no smart skin, only control point weighting. A short movie... Movie3.mp4.mp4 And the project file... Hand_Formula2.prj
  4. Here's his quote. This is for the second project that he posted. And since his first project does not have the model embedded, I can't doing any testing. I've added the missing model file to the original post. You also intrigued me with the expression suggestion. I think I'm going to give it a try. And here is the Result. I've taken the training wheels off and replaced them with 2 expressions. To preserve the ease in / ease out I had to break the movement into 4 separate sections each leveraging the Cosine function to get the curve. Hand bone rotations from: -180 to -90, -90 to 0, 0, to 90 and 90 to 180. Then I had to multiply it by a constant (2.45) to scale it to my geometry. The formula is messy but it works. Wrist skin top’s horizontal movement now looks like this: If(..|..|..|..|Hand.Transform.Rotate.X>0,(If(..|..|..|..|Hand.Transform.Rotate.X-90,(Cos(Radians(..|..|..|..|Hand.Transform.Rotate.X*2))-1)*-2.45,(Cos(Radians(..|..|..|..|Hand.Transform.Rotate.X*2))+3)*2.45)) Wrist skin bottom’s movement is the opposite and looks like this: If(..|..|..|..|Hand.Transform.Rotate.X>0,(If(..|..|..|..|Hand.Transform.Rotate.X-90,(Cos(Radians(..|..|..|..|Hand.Transform.Rotate.X*2))-1)*2.45,(Cos(Radians(..|..|..|..|Hand.Transform.Rotate.X*2))+3)*-2.45)) Note that once the bone is bent past about 120 deg, both positively and negatively, the formula begins to fail us. Since the movement broken into 4 separate sections we can replace the Cos function during that phase of movement with something that would increase the horizontal rate like a, X^2 or X^3 curve, where X is some normalized amount of the current rotation angle of the hand bone between -90 to -180 and 90 to 180. I’ll work on that for my next post. Ok now I need a drink Hand_Formula.prj
  5. Here's his quote. This is for the second project that he posted. And since his first project does not have the model embedded, I can't doing any testing. I've added the missing model file to the original post. You also intrigued me with the expression suggestion. I think I'm going to give it a try.
  6. Children of the bicep bone. Hmm that could be somthing I overlooked, but I think that you could still set up the same constraints with them being children. When I was testing I did not factor that into it. Was the question spawned over concern of using a standard rig?
  7. Added the missing Model file to the orginal post.
  8. I supose you could do it all with expressions, however it might get a bit mathy rather than boney I also verified the download of the first project file myself. I does indeed contain a model called "ArmBone Test" which does rotate wonderfully well past the 90 deg mark, to about 120 deg before it begins to deteriate. See the 3rd picture of the orginal post. As for the second file, yes I applied a little touch up smart skin at the extreme. It about 90% less smart skin than I would normally apply to any other rig type that I've tried, so I'm quite happy with it, but thank you for your comments. I may try an expresion version to see if might be easier in the long run. Here's a shot of the 2nd file / model with no smart skin applied. It still does pretty well even without it.
  9. Thank you for your help with the file.
  10. Size should not be an issue with uploading movies unless the size is huge so I shouldn't think that would be a problem for you. The main constraint I know of before was that we couldn't upload AVI files. (I think we fixed that though) If you can tell me more about the file you were trying to upload that should solve that. I was having some problems with rendering errors. Got that sorted out, but the file type is AVI and they are large. Unfortunately I do not have a tool of any kind to compress them. Can you suggest one?
  11. Choose "uncompressed" in the compression settings for AVI. That's the only off-the-shelf AVI codec that works with A:M. It will make a huge file. Recompressing to Quicktime with Quicktime Pro or in 32-bit A:M is recommended for web posting. Thanks that did the trick!
  12. The Train Wheel Rig – An alternative method for and elbow / knee joints Updated 11/15/12 with missing model file I came up with something that I though I’d share with the rest to you. The problem I wanted to solve was that the methods for rigging a joint like an elbow that I’ve tried (Fan Bones, CP weighting) all result in a collapsing geometry at the site of the joint. Then I'd have go back and repair the geometry with oodles of smart skin especially when I have a char with thick / muscular joints that have CPs far from the bicep / wrist bones to begin with. So here’s what I came up with: The Elbow / Knee Type Rig: Using an elbow as an example, I have created two pairs of bones that govern the movement of the geometry at the joint. One set for the top and another for the bottom. Each pair is made up of a bone that orients like the wrist bone as it bends at the elbow. I call this bone “Wrist Skin Top / Bottom.” This bone is attached to a bone that traverses parallel to the “Bicep” bone which I call “Bicep Skin Top / Bottom.” The secret sauce is in the hidden bones that govern / constrain the “Bicep Skin Top / Bottom” bones. I call these bones “Riders” because they take a ride with the wrist bone as it moves. One Rider bone creates the lateral movement for the “Bicep Skin Top” bone and the other for the “Bicep Skin Bottom” bone. This is accomplished with a “Translate To” constraint to the Wrist Bone. When you observe these bones in motion as you move the wrist, it kinda looks like old Choo-Choo train wheel, hence the discriptive, if unimaginative name for the rig. I place one more constraint on the “Bicep Skin Top / Bottom” bones so that they don’t inherit the perpendicular movement of the “Rider” bones and I get exactly what I was looking for. Now all I have to do is share the CPs weights between the 6 bones (Bicep, Wrist, Bicep Skin Top / Bottom, Wrist Skin Top / Bottom) and I have an elbow join that can move through its entire range of motion without the geometry collapsing and absolutely no smart skin work repairs, Yeah! Here's the project and Model files: ArmBoneTest.prj ArmBoneTest.mdl Some important factoids: The positioning of the Rider bones is the key the whole rig. You’ll want to place them so that one is directly on top of the “Bicep” bone and the other the “Wrist” bone. Their roots are placed at the edge of an imaginary circle drawn around the center of the joint whose diameter is equal to the thickness of the geometry. (This assumes that the joint has been placed at the center of the geometry). Since the “Rider” bones derive their translational movement from a circle, they create a natural ease in / ease out for the “Bicep Skin Top / Bottom” bones. The rig will work for bending the wrist well past the 90 Deg point, but completely breakdown if you bend it the other direction. i.e. hyperextend the elbow. Well that’s spiffy you say, but it won’t help me with a Wrist / Hand Joint. True, not in its current form, but if we spit the motion into 2 halves, one for each direction and constrain the skin bones to both accordingly, we can make it work. But first may suggest an adult beverage, it gets a bit boney ahead The Wrist / Hand Type of Rig: In short we need to double up the rig to create two separate lateral movements for our “Wrist Skin” bones. First thing we do here is to create two bones that sit directly on top of our hand bone with the same root location. They are then constrained to “Orient Like” the “Hand” bone but limited to half their range of motion. One will only mimic the hand movement upwards and the other only downwards. Now we create two sets of “Rider” bones, one for each direction of the hand (up / down). These are placed on top of our “Wrist” and “Hand” bones respectively, but this time at twice the radius of our imaginary circle that touches the limits of our geometry. Ok, take another drink - This is because we will be using the sum of only half their movement to govern the “Skin” bones. The Riders are then given their “Translate To” constraints to the hand. Lastly, we constraint the “Wrist Top / Bottom Skin” bones to the two corresponding Riders so as well as eliminate their perpendicular movement. Add the “Orient Like” constraint to the “Hand Skin Top / Bottom” bones and we’re done. And the model file: Wrist_Experiment3_With_SmartSkin.prj Some important factoids about this rig: It only works for the range of motion of the “Hand” bone from 89.99 Deg through -90 Deg. I’m assuming that this is software limitation, i.e. up to but not including kind of thing. Once again the circular motion provides us with a natural ease in ease out in both directions. I did need a bit of smart skin in the end, but I only needed to apply it at the two extremes and only a small amount to make it look natural. I tried to fix this by playing with the enforcement channel of the “Translate To” constraint of the “Wrist Skin Top / Bottom” bones, but couldn’t get it to work. I wanted to try to slow the movement a bit as it neared the extremes. I’m not well skilled with channel editing. No change I made seemed to have an impact. Maybe it was the fact that is was an on/off type pose? Try it out and tell me what you think. Please feel free to poke holes in it or suggest changes. Thanks in advance for any wisdom you can provide and happy animating Pixmite (Link to Matt's 1MB video)
  13. It's 17a - didn't know that there was a b, must have just come out
  14. OK folks: I get a error message when I attempt to render an animation. I looked at all the settings I couldn't any place to set anything from 16 to 24 bit. Any ideas? As always, thanks in advance for any advice you can provide.
  15. Thats exactly what I get. Its unfortunate, because the last reference material I have on how to use this product is a bit dated, verion 11
  16. OK folks I've upgraded to version 17 and having a bit of problem with the help file installation. When I click “Help” sends me to a download link. So I download the file and unzip it into the main AM directory as per the instructions. Now when I click “Help” I get and errored browser page saying that it cannot get to the internet??? I think I'm missing something simple here. Can anyone enlighten me please? Thanks in advance for any advice you can give. Pixmite
  17. Thanks everyone for the feedback. Some great suggestions.
  18. Well that would work. Thanks for the tip! If use a pose to govern all eye lid and blink activity then I would not have the problem of making my chor action match the first frame of my external eye blink action. So in conclusion, I guess I'm trying to unnecessarily create an external action, i.e. keep it in the choreography. Other than a looping walk, is there any other type of actions that lend themselves to be saved separately? i.e are there any good guidelines on when to save an action externally vs. keeping it in the Choreography? Once again, thanks for any advice you can offer.
  19. Fellow AMers: Question regarding Action vs. Choreography Actions. Which technique is better for something like a character eye-blink. Is it better to define them as part of the Choreography Action, or is it better create them separately, and then repeatedly sprinkle them into the Choreography (What I would assume is better). If it is better to create a non-chorography action then my question expands a little….. The eye lids of my model when I crafted it were set in the completely open position, i.e. the scarred look. This suggest to me that I’ll need to partially close the eye lids in the first frame of the choreography to exactly match the first frame of a potential eye blink for consistency. That sounds a bit klugey, especially if create any other eye lid movement before attempting to apply the external eye-blink action again. That being said, it makes it sound like an external eye-blink action is a bad idea. I must be missing something simple here; can anyone offer some advice on this? Thanks in advance for any eye opening wisdom you can impart
  20. If you look closely at the picture associated with the quote above, you can see that some of my panel lines that are not vertical are a bit rough. I'm pretty sure that this is due to the resolution of my panel line image not being high enough so that the anti-aliasing is visible on the model when rendered. This can also be seen around the edges of the number “18” decal. Does anyone have a good rule of thumb on establishing the necessary resolution of an image applied to a decal stamp to make the anti-aliasing of the decal not noticeable when rendered? Example: If my decal Stamp is 3” X 5” then the image applied to the stamp should be 12” X 15” to hide all anti-aliasing, i.e. a ratio of 3 to 1. Pixmite
  21. All here's the TA-DA pic. Its a new Bump decal where no stamps were scaled in the UV editor. Note that you can still see the jags on the color decal, I haven't created a non-scaled stamp version of that one yet. Pixmite
  22. Fellow AMers: Thanks for all your suggestions; they were a great help to discover what the underlining (no pun intended) problem was. I did some further experimenting last night. First, I did try the bump decal set for cylindrical mapping, which didn’t work. Next I tried a fresh decal that I quickly created and it worked great! So I said to myself… Self what beep beep is going on here??? Well…. When I originally stated that I didn’t edit the points in the UV editor after a stamped the decal wasn’t completely accurate. Following the Zandoria Decal Tutorial, I was maximizing the real estate of my blank decal by selecting the entire CP group of the two fuselage stamps together, scaled them up and moved them to a more strategic location on the decal in the UV editor. While performing my quick test above, I neither moved nor scaled the complete stamps. Upon further experimenting moving the stamps where found to not cause the problem, but scaling the Stamps did. So the moral of the story is…. DO NOT SCALE COMPLICATED COMPOUND CURVE SPLINE GEOMETRY IN THE UV EDITOR! Lastly, if you look closely at the camouflage decal of the first image posted above you can see that it affected it as well. I also up-scaled the CPs of this Stamp in the UV editor when I created it. Does this sound like a bug or just me not understand the limitations of the UV editor? Once again, thanks everyone for your suggestions, you we all were a great help! Pixmite
  23. Below is the shaded wire frame version. Some of the area in question has a 5-point patch or a hook but not all of the problem area???? I'd prefer not to have to model all of the panel lines if possible. A cylindrical map might work for all the vertical lines, but I'll probably need another decal for the horizontal ones. I'll give it a try and report back to this thread. As for setting the bump % to -100, this is done at the decal level, to fix my problem it would have to be done at the Stamp level. Lastly, I would tend to agree that this is a bug, if a color decal doesn't have any problems why should a bump map? Pixmite
  24. This is a continuation of a topic started here: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=18978 Below is an Image of my model to which I applied a bump decal with straight lines which render with jags. The decal is un-edited in the UV editor. No points were dragged or the model flattened. Any ideas on how to fix this? or a better approach to straight lines? Pixmite P.S. Vernon - I think you were right about the optical illusion. I rendered it from another couple of angles and it looked correct. I was late, what can I say.
  25. As requested here is the ver 12.0 model file. I tried to upload a 1MB AVI but the server grew impacient an deleted the process (56Kb line), so you'll have to render it yourself. Let me know what you think of it? Pixmite Prop_Throttle_Exp_3.zip
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