Fuchur

Easy: You unwrap your model (that means you apply decals to it), you go to your model-window, you activate the plugin, the model is automatically transfered to 3dPainter and you can paint it. Now you can save the texturemaps and just click save and go back to A:M. 3dPainter will be closed and you will have the model with the textures. Another possibility is to use the autounwrap-feature of 3dPainter, but this wont work as well as a good manually unwrapped model. There are some other features too. Anyhow: You will need time and talent to be able to create nice models, no matter which software you will use. There is no other way. *Fuchur*

You are too certain that all people wanna harm the US. Even if the Iran had the bomb, it wouldnt be clear that they are trying to use it. And the argument of cheap energy is although there. Why should only the strong western states today have cheap energy? Energy means a better way for the future and ANY nation wants that. It however is a risk and I am not really for the nulcear-powerstations in Iran (even without the bomb it is quite a risk to have those in a country without a high educationlevel) but sooner or later we will have to handle the risk... and in this discussions, there is ALWAYS the oil-factor involved till the fusion-plants are totally invented (they are already on their way). And as vern said: Wise, intelligent and moderate doesnt mean weak. It means, that you are not only driven by your own fears and that you are only using weapons, if there is no other way out of the problem. I dont like a world were wars ("wars" - in Iraq about 30.000 iraqis were killed while the real war. About 30 (I think it where even less) US-soldiers lost their life there. About 30. 30.000 / 30. And many of them by friendly fire. Can you honestly say this is a war? This is like a fight between a heavyweight boxer and a 3 year old. And Bush said: "Hey, be careful Mister Klitschko. Don't wonder too much about the diapers: He has got quite a punch..." Iran isn't a bigger problem too. Even if they got the bomb, they would be damn stupid to try to use it. The whole world would connect there and they had even problems to stop the Iraqis. What should they do against the Nato? They are just like most nations: They think the bomb will protect them because they are frightend that something like the iraqi-war could happen to them too. Despite of that: Till now they are only talking about a non-military use of the cheap energy. I am not certain what they really want, but I am although not certain about statements of a hardliner-government about a country which has easy accessible oil-reserves. The problems are not the countries today, the problems are caused by terrorists... small groups of people which were anyhow pissed off or which are just damn stupid and/or fatuous. And back to the rocket-shield... it will not be half that efficient like it was said and it will raise the need of itself by being itself. Do you really want a rocketshield which is only necessary because its construction offended other nations? There are not many countries which have the technical knowhow to built long-range-rockets. So Iran wouldnt even be able to bomb the US if they had such intentions. The bigger problem is China and Russia but they are stronger and as that a war against them wouldnt be half that "funny" as one against a small country would be. The best way to save yourself is to not give other people a real reason to be fighted if it is not really necessary. Every security system is breakeable if someone just wants to do it. You could built thousands of anti-missle-launchers, etc. and while you do, a small boat with a suitcasebomb passes next to you and waves at you. (This is a metaphor, not a real situation...) Before you get your gun out: Think about the problems you will cause and think about if it is really necessary to fight or if a "small boquet of flowers" wouldnt be enough to prevent a war with thousands and tenthousands of dieing and suffering people. Maybe the counterpart isn't trying to get his Colt out... maybe he is only looking for his cigaretts. You will see it after you shot him, but can you really live with it if it wasnt a gun but only his lighter he was trying to get out of the pocket? Not only american soldiers have families which will be very sad about his/her dead. So if it is really necessary: Fight with all you got! Get the attackers down and defend your way, your family, your house. But only if it is really necessary!!! It is about asking questions, being fair and thinking before shooting. That is all that is asked for. In more than one situation Bush didnt do that and I would be happy if the next president of the US would be better at this. If you think Mc Cain is better, elect him. I am not that involved that I can say everything about the situation in the US... I only see that for example Bill Clinton was more of a thinker too me than Bush is. And dont forget: Clinton had its crises too and he had to fight too (Battle of Kosovo, for example). And I think he did better. He got the world on his site, he tried to really handle it without weapons, and when he saw that it didnt work out, he fighted. War is always dirty and not "funny", but this one was necessary. If Obama is in anyway a bit less like bush and a bit more like Clinton and Mc Cain is more like Bush, I would be very certain where I would put my cross on the votingpaper. *Fuchur*

I think the best way to handle that is to cut their supplies... if people are no longer that angry about the US, there will be less people going this route. The problem will not be totally solved with that, but it can be alleviated. The problem: It will need some time... *Fuchur*

Okay... lets face it: It is more than implausible, that due to his entired life, his political career and his fight against clinton (this time hillary ), noone found out about any direct or indirect connections to a terrorist. The democratic camp would be damn stupid if they really would have overseen something like that. I highly highly doubt that. So it is very likley that this statement was one of those "If I say it, and demand it afterwards, the damage is still done..." once. That means: Even if something is not true or at least very very overinterpreted, people will remember it anyway. You will stand at the electionoffice with a pencil (or any kind of electronic voting-sytem... dont know what is used in the US this time) and you will have some short phrases in your mind... and for many it will be one of these half-truthes. So it is just another manipulating comment from one or the other lobby or camp to harm the other one. If someone would say: "He recently found a pocket on the street and only gave back half the money which was in it." it would be much more believeable than something like that. If you ask me, that is much more relevant than any of these kinds of statements above. Oh, just for the record: I dont like Medwedew/Putin. I think they are establishing a dictatorship there for Putin (at least offically Putin isnt the president at the moment) and he is too much of a hardliner for me despite the fact that democracies are at ANY circumstances the better choice. The problems at Georgia werent their fault alone (or their strategy, depending of which point of view you have) but they were responsibile for a large part of the conflict... and if I am not wrong, there will be more problems with it again. But lets face it: The rockets in Poland werent nice of the US-government too. They are not very effective, won't give much of a protection against attacks and they were a open provocation against Russia, which isn't very intelligent with a hardliner on the top. So George and Vladimir may cause new crises in the short future, because both are more or less hardliners. McCain is the sequel of Bush... so may the force be with us all if McCain is elected... I highly hope that a democrate will win the elections... we all need a moderate, thoughtful person for such conflicts and someone who can politically stand up against a very clever (evil, but clever) guy like Putin. And dont say something like "But the terrorism..." I dont think anyone still thinks, that millitary power can handle terrorism... it is about thinking and understanding. Think about it: Someone thinks, there is a terrorist in a village. There is no terrorist there, but because someone moves too fast, an soldier shoots a young boy. The young boy has 3 other brothers... so you created from no terrorist 3 once and a whole village with people who will tell their children, that they have to be careful about the soldiers or that they are evil. Nicely done. And exactly that is happening. People get angry if you harm their family or friends... and even people who didnt have anything against the soldiers will hate them. Because a friend, a brother or sister or the parents got killed. And it will never end... people will be killed and other will be angry about it. The same is happening on both sides. In the end, noone knows why they started fighting... they will only know that the friend was killed and that this has to be repayed. It is a bit like the fight in Ireland. Over a decade people shot eachothers, fighted against each other and killed manymany people in a civil war without any chances to succeed. Today, after manymany years people understood what happend and like that there was no future. They are now trying to talk to each other and it seems to work out. See you *Fuchur*

*lol* It is really funny... you must have more fun than we when you are electing someone... at out place it is only about: "Is he able to do what he claims and is what he claims something that is near your own wishes..." At your place it is about every single person in his bloodline, if he drinks the right coffee from the right brand and if he really likes fruitloops better than Brahms... And it could be so easy: The only question is - Will this man/woman fight for my wishes or at least is s/he claiming to be closer to my opinions than the other guys? -> if so: Vote for him, if not dont. We can't do anything else. I never understood why Clinton (Bill, not Hillary) was more or less thrown out of the house in shame. I mean, Monica had nothing to do with his ability to rule the country. America was economically (and military, but that didnt change much) strong, he and therefore America had good relations with other nations in the world and he was much more liked and lets face it: he was much smarter than bush jr. But he did something bad, which if I am not guessing wrong at least 33% of the people who were most pissed off because of his sexual mistakes, did themselfs, and than he wasnt anything of that anymore? What happend here? Was he another person from one day to the other? No. He was the exact same guy many people liked and many people applauded one day before. The only difference was, that people had found out about his private life, which had nothing to do with his skills for which he was elected to be the president of the US. *Fuchur*

I have bookmarked your site and will look at it all, Thank you. Splines arent that hard. They are somehow even more logical than polys. You have to follow certain rules, but you gain a much less dense "mesh" with it which will help in many circumstances, especially while animating. (not in all, but in most...) To fully understand everything about splines you will need your time, but beginning with it will be fast. And as a cartoony-artist you should be used to animation and working "logical", so I am certain that you will get the hang of it quite fast. If you got Illustrator, FreeHand or Flash-Expierences it will although help a bit. *Fuchur*

Easy: An normal image containts of 3 Channels: R (Red-Channel) G (Green-Channel) and B (Blue-Channel). But you can add an A (Alpha-Channel) to it. It wont define the Color of the image (like RGB does) but will define the transparency of parts of the image. Black stands for 100% transparency, white for 0%. You can use grey-values too, if you need to. *Fuchur* PS: To create it in Photoshop: 1.) Create a new layer and paint something on it. (Make sure that it is not the backgroundlayer). 2.) Press CTRL and click on the same time on the layer. That will select the shape of the layer. 3.) Go to "Selection -> Save Selection" and call the new channel for example "Alpha". 4.) Save the image as an TGA with 32-bit. If you now open it in A:M, you will only see the selection you defined in the Alpha-Channel, not the rest of the texture. There are other ways to create and save alpha-channels... search on google and you will find some of them.

Is there a difference between the PWS- and the real timeline-window? I thought they were the same? But I didnt know the one with the "1" key (x-axis key in modellingwindow) neighter, so maybe there is? I usally just jumped back to the keyframe-mode to move keys and the "channel"- or better spline-mode (didnt remember the name at the time) to manipulate the interpolation. Thanks for letting me know. *Fuchur*

You have to be in the keyframe, not the channel-mode to move keyframes. *Fuchur*

Have a look at Cookie Cut-Maps... maybe that is what you are asking for. If that it is not what you are asking for, make a screenshot and show us what you mean. I didnt play World Of Warcraft (or any other PAYED online-game... I just dont like that...) *Fuchur*

Chris Roy did... available at my website too. *Fuchur*

V13 and newer should be able to use the exporter (available at my website for free). So model, texture and animate in A:M and everything is fine. It is not as good as the newer collada-formats, but it will do the job. Have a look at my hp... you can find a link in my signature. *Fuchur*

A:M can export to the DirectX-Format... this is very well suited. The problem is the import, if you plan to only edited already existing models. I used A:M in combination with Quest3d to create Realtimecontent. It was working well. *Fuchur*

"Please look at the Models Surface properties- under the Ambiance Shader you should have a Environment option. This Environment Shader works similar as Environment material, except it shows over the decals and doesn't fade out with transparency (which means it could be usefull for faking reflections in glass)." Anyone found this shader? I cant seem to find it under v15. Anyone got it? *Fuchur*

Damn, you really put us others to shame... Very very very well done... I like everything about it *Fuchur*

Did you accidently turn off cast shadow under the objectproperties? Or is it a pose where you accidently used that property? *Fuchur*

AE isnt bad, it is just not needed for many 3d-animations. A:Ms built-in-tools are made for that and especially the composite-feature will do most things you can do in AE. The biggest advantage is, that 2d-effects which are blended with a 3d-rendering (lets say a lightening, a fire, etc.) are faster to render in 2d-space than in 3d-space... AE is meant for 2d-animations and has some features included which are nice there too... it is a little bit like comparing photoshop with a video-camera. It is not meant for the same thing. So: Use A:M whereever you can (it will do 99,8% of everything you ever need connected to 3d-animations). You have to ask yourself if 0,02% are worse 1.500 Dollars... I would say: No, it isnt worth it. If you are after 2d-animations or text-animations and some videoeffects, it may be worth it so. See you *Fuchur*

There is of course the porcelain-material, but you will have to get rig of the creases anyway. *Fuchur*

Still quite many Splines... but you handled them well. *Fuchur*

Just to mention it: A folder can be created by Rightclicking on the chor in the PWS, going to New -> Folder. If you created a folder, just drag and drop on it what you want to be placed in it. *Fuchur*

Initial Velocity should be low, if you want it to come out slow. It's defaultvalue is 100 go down to 10 or even less and see if it is what you want. You can although try to play with the tension and pressure-force. This should bring your near to what you want. *Fuchur*

You will never need that many spline... that is enough if you would do a polymodelling You have to consider that you will have to position each cp on all 3 axis in a very smooth way to get a smooth surface... so I would recomment to use much less splines! *Fuchur*

You are talking about my tutorial at PatchWork3d.de if I am not wrong. I am using AM v15 for the tutorial, so you properly got the old version of the plugin. You need to download the plugin for v13, not the other one: http://www.kci-group.com/z/zevel-v13.zip (Delete the old Zevel.hxt-plugin from the plugin-directory and copy the file "Z-Zevel.hxt" into it. "zevel.hxt" is the old one!) v13 is for the newer versions. The Zevel-Plugin can be a little bit buggy so. If it isnt working well, you can easily do the beveling by hand. Just have a look at the beveled spline in the video-tut and add it with the "Add"-Tool. It will be the same thing. *Fuchur* PS: I wrote it into the material-file for the tutorial, so in future I hope this wont be a problem.

*lol* Yes, welcome to the A:M forum and the community. If you got any question... we are here

First I would create the walkcycle without the hands moving. Save this one to an external file, rename it to "action_no_hands" (for example) and reimport it again. (By this you can copy the action). Now embed all by rightclicking in the PWS at the project (first entry at the top) -> embedd all. Now animate the hands in the second action (name it "action_with_hands"). Now you should be able to blend these two actions without problems. *Fuchur*