Fuchur

"5.Bend/Twist/Taper:" I hope I understand what you mean... I think you are talking about drawing a curve and the geometry will be deformed like the curve, right? Such a tool isnt there in A:M, but it is often not needed due to the much lower resolution of Patch-Models. So lets assume you are modelling a technical object with many details in it and you need something like that... the magnet-mode could help you there... The magnettool has a fall-off-value which can be set like you want it to be set... (but only for all 3 axes at the same time)... First select a bunch of CPs which you like to be in the middle of the curve, for example. Now activate the magnet-mode-tool. Go to rotate-mode and rotate the selected cps... The geometry will be deformed in a smooth way around the selected cps (depending on the fall-off-value...) A falloff for Distorting-boxes isnt there. But you can of course hide the parts of the model which shouldnt be affected by the distortion box. That like a very hard falloff. Due to the continuity of splines, there will be some sort of softer fall-off anyway. Than the D-box will only manipulate the visible CPs... You can set different D-Box-Resolutions at the options-menu du produce you own fall-off of course. This tools however are more of a poly-world-toolset. There you often have to manipulate existing geometry... in Patch-World you most often model the things from scretch and so you dont need a bend tool too often... Hope that helps a bit... *Fuchur*

Merlin is a thing from older days... Once it was intended to let merlin show you what anmation:master does and how in some in-programm-tutorials of A:M... since I havent seen many tuts of that kind and I never found out how to write them, Merlin is useless. When you get one of the few tuts around, he can however show you what to do... *Fuchur*

Very cool... For all who dont know what I meant... his butt is to small... *Fuchur*

But be aware that v14 is in alpha for now... download it at "Latests Infos"-Forum at the main-forum-view. It can handle multiprocessors (up to 32 Cores) but I would use it for my projects now... you can however install both of them, modell and animate in A:M 13 and try to render in v14... but as stated: It is in alpha... so it will properly crash at some time... *Fuchur*

Normally, that should be the same package, so if Hash gave the Package to them, there should be the extra-dvd in it too... *Fuchur*

Very cool... but he has to be crying in pain when he tries to sit down... if you know what I mean *Fuchur*

Did it appear when you did a preview-rendering or only not when you used the shaded-view? *Fuchur*

You will get a smooth surface if you first model it with very few splines and CPs and than add new once at the same point where the curve would have been without the new CP... Smoothness will be archieved, if you make the spline "flow" *Fuchur* PS: There is a plugin at sgross.com called smooth, which does basically something like comparing a spline with less CPs to the one you got, but it jsut works with smaller values and smaller problems, because otherwise you will loose to much detail... feel free to test it. BUt be sure you save your work and do it on a copy... a plugin cant be undoed...

And did you ever try to use the Porcelein-Material from the CD? (DATA->Material->Geometry) Be sure the normals of the patches point outside and that you restart A:M after flipping normals. Otherwise, the material will produce black patches, etc. There is a tutorial in the forum... just search for porcelain. It can help, but you have to provide a nice model. *Fuchur*

There are several things which can help here... one very powerful thing is the magnet-mode + the grid-wizard... Just make a grid, use the magnetmode and you will get nice hills etc. Another thing is the toonnation plugin Terran which should work with the newer versions and v8.0 of A:M. Or you could use AM Terraform, which will create a high density-mesh for you based on a height-map. Or you can just use a displacement-map with a grid... Depending on your intend, quite everything can work very well.... *FUchur*

Every biological book shows more than what you see here... and dont let us talk about MTV... So I think that noone gets harmed if he sees that... But to be sure, just edit the topic and say "nudity" in it... the censors just dont help us to see, if she is modelled well... even if it doesnt make a real big difference... Thats something I wont ever understand because I am a European, but I just do it for my posts... *fuchur*

For *.x-export, have a look at this website. LINK to *.x Import/export-Plugin The exporter is quite good. One of the bests to poly-world for A:M. It can handle animations, cp weights, textures and geometry, if I am not wrong... but have a look at their webpage... there are some examples and informations there. I am not aware of a plugin which exports to blitz3d, but I dont know everything A:M is in anycase worth an upgrade! *Fuchur*

Nvidia-Cards have one small draw-back: In Shadedmode, with activated grid, the points will stay black when you select them. That is because of a change in the driver NVidia did some month ago. I am not sure about Radeon so... ATI has recently been sold to AMD and I dont know which way they will take. I recommend a fast NVidia-card with a Dual-System, but I think a good Radeon will do too... *Fuchur*

Very impressive! Keep it up! *Fuchur*

Wow... very cool car! Nice done with the Env-Map... First I thought it was a cool shader I didnt have... *Fuchur*

Somehow he looks like he had a apoplectic stroke... But nice anyway... *Fuchur*

If it is the community-window and a new chatmessage, I totally understand... If it is windows and you survived till now without turning all windows-sounds of, you are a real hero to me *Fuchur*

I like him anyway... But what you are properply missing is, that the head dont end where the hair starts. It looks a bit like you rotoscoped him from a real-life-image, modelled the face and than just attached the head itself. So, long talk, short answer: I think the nose is too long, the forehead should be a bit longer but in any case at the top more narrow (-> there will be hair on a part of it) and the mouth and the eyes could be a little bit closer... (not much so...) But as I said: If you want a nice semi-realistic-character to animate something with, I would leave him as he is... and maybe make his nose and the eyebrows(->skin of them) bigger. That will give him more character. *Fuchur*

Nice modelling... it looks very believeable... but I a agree on the velvet-shader... That will make the peach look more like it had a very high density fur on it... You can find the velvet-shader at your object-properties at the (I think) diffuse-shader-option. Tricky: It only works if you set the diffuse-shader to velvet at your rendering-tab too. (->the dialog you get when you try to render... make sure it is set to "advanced") (-> Dont know why.. if Hash had a reason or I am just doing something wrong... would be nice to know so...) *Fuchur*

You just have to adjust the "repeat"-value of your projection-map. That should be okay for you too. *Fuchur*

*.tga-sequences can be imported by AE and AE can interpret the alpha-channel too... If you dont want to let AE do that, you have to rightclick on the importat footage(image-sequence) and click on "interpret footage". No you can choose, if you want to ignore the alpha or you want to use it. Some versions back A:M didnt write the sprite-particles to the alpha-channel of the tga-file however... dont know if that has changed till now. But if you are not trying to compose something, where you would need the alpha, you can easily ignore the alpha and the sprites will be visible, too. See you *Fuchur*

Yes it is made with v13, newest version available... Were you able to open the file? *Fuchur*

Okay... I had a look at it... I think it is a bit nearer to the template: Basicly I used a projection-map (spherical of course) with a bitmap and I used z-shadows to get a more blurred shadow. I cant figure out, why your "ground" doesnt seem to be textured right... here it seems to be okay. *Fuchur* -> Get the projectfile

Looks really phenomenal! The robots are very cool and the humans are even cooler! Very very impressive. Just to say something negativ, so I dont have to feel too small : The right foot of the robot seems to be much faster than the other... is this intended? *Fuchur*

For any paper or things you can look at close, you should print with at least 150 better 300 dpi. So your client is most likely right about the 300dpi. *Fuchur*