Fuchur

As far as I understand it: You import the MDD-data into an Action. After that you've got keyframes (in A:M) in the action. In the action you can now copy the CP-animation-data in muscle-mode, create a new pose for your character, go to the percentage the keyframes you copied from the action should be at and just paste it. However you will not very likely get around rigging again, at least not for more complex motion. CP-animation is linear and will "morph" from A to B. If you need to move an arm or so you need bone-animation with joints which will create the arcs automatically... for basic morphing like it often happens in the face you can get it done with that method (very well) but for example a walking character will look very strange if you don't copy and paste each frame a keyframe. See you *Fuchur*

Don't think so... Somehow I have an assosiation with a roboter head with an eye in the middle like the one from Planet51 (Rover) or something like that... So I am not totally sure. *Fuchur*

A:M only uses one core for renderings in A:M itself. You can only use more than one by opening A:M several times or by using Netrenderer with several netmessengers. In any case each core will only work on one frame at a time. > a frame is only as fast rendered as one core would do, but you can (in your case) render 12 of them at the same time. (if you have the licence to allow that... there should be an option to add rendernodes to your licence very soon, if Jason finds the time to test the new php-formular on the website. my first developement-tests were successful) See you *Fuchur*

That is a good idea . I am with you on that and integrated it into my page. (no action necessary on your side) For now I added the link to this discussion and if A:M v17 is officially release we will have to change that to the openly available forum-board for that. (I would add a own board where people can share what they created on the forums here) There is now a button to change the images if you want to. See you *Fuchur*

The only reason there is the *.htm or the *.html-extension is the 8+3-notation / Camal-notation available but it would be bad practice to use them in a different way. One of the reasons would be that Windows does not show the extension by default for users but the icon would be the same. Like that you could not see the difference on a windows-filesystem without changing that. The other one is, that what is prefered is a webserversetting. Many webservers will favour the index.html over the index.htm-file and only use index.htm only if index.html is not available. After that it will be checked if there is a index.php but this is really only a setting which can be changed and is very different on different machines. The best is, to just let the webserver determine which file should be shown. So don't use "http://xyz.com/index.htm" as the link but "http://xyz.com". The webserver will guide you where you need to go. I for myself prefer the *.htm over *.html because I just like to stay compatible to as many systems as possible. I think the x+y-notation (in difference to x+3) is only a game or only really useful when there are so many file-extensions are involved that 3-letters are just not longer enough. Anyway: The most compatible format is x+3 or even 8+3 and like that I reccomend to use that. See you *Fuchur*

You can disable that behaviour in future BUT it can lead to problems... so you don't really should do that. In the end the Basic colors are still better than XP-styles... it wont change anything in A:M in any way but only the taskbar would look a little different. OpenCL is currently looked into... it seems, as if it is not very easy to optimize A:M rendering with it (just doesn't really help much, since Patch-rendering is different from polygon-rendering). But we will see what the future brings. See you *Fuchur*

Here is a nice "Support.html"-file you may like. It is meant to give you inspiration while working on 3d projects. It will displayed randomly 6 of the best images created with A:M in your Support-Tab of the Community-window. Hope you like it! To install, just copy the file "Support.html" to your local Animation:Master v17 installation folder. See you *Fuchur* Support.html

If you have only one object it is a very good solution to use the Environment Map or the Environment Shader for that... but if you want several object to show different reflections based on there position in the 3d room (different viewing angles, etc.) it can be much harder to use env-maps, etc. For that you will need such a solution. But yes, in many situations you can get away with Env-Maps. See you *Fuchur*

Very cool looking characters and very close to the originals but still unique... one thing that bothers me so is, that the guy's noses are not connected to the head while the girl's are. The girls have to look more sexy, but somehow they look more real with that than the boys... the guys look a little displaced with that. See you *Fuchur*

If you need this now, I'd suggest doing one normal render to get the reflections and then another with the object gone and swap the alpha channel from the second render into the first render. The second render could be done quickly with lights off and other things to speed up the render since you only want the alpha channel. That is the way I did it when I had to create such an effect till now... See you *Fuchur*

+ talent of course. And a little on how much the software helps you of course... the last part is something A:M does quite well if you ask me... (compared to XSI and 3ds if you ask me). But the more important stuff is talent and all you said above. See you *Fuchur*

Hm, I am too young to really oversee the results of such a decission, but if you are not happy with your job because it is just not what you want to do, you've got the funds and you like to do it, why not do it? I would maybe speak with my employer first if for example the workload could be lowered or if there is another job which is not that challenging if I was in your situation, but if that is not an option, why not just do what you want to do? We all have just one life and if you don't do it in this one, when should you? Jeff Lew did it and if you are good enough (like Jeff and I think you are too) you can get back into the business if you wish to later on. Jeff Lew made his movie and worked on Transformers 2 and 3 and Tron Legacy afterwards again... So if you can do it now and you are not happy with what it is like now, go and become happy... that is the right of each of us! See you and wish you the best with that! *Fuchur*

Kein Problem . If you need any help on the progress, let us know... we will help were we can . See yo *Fuchur*

There is more than one feature-request for that... the newest can be found here: A:M Feature-Request: Reflection only An earlier one is this one asking for something equal but a little bit more: A:M Feature-Request: Second Rays only If you think one or both a useful, please give your comment in the comments section of A:M Reports. See you *Fuchur*

Yes it is possible to do that... but that will be a lot of work for one person. Keep in mind: Such a movie is produced by a lot of people (the base-crew about 30-300 people and often many more involved with stuff not directly connected to movie-production-work) as a full-time-job in a timeframe of 1-3 years... so 120 minutes of real high-quality 3d-animation will take a lot of work... In any way you need a good plan on how to do things... keep in mind: These people have a good structured workflow and will split large scences into foreground and background (or many more layers) etc. to make it manageable. So if I was you, I would aim for a quality short before trying to produce a hollywood-quality movie of 80-120 minutes. But that is possible too... think of Killer Bean 3 for example (not done in A:M, but as I said before: it is really not the software here but your motivation. A:M could produce something like KillerBean3 too... the first previews for KB3 were done in A:M, if I am not wrong)... done by one person in (less than 100 years... not totally sure about the timeframe here... I think about four years or something like that... don't know exactly so...) KillerBean 3 is quality work, so to get it to a movie-quality you need to raise the quality a little more too. See you *Fuchur*

You would have to specify that more. In general, A:M can do everything you want, if your computer is strong enough to do it. The Chor can handle many many patches and textures of course. It will be better to use 64 bit-version if you really plan to use big textures and many patches, but I don't think that there is a real limit other than what your computer can handle. There is a limit of patches per model (about 15k) but in the chor I don't see one but your computer. So the question is: Can your computer handle it? Have a look at this thread: City-Thread One of the most massive models done in A:M is the Nidaros Cathedral. You will find some useful informations in there concerning patches in a model-file, RAM-amount and patches in a chor-file. Nidaros Cathedral by Stian See you *Fuchur*

I like him now... at first his head was much to big for me, but now he is looking very well and the splining is very nice too Go on like that and he will be outstanding . See you *Fuchur*

Don't know why people still have these 5-pointer-issueses... directx-export is not generating any trouble with 5-pointers and in general all those algorithms are the same because they are presented to the plugin-programmer by A:M. What exactly is happening with 5pointers? See you *Fuchur*

I don't think that that is possible in an automatic way till now... you would have to do it frame by frame. See you *Fuchur*

Are you talking about MDD or real geometry per frame? From A:M v16 on has MDD-export, if I am not wrong. See you *Fuchur*

Happy birthday Rodney ! Just the best for your birthday. Have a great day *Fuchur*

One of the best once is from will and can be found here. See u *Fuchur*

Why a pose? Image maps are essentially flat things and 3D objects are not. If we can temporarily flatten out the surface of a 3D object so the image can face all the patches evenly, the image will appear less distorted. Generally, this flattening is something you do manually in a pose by moving CPs. However, for uniformly round objects like your hammer head, cylindrical application is easier and more precise. You image needs to be painted so that the left and right edges can meet without an obvious seam. The original attempt for me is to do the flattening in an action... what is the advantage of a pose for that? See you *Fuchur*

As far as it looks you are using a decal which is planar-applied. The easiest way to get rid of the distortion at the top is, to create another normalmap, give it a gradient of transparency to the outside (like the one attached) and applyit again to cover the bad part of the model up there. It is possible that you need to change your original texture in this area, since I am not quite sure if the height of the two ijmages is added up or if the decal that covers the other one although covers the height-informations. With colormaps it would work without a change of the orginal decal underneath... try if it works without the change first. Or the second possibility: Use not the planar-application-mode but the cyclindric or sphere-application-mode. That could help a little to. That can be done like this: 1.) Go to your decal. 2.) Open its properties. 3.) Change Application-Mode to "Cylindrical". 4.) Apply it only to the cylindrical part of the model.

Best wishes guys... it is 4:16h in Germany and we are finally in 2012... Happy New Year to the world! See you *Fuchur*