Fuchur

Yeah, to reiterate Fuchur, the tool is simply called Snap-to-Surface- probably a wise move by our Yoda. WE are the ones who have monickered it as Retopology... we should probably thus start referring to it in it's proper context. OR, how about this... wait....... wait for it........... S2S !!! I have to say that it was me who called it "Retopology-Tool" for the first time. Sorry about that. The feature-request for it initiated the "Snap to Surface"-button so. Anyway to let people know what it is about more or less it is easy to say "Retopology". In the end it is retopology + X so. I don't think that it is too bad to call it retopology-tool so... what does it harm? But okay, lets call it "Snap-To-Surface"-Tool from now on. See you *Fuchur*

As a for instance... one thing I've noted is that we can model with changing surfaces over time. Are you saying we can load morph targets too? Just simply swap out the target mesh with another and move the time slider over, re-snap the cp's to the new surface? Something like that? That would be pretty cool. A:M can not import Morph targets as far as I know. But yes it really doesnt matter what you want to retopologize. It even does not have to be one object. You can draw over several objects at once if you wish too, or you can change the template-object in the process to another one or you can move / rotate / scale the template-object while doing your snap to surface work, etc. You can although use Snapt to surface-option for animation... so for example if you created a model and want to animate the CPs you can use Snap To Surface in the Muscle-Mode in the Chor too to change its shape... So you could recreated the morph-targets from other programs easily by recreating the model in A:M with resurface, export another prop from the other software which has the shape of another morph-target and use it to create another keyframe in A:M's chor which will have the same shape as the morph-target in the other program. That will enable you to copy the CP-movement to a pose and like that you have a translation of a morph-target to A:Ms poses... The real feature is: Snap a point to an underlying surface, no matter if it is a prop, another patch-model, a combination of both or several of them... See you *Fuchur*

In reallity the new feature is called "Snap to Suface" (at least the button is called that way). It just doesnt sound that cool and people dont really know what it is about. So I think it does exactly what Retopology in other packages does but is a little more flexible. See you *Fuchur*

You are not limited to use only low polygonal models. A:M can handle quite high polygon-counts there... (tested with 200.000 Polygones till now). And you can retopologize a patch-model too and so on... many uses possible. Have a look at the video tutorial (later in the thread) and I'm explaining a little more there. See you *Fuchur*

In the end it is about having a very detailed (and in most cases very hard to animate, texture and render) model and decreasing its resolution to a more useable one. This is what retopology is used for in polygon-models. For A:M it is a very nice pipeline to get polygon-models into A:M (with manual work, but still much easier than anything else). Another possibility is, that you can create new models on base of old once, create cloth for existing models, use primitives to define a shape very fast and model your real model afterwards over it and so on... many different usages which can be very useful for A:M! Have a look at the tutorial Matt created here: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=40992 And here is a video-tutorial I created about the subject: Link to Video-Tutorial: Retopology See you *Fuchur*

Hi! None of these does even slow A:M down noticeable when importated as a prop and brought to the choreography... although the algorithm of resurface doesnt have any problems with the amount of polygones in the model... everything works fine and with no noticeable performance drop. Very cool! See you *Fuchur*

Exactly. Everything you can import as a prop can be used for Retopology-Tool. STL is not importable into A:M in any way, so you would need to convert it first using another programm. Anyway, since STLs are often used for 3d-scanning: If you try it with a 3d scan you will very likely run into problems there. See you *Fuchur*

I think you have to copy the A:M installtion-folder and open it from there. So I am not a Mac guy and only heard about that. See you *Fuchur*

The limitation is the prop-importer. Using Millions of polygones is quite heavy, so I doubt that would be possible, but if you could provide me with a few test-models (for example one with around 10k of polygones, one with 100k of polygones, one with 1000k of polygones), I could try it out. See you *Fuchur*

No biggy guys. I had fun creating the tut. See you *Fuchur*

...yes, that is part of the cool thing and for inexperienced users a bad thing about it. You need to know how to model and how to layout your splines... like that you will create very nice topologies, which are easy to animate... and that is the part that a computer can't do (easily) and why it is necessary to involve the user... See you *Fuchur*

Wonderful new feature! Well done tutorial! Will make it easier in creating paths for animating models, or special effects moving across rugged, irregular terrain or contours of other models. Love it. Sure to open up many new, yet to be thought of uses. EDIT: Another possibility is to use a "rough 3D roto/proxy model", ie 3D roto built in A:M, composed of unconnected spheres & simple shapes, and then use that to create a more detailed connected spline model. Jep, have thought of that too. Like a manual "meta-balls" or "z-sphere"-approach... another great example is, how easy it is to create cloth with such a feature and so on... many possibilities! See you *Fuchur*

Exactly what I thought . And for all of you who want to see how it is done, I have created a small video-demonstration of the new feature... Keep in mind: I am not a native speaker, but I do my best . Link to Video-Tutorial: Retopology Best wishes *Fuchur*

I think that it would be great to have that but that it is not very likely to happen (in near future). We striked for something like that for years now and it could not be made possible... so I searched for something that will make it possible in another way (without automatic polygon-conversion, because this is more or less un-doable) and this is a very nice way to go about that. Even other software like 3d coat has gone this route and they are not even using patches but polys and it works well... they have a auto-retopology-tool too, but for me it is not a good way to strike for unrealistical aims, because that will not happen in the short term and depress everyone who is dreaming about such things. Step-by-step is the best way in opinion and for now, this is the way to go. Who knows what the future brings... And no matter what will happen: The best way is to do it manually, because it will create the best topology for animation and for the use in A:M (the computer just can't know what you plan to do with the model) and it just is now much easier to do it than before. I have the next step in my mind, but I will not talk about it till I know it is doable... just doesn't help to rise the expectations if you can't fullfill them. See you *Fuchur*

Have a look at the resurface plugin... I think the better approach is to do it manually so... having to use a very dense mesh etc is just not good practice. maybe for cloth or something.... See you *Fuchur*

Jep, it is... exactly what I thought of when asking for it. Steffen asked if he should include a more advanced algorithm for the normal-detection, so since it was much more work I didn't think it was necessary for now... maybe he could add it anyway, if you are having trouble... For now: Keep in mind, that you can grab one point and move it a little to get the problem solved, if you are looking from the right side of the model. The point will slide on the surface and will very likely be placed where you want it afterwards. See you *Fuchur*

Had a look there... "Version 10 (2003) Soft-body Dynamics..." What's that supposed to mean? I think they are talking about Cloth there, not real Soft-body Dynamics. Cloth has been used to simulate such things, but it is really not the same thing... See you *Fuchur*

Hash is 25 years old then, yes. Have a look at the wiki-entry for Animation:Master: Wiki: Animation:Master See you *Fuchur*

I don't think that will happen... why do you need that? You can save to the AI 8 format from any newer version (including CS5) and it will work very well. All you have to do is to get rid of groups.... See you *Fuchur* I'm surprised CS works. I typically use old Illustrator 7 because there is so much bloat in the cs series. There are all kinds of issues with the live feature that may be a problem. I know my cad software doesn't like cs much and I have to down save the files. Yes, it does not work. You have to save to AI 8-Version. See you *Fuchur*

Vga instead of tga? *Fuchur*

I don't think that will happen... why do you need that? You can save to the AI 8 format from any newer version (including CS5) and it will work very well. All you have to do is to get rid of groups.... See you *Fuchur*

In general, if you only try to render using netrenderer, you dont have to have a licence on the computer with the slaves running but only on the one with the renderserver running. It will be used to control how many slaves will be opened and will check if you are allowed to do that. See you *Fuchur*

Thannk you guys, I'm very happy that you like it . Have fun! *Fuchur*

Each year we at 3We (the agency I am working for) are releasing a new christmas-calendar where you will get another funny or nice looking video each day. The image used for the calendar is (as each year) created with A:M, so I thought "why not showing it on the forum". http://advent.3we.de Best wishes and have a nice pre-christmas time . *Fuchur*

Very nice stuff Well done Nancy! I like it much! See you *Fuchur*