Fuchur

Hey Robby altes Haus, lange nichts gehört . Schön dass du auch noch hier unterwegs bist! See you *Fuchur*

A little background on that: Graphiccards are working with polygones and polygones are always straight (can't define curves by itself but can only be used to simulate them). Since we are in a patch-world with A:M, it needs to be converted so that it can be shown by the graphiccard. And with Page Up / Page Down we can control, how many polygone per patch should be used (so the subdivision-level). It is useful, if you are experiencing slow downs in your realtime-view (with high patch-counts, etc.) so you can work fluidly. This has nothing to do with the final-rendering result so... See you *Fuchur*

I think he never heard that one before... Bast wishes Sebastian! Have a nice day! See you *Fuchur*

What to say... this is an outstanding work. Especially how well you got all this with exactly the right amount of patches... Very well done! See you *Fuchur*

It's a standard plugin that comes with A:M 1.) right click your model in the project work tree -> export OBJ (a native A:M model should be exported at at least a 4x resolution) 2.) right click the model's shortcut in the choreography -> export mdd data (using 4x resolution, too, of course.) 3.) import the obj into modo. 4.) load mdd deformer to the obj. 5.) enjoy. That sounds easy... have to try that! Thanks Elmar! *Fuchur*

No, Xcode 4.2 isn't working, but he doesn't have to use that one. The version before that is fine with the current Mac-OS... See you *Fuchur*

Yep, I asked for that already... it is like stitching with the Y-key. Stitching itself is already possible so... Shift-Click in Add-Mode will give you that... it is not possible with the Y-key for now so... See you *Fuchur*

You really don't need facerigs... they are often more limited then good poses which can be blended and added to each other much better. I only use small "rigs" for eyes, maybe for the nose (for dynamic constraints, if it is useful and necessary) and the chin... Everything else can be handle with poses in a less complicated and nice way. But that is just a matter of taste... See you *Fuchur*

Easy: Make a spline that looks like a quadrat with round beveled edges. To do that, you need to adjust bias-handles to form a straigt line between the corners. Now grap two corners (so 4 cps) and move them away. If A:M could now keep the splines between the corners straight it would be great. Would be very helpful for mechanical modelling. But this is not as easy as "keeping the bias values". They are kept... they would have to change in a way, that they keep the shape... I imagine that be much harder... See you *Fuchur*

Aber hallo... viele liebe Grüße und lass es mal so richtig krachen! Best wishes *Fuchur*

Jep, I can feel your pain there... that one is bothering me too often, especially if you need to move your CP afterwards and the bias-handlers go crazy... I always thought that there was no real way of doing it in another way, but if there is, this would be cool! See you *Fuchur*

Many, like for example saving a certain selection while having the surface-attributes of another one for a overlapping group, etc.. But the most important reason is: Try to give a model two different colors. how do you define them next to each other, if you are not allowed to use the border-cps in both groups? But the whole purpose of locking/hiding is really easy in A:M. Use the "Select connected" and "Invert selection" features to hide stuff... it is really not that hard. Other programms are many times more difficult there than A:M is. See you *Fuchur*

If the retopo works anything like 3d coat then the lathe and extrude probably aren't applicable but instead you draw over the reference surface and I'm guessing simply stitch the patches together. This will be awesome! Is this how it works in AM? Any chance for Bias handle freezing? Be nice to be able to turn off the auto adjusting when doing mech models. Also like to see visibility and lock icons show up next to the groups much like the roto shows. Would find that to be extremely handy on complex models with tons of groups. Yes it works like that. In short: 1.) Import a Prop (for instance an OBJ) into the chor-window. 2.) Create an empty model in the PWS and drag and drop it into the chor too. 3.) Good practice is to make everything but the empty model in the chor unpickable. 4.) Now select the model and go to the modeling-mode in the chor. 5.) Click on "Add Spline" and activate "Snap to Surface". > Now you are ready to go. You can now create splines as you are used in A:M by clicking on a point visible on the mesh below. (for example the OBJ, but doesnt have to be one). A:M will determine the position of the mesh below an put the new inserted point on it. If you select the point again and move it around, it will slide over the surface of the model. This is possible for polygon-meshes and for patch-surfaces. That means, you can not only use it to "import" very polygon-intensive models but you can although use it to model for example cloth on your patch-based characters, etc. It is very handy and I will surely do a video-tutorial on it in future... See you *Fuchur*

Do you want them all on one plane? Select them and scale that group to 0% on the axis perpendicular to that plane. Yes, that is what I want to do. I must not have chose the correct axis to scale on. I'll see if I can post an example in a bit, need to step away from this for a sec and get some caffeine. Just to ask it: Are your Bias-Values changed somehow? See you *Fuchur*

I don't think that he would... in the end it is all about not using polygones. Use polygon-models as a reference but use patches for animation... that is all he has ever said and like that it is a tool that should not be too far from his original mind. Anyway: It is a good day for A:M and retopology is a great tool. The UV-editor is the other big thing for me... the multiselection-support alone is so useful! See you *Fuchur*

Thanks for your reply Elm. Even using the bake surface, Modo doesn't import the decals. Is there some tip to put it to work ? Is there some free software to try exported decaled models ( OBJ ) ? I am not familiar with Modo, but in general, OBJ exports often only export UVs and you have to put the textures in the same folder as the OBJ to get it to work manually. Extremly well done spots Soulcagers... very cool! See you *Fuchur*

They are available in A:M Reports. The most important once till now are: - Snap to Surface for CPs (Retopology-Tool) useable with poly- and patch-models. > Polys can be imported as Props and dragged in a Chor to use them as reference, patch-models can be used in modelling and chor-mode. - Now uses Intel-compiler and some other improvements > increases speed up to 15% for Intel and AMD-CPUs. - UV-Editor-Improvements (multiselection now possible and advanced splitting of UV-patches) - Many little improvements like "Animate"-Mode-indication, etc. - Many bug-fixes. More detailed informations can be found in A:M Reports, if you have access to v17. See you *Fuchur*

... that is not a misbehaviour... that is luck... See you *Fuchur*

Doesnt matter where you import it... polygones are polygones... all you can get is something near to smooth edges, but polygones are always facets... in other programs you can smooth it optically (using a special shading-algorithm) but it still remains facetts... it is only a trick to get it otherwise... Keep in mind that 3d-printers, etc. can only print a certain resolution too... that means they will produce automaticall a layered object which will not be smooth anyway. The more expensive the 3d printer, the higher the resolution, but somewhere it is over and you will have to use sandpaper to get it smoother anyway... But lets begin from the start: What do you plan to do with the data? See you *Fuchur*

All export-plugins will convert patches to polygones. There is no way to export to CAD-curves or something like that in A:M. (in fact I dont think that any 3d-programm can do that, so I am not sure). If you want to 3d-print something out that is not too much of a problem so. STL, which is the file-format used by many 3d-printers although consists of polygones. The question is: How many do you export with? Use 16 polygones per patches and prepare your models to have more splines/patches than needed in A:M so you get a nicer surface in polygon-models. Another way is to export for example a ply-file, reimport it and export it again... like that you increase the resolution of the model and the amount of polygones. See you *Fuchur*

Are we talking about final, progressive or realtime renderings or all of them? See u *Fuchur*

I can answer that: I am using a localized version of Windows (German) and A:M is not translated to German. I think that that is a good thing so. It would be harder to talk with you about A:M if all the menus would look different. Only the explorer-based menus are translated automatically. See you *Fuchur*

True. The upper lip is bigger than the lower. That is more common for black womans than white womans. But an example who has it that way (at least a little) is Julia Roberts. I don't think that the mouth is too wide so... Julia Roberts Julia Roberts 2 Nevertheless I will decrease that effect a little... I too think that it is a little too much there. I wanted the cheekbones and her chin to be quite noticeable so... I have to admit that she looks like a woman with slavic influences who often got "harder" faces... but that gives her more personallity so she may not be a pure beauty-queen. There is already a philtrum, so I have to admit that it is quite wide. I will tighten that. Thanks for your input – I find it very helpful and may alter a little bit on here mouth too... lets see what seems to look more realistic. See you *Fuchur*

No. I never got SSS to work properly for me. I am using the Skin-Shader for those renderings combined with a texture-map. See you *Fuchur*

Hi guys, I did another update adding a body. It is not yet fully textured, so it doesn't look bad at all if you ask me. What do you think? Best wishes *Fuchur* PS: Some NUDITY involved here.