Fuchur

As far as I am aware, after A:M has started, you can remove the CD and the program will continue to function. Of course, if you kill the program, you must put the CD back in the drive to start the program back up. I think he asks if he can buy the subscription first and "update" that to a CD-version by only paying the difference afterwards... I am not sure if this is possible. Jason can say something about that. *Fuchur*

And just to mention it: Steffen is looking over the OBJ-plugin so that it can export textures too. See you *Fuchur*

I think you created only a model-file and didnt attach an action to it, right? DirectX-Exporter containts of two modules. 1.) Export the model with the rig, textures etc. 2.) Attach an action to the exported model. Since many people seem to have problems with that, I did a video-tutorial for directX-export from A:M to DirectX > Quest3d: Video-Tutorial for A:M to Quest3d (Click on HD to get a better quality) Attached to this post you can find a directx-export with Projectfile. The model containts of a simple worm-model with a very simple bone-rig with a a few weighted CPs (at the base of the model where bone1 and bone2 connect to eachother) and a texture on the worm-model at the head which is a simple smiley-face. The worm itself is part of a group with a red based-color and a white specularity color at Intensity of 100 and size of 100 (in A:M). In the ZIP you will find two versions of the same model with animation as directx-file and the Project used to export it from A:M. The first one is right- and the other left-handed. That means the axis of the cordinate system is different. Maya for examples uses another cordinate system than A:M and depending on your software you have to use one or the other export-option. The texture is an PNG. Hopefully your 3d-system can handle that, if not let me know which formats are supported. The texture has to be in the same directory like the models (for quest3d and some other) or maybe in the same relative path to the project-file. (I don't know exactly what you got there.) See you *Fuchur* PS: It is possible that the animation is very fast or very slow. When exporting from A:M there is an option to set a mutliplicator. For Quest3d I had to set that one really low, that means the animation itself was VERY fast (one frame in Quest3d and like that would not be visible... that is a factor that has to be determined once and can than be used for any export and depends on your 3d-engine / system. For this export-model the multiplicator was set to 1 (default-setting) worm_direct_x_export.zip

Happy birthday! Have a nice day Mark! *Fuchur*

When you render it you choose a "save to" location. Are you sure you're looking at the right spot? Try saving it to the desktop. Just to try. Cinepak Codec by Radius is an old codec-format used by Micrsoft. It should work with WMP. Are you sure you are writing to a director you have full access to? -> Try the desktop-folder to be sure that it is not a problem with that. See you *Fuchur*

Not a bad idea so... maybe it would be possible to write a plugin which uses a light and a radiosity-like cacluation to set all normals facing out... 1.) Put a light into the model. 2.) Let photons (a small amount) bounce around and where it hits a surface the normal should point to the inverted vector of the photon. It would only work with closed or nearly closed parts, but with only using a selection of points it could work out anyway. I'll do a featurerequest on that. Sounds like a nice idea. See you *Fuchur*

I don't know... I've noticed a very subtle difference in shading when normals are facing the other way. When two opposite flipped patches are next to each other, correcting it can actually be noticeable. Random lathe object; two renders: one with normals facing in, one with normals facing out. Subtle shading difference. (animated GIF) Interesting test... it is really a small difference and I am quite sure you would not notice it in normal situations, but it is there... *Fuchur*

QT is "just" a GUI-Framework like GTK+ or wxWidgets which allows you to programm interfaces with some predefined classes and helpers, but in the end you are using C++ to use it... Using web-languages for GUIs is much easier for me, since I have several years of experience with that and only very limited once with C++. (a little bit more with Java). See you *Fuchur*

Thanks for the tool! Will be very handy . I am curious about Titanium Developer... any tipps on who to get started with that tool? Javascript, PHP, CSS, HTML are all no problem for me... learned the basics Java during my study too. See you *Fuchur*

Hm... normally only backfacing normals of 5-pointers are bad. The rest should not really make a difference for rendering (if you are going to use it as a game-model it is something totally different...). Fine looking lady by the way! So back to extruding... it depends in which direction you extrude something... that will although determine, if the normals are facing in or out... Refind normals is not going to be very helpful... it is not for fixing "wrong" facing normals. For that there was a plugin from Steffen, which determined if normals should be flipped by the surrounding patches and their normals... it is not perfect but it can help! See you *Fuchur*

Have the best day John! Happy birthday! *Fuchur*

Just wanted to ask if there is something new about the contest / contest result? See you *Fuchur*

Cool Stuff! Looks very well done! Keep on rocking See you *Fuchur*

I guess, that the second camera is much nearer to the patches than the first one, right? That will increase the rendertimes, because A:M has to calculate at a much higher accuracy... See you *Fuchur*

Undo has some drawbacks that I try to avoid. For example: Apply a texture to a patch and delete the patch. Now try to undo... the texture and stamp are still there in the PWS but you wont see them on the model. I think A:M just creates new patches based on the properties of the old once but can't really recreate the patches themselves. (Easier to understand: If a car (#1) is damaged you can buy a new car (#2) which has exactly the same attributes, looking exactly the same, parking at the exactly same spot but it is still another one...) Like that the stamps don't have the right informations where to place the texture and like that it is not visible. It tries to set a texture for #1 but #1 is no longer available... I think undo can't connect #1 and #2 to eachother and like that undo is not always useful. I rarely use it... Hope this is understandable and since it is just a guess I hope it is correct. See you *Fuchur*

v16 although offers mdd-animation-export and I think Steffen had a look at the OBJ-exporter too... so it should export a better material file now too... I didnt test that till now so. This would bring out all the animations, but without bone-data. (the animation is saved on a vertex / CP-base. *Fuchur*

Did you save in several versions? If so, you can reload an old version, rightclick on the group, choose "Create Material from Surface properties" (or something equal). Now right-click on the new material and choose "Save as". Save it out and close the project without saving. Next reopen the latest version, rightclick on the materials-folder and choose "import". navigate to the position of the created *.mat-file and import it. Now just drag and drop the material on the intended group. See you *Fuchur*

thanks the theme is just to say hello simplified to put in evidence the character Do you plan to add displacement or normal-maps to it? It could be the winner with that See you *Fuchur*

MDD can be used to export animations on a cp-base. That means you can for example export an OBJ-file and attach to this obj-file in another 3d-software the animation. It is not editable and doesnt have a bone-hierachy, but it is quite near to the results and you can use A:Ms toolset (including smartskins, etc.) to animate characters (or whatever) and use it for example in Realflow to simulate the waterfall flowing around it... Has been introduced for the Soulcage Department so they are able to use a fluid-simulationsoftware with A:M. See you *Fuchur*

Maybe something like ScreenStream would be helpful? I just say: TeamViewer... Can't imagine that there is anything better available... It can be used to prasentate and control (with rightmanagement, passwords, etc.) any computer... very very helpful, doesnt have to be installed, free for personal usage, etc. See you *Fuchur*

Just had a look and it is in the 64bit-version. Dont know if it is in 32bit too.... Anyway: Is there a reason why you are not using Sweeper? See you *FUchur*

...or use two different models. *Fuchur*

Sorry HomeSlice - saw only just now that you asked that. Motherboard is an Asus M4a89GTD Pro. (nice one) AMDs are only much slower than these 1000 Dollar processors of Intel. For the same bug you get the same or more power (since AMD is quite inexpensive, the i7 950 for example costs more than the 1090T and is only a 4core-system. 1090T is a 6core and less expensive at a more or less equal speed per core and more cores... this depends on the application of course, but especially for A:M this is true). But keep in mind: Mine runs at higher GHZ and is slightly overclocked. Compared to that, bentothemax has a faster system... Maybe because of the RAM he has... mine runs only at 1333 MHz. See you *Fuchur*

Jep... use slightly other settings... I had such a problem a year ago or so... it happens only in very certain circumstances... Connected is the Falloff and th Width of the spotlight. *Fuchur*

Very well done Will! I like the style and the colors and textures are really great! See you *Fuchur*