Fuchur

You know all the possibilties Go for the one you are most comfortable with... I like the pose-methode the best so. It is the most flexible thing. *Fuchur*

Great to hear that Jason And of course: Welcome back Tralfaz... (okayokay...Chopper AI) See you *Fuchur*

Could you activate the Timeline so we can see a bit more? *Fuchur*

Have a look at Material Effectors... Tutorial on Material Effectors Jeff Lew did his matrix-effects in Killer Bean with it... but I cant find the tutorial on that... *Fuchur*

Yeah, I think that's it. I'll try thr CTRL_D method next time it happens [ I've already re-applied the textures this time] but I don't think it's a matter 'Show Decals' being ON/OFF. It's some stamps, but not others. I'm attaching a pic. of the DH-2 with color [procedural GROUP>SURFACES colors] missing on some patches. Look at where the missing patch color cuts into the decaled insignia rondel. Use the Draw-Toolbar... it is all there and you can see what you are doing -> Rightclick in a blank-toolbar-area and get the Draw-Toolbar (and I would recommend the View-Toolbar too). *Fuchur*

There is another quite easy way to do that: Use the detach-cp-button... 1.) Copy your sphere into the same model as the original sphere. Make sure you are not using a paste-offset (can be setted in the options). 2.) Keep the models separated by using 2 different groups. This is important to preserve overview. 3.) Detach the CPs of the first half of one sphere. 4.) Detach the CPs of the other half of the second sphere. 5.) Now you will get two separated sphere-halfs which will have all the cps still there (which will help to preserve the exact shape. The good thing about this technik: You can break apart exactly the parts you want. Go to high-resolution-sphere if you need small details or even better: use the stitch feature to create very customized holes in the model. *Fuchur*

Have a look at the keyframes in curve-mode. You may want to set the interpolation-methode to linear or use the bias-handler to get the curve look like you want it to look. *Fuchur*

Very well done models... Would you mind posting some rendered images of these characters? THey look very good! *Fuchur*

I assume you are using Sweeper? *Fuchur*

Do you use the final-renderer(blue-button) or the progressive renderer (green-button) *Fuchur*

I would say the alpha isnt used at all for bump-maps / displacement-maps / any kind of greyscale-image-map. Alpha-Channels are only usefull for color-maps. All the rest will be based on the greyscale-level of an image. (0-255). So 128 (or 127... this doesnt make much of a difference) should be used as neutral-level (so for example at a bump-map the 128 should be the groundlevel, everything from 0 - 127 will be lower, 129 - 255 will be higher. *Fuchur*

Well done.. I like him, and he is quite spline-efficient... *Fuchur*

Textures should be shown in shaded-mode if you active them. It will be quite blurry or pixalated, but at least it should be a startingpoint. I highly recommend to activate the "Draw" and the "View"-Toolbar so that you can handle easily and see easily what is activated and what is not. See this tutorial to see how you can activate the Toolbars (and do some other useful things to the interface). Tutorial Interface *Fuchur*

Just add a "nudity" or something in the title and you are fine. In the end it is an artform and I hope nobody will find David from Michaelangelo offensive. I mean it is 500 years old masterpiece-sclupture and you can find pictures from it everywhere... *Fuchur*

ALT + Print will make a screenshot of the current window while Print will make a screenshot of the whole screen-areas... (especially annoying on a multi-display-system.) I attached a small programm called "DarkShot" which can be although downloaded here: DarkShot by Darkleo The site is in german, but you can just download the package I attached and save the content of the zip-file in a folder and it will be in English. The good thing about the programm: It is very small, doesnt need many ressources and is nevertheless very powerful. For example it will save a series of screenshots to a certain place, captures the whole scrren or only specific areas, etc. See you *Fuchur* DarkShot.zip

When you are working in ANY program, it is always a good idea to save often - and save in versions (MyProject_v1, MyProject_v2, MyProject_v3, etc). I've had Photoshop crash on me a few times too. If I hadn't saved different versions of my work, all my work would have been hosed. I save my work in A:M every time I change something [Ctrl - S]. And every time I make a major change, I save a new version. It has saved me many times. Steffen programmed a plugin which has to be turned on and after that will save after a specified time to a backup-directory... It can help too... however you should really learn to save often and in versions... That is the most secure way and it will keep you from trouble and frustrations... *Fuchur*

Export-Plugin can be found in my signature... import isnt possible so. *Fuchur*

What OS, etc.? Windows Vista for example has to be setted in a certain way to run with A:M more smoothly. *Fuchur*

Or if you really want to use textures in a more controlable way: Decals from TGAs/PNGs with fading out alpha-channels. *Fuchur*

-> Only needs to be connected for activition... after that you can just cut of the connection if you want. But you have to connect the computer you are working with and activate with it. I think A:M is using some kind of system-information to lock the key to a computer (for example the MAC-adress, oder something like that). It can take some time to get a specialized response from Hash... and I am quite sure it is more unlikely to get info on weekends. If you need any kind of informations you should first ask on the forum and if people here couldnt answer, then ask hash. What was your question? *Fuchur*

Filesize of A:M: A:M (the program) alone only takes about about 100 MB. With the library it can however be much larger. But you dont need it at all to run and work with A:M. I am not using it much. NURBS-Modeling and Patch-Modeling is more compareable than Polygon-modeling and NURBS-Modeling, but it is not the same. However if you feel more comfortable with NURBS you will like Patches. But it is still a bit different. The AI-Version is 8, but any Adobe Illustrator-Version after that has an export for AI 8-Generic-Format. I am quite sure that this is the way it is done in any programm, at least the once I tested and worked with. OBJs... it highly depends on how well the OBJs are created. Lowpoly (Subdivisionlevel down to smallest for example) can come in quite well. I did recently bring in a fully modelled cow (with organs, bloodsystem, etc.). It was quite complex but it worked very well and I only had to fix very few star-connection-problems. (More than two splines running through a point). One of the really cool things about A:M is, that it can run on quite a slow machine quite well. I am using it till now on a Athlon XP 2000+ (this pc is about 5-6 years old...) and it works quite well. Of course you will notice a speedincrease with a current computer, but it is still working quite well. *Fuchur*

(You might want to play with the "transparency" over length-property... The new A:M avatare for 15 has something like that applied to its fury cloth. It looks blurred and very soft. Dont know if that can help you there.) Sorry, didnt read all posts before... *Fuchur* PS: Nice character... like him much!

It it is really staying with the cam I would recommend a post-programm or A:M Composite here... This will decrease the renderingtimes heavily... So Just create the objects you want to have as a hud, render them to an separte image / imagesequence if they should be animated. After that you can just add the two images and it will be much faster than rendering the objects all the time again. *Fuchur*

Jup, the toilett... I highly recommend the book as well... it is well written and will teach you some very useful things you won't find in the TAO. Go and get it! *Fuchur*

the window is normal for the CD-version... nothing special (I dont know why it is there so...). go to your explorer and right-click on the cd/dvd-drive. Choose "Open" not "Autorun". You will now be able to see the content of the dvd/cd. Search for the right setup-file on the cd (it is a *.exe-file on the disc and you will have to navigate through the folders for the Windows-version. (A:M is delievered as a Mac and Windows-Version at the same time ...) I didnt read your full post, so if someone mentioned that before: Sorry. *Fuchur*