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*

Not totally... first of: Scaling the model-bone will scale everything else without having to press the CTRL-button and of course the pivot to scale and rotate is still defined by it, although you can use it for that. The bad thing about using only the other bones without the modelbone is, that models will be harder to select. You can see why if you move the bones of a model far away while you leave the model-bone where it is. The model-box will scale up and other models which are now in it cant be selected. On the other hand it is easier to move custom bones only because you dont have to handle an additional hierachy-level. *Fuchur*

Well, if you'll be my friend, we only need three others. The back of the coin: All the licences will be connected to one person. But at the German community we already thought about that too. *Fuchur*

Not necessary, but I highly recommend it. Another paintprogamm like Gimp will however do the job pretty well too. The GImp is even OpenSource / Freeware. *Fuchur*

Depends on what you really want to do... - If you want to handle the image as a layer, you can map it onto a geometry or you can import it as a layer to a Choreography. - If you want to create the object on the image as a 3d-object, it will be more complex. For that I highly recommend the "The Art of Animation:Master"-manual. This is more or less what is A:M all about and that needs more than just one post. *Fuchur*

All questions which are not fast to answer... Since v11 there has been done much... Featurewise have a look at this links: New to A:M 2005 New to A:M 2006 New to A:M 2007 New to A:M 2008: Surface-Baking, NLE-Capabilities, new Fluidssystem. Keyframe-Thing: There is a repeat-option for each action. Set it to whatever you want to repeat the action. Keyframes in the chor can be repeated with the pre/post-settings. (But this will ALWAYS repeat all of the keyframes. (-> Select a keyframe in the timeline, rightclick on it and use the pre/post-interpolation-options for that). But usually repeatable actions are meant to be done in an action. However you are able to export the chor-action as an action and reimport it to use it as a normal action-file. You should have a look at the manual for more informations on the subject. *Fuchur*

Exactly... The model bone is the black one which is already available in the model-window before you add one by yourself (can be seen by clicking in bonesmode anywhere into the model-window.) I made a bunch of possibilities to fake another pivot-points. Have a look at the Animation and the setup of the model-files in this project. You got more freedom in Chor 1 (by assigning the whole model to a new bone and animated this bone and the model-bone itself in the chor) and you got more precise, controlable behaviour in chor 2, where I only use bones with a hierachy to do the same. The second possibility however is only useful if you know exactly where the pivot should be and there is a limited amount of pivots you will need. See you *Fuchur* three_different_pivots.zip

Dont think that that is possible, but you can assign the riffle to a bone. (a new created one, not the model-bone) Now you can move the model with this new custom bone. The pivot of the model will stay at the same place, but by moving the bones you can do the same. Not that easy like just moving the pivot but should work too. *Fuchur*

As far as I know, you just have to buy the new subscription, get the code and I think you just have to get a notice if it is expired... If not, you could uninstall A:M, reinstall it and you should be asked again for an activation-code. *Fuchur*

Ambiance is meant for none-shaded (or less shaded) colors while diffuse-color is meant for shaded once... In some cases a combination of both can be helpful. *Fuchur*

And dont forget the shaders. Some are better for Metals than others... *Fuchur*

I remember there was a plugin for something like that... I think somehow connected to the font-wizard or something... *Fuchur*

In these cases, Group-Connect is a lifesaver! First: Click on a CP(carefully, you dont want to select more than one cp here) of your source-object and use group-connect (Default-Key: /) and move it aside... Is it only one model or is the problem already there? Have a look at your options-panel too... there is a setting which may help you to determine what is going on there: Units -> Paste / Extrude-Offset. *Fuchur*

The difference is, that a film is more or less resolution-independend (till the grain, etc. take effect) while a digital image has one resolution and that is it. In that aspect, a film is the better medium than a digital image is. But of course there are many other advantages of a digital image and so it is not at all worse. If you wont to be really save, you can go to photoshop, create a 3/5-feet (about 1,0-1,5m, if I am not wrong) at a 150 dpi (you wont need more for that big image... even less may be okay there...) image. Now have a look at the resolution (it is about 9000px x 9000px). That would be the really save. I however think you can very likley go 2/3 or even 1/2 of the resolution without loosing anything for your viewer. So render out at 6000px x 6000px [36 MP] (or even 4500 px x 4500 px [20MP]) and you should have a real nice result... some would even say you could go smaller than that, but if time isn't a factor I wouldnt try that... there is no need to not waste a little bit time to be save. But dont forget to use high-resolution-textures too... otherwise the geometry will be very sharp, but the textures will look quite blurred or grainy. See you *Fuchur*

As far as I know, there is no problem with that... *Fuchur*

No... Emission-Rate and it should be the other way round. 0% for nothing emitting, 100% for full emittering. (depending on the emission set in each of the particle-systems. *Fuchur*

22h hours for 1 minute isnt long at all. Pixar-movies need sometimes one or two hours for ONE frame on a really fast machine... What you got there is only 60 X 25 frames = 1500 frames. 22h = 22 * 60 = 1320 min 1500 / 1320 -> 68 seconds a frame... That is not long at all. Of course it depends on your scene... use particles, high reflection-levels and so on and you can come up with 22h a frame if you want to *Fuchur*

Several possibilities to cover the whole model with one image: 1.) Use a material for that... for example BitMapPlus if you are using tileable maps or the plugin-material projection-map from hash. 2.) Use a decal... dont know if many people know about it, but you can rightclick on the decal-folder and select "group undecalled patches" or something like that. So you will very easily find ungrouped patches and you can stamp them too till there are none of them. 3.) Best is, to flatten your model (not necessarily with the flatten-command so...). Like this you have the whole control about the thing, but it is although the most timeconsuming thing to do. 4.) You can set a decal to be applied spherical / cylindrical. So if you are for eample texturing a wire this can be very helpful. And like that, everything that is behind the decal (even if the decal is not covering it directly) will be stamped. The problem with this: It will only work for very "diffuse" maps... 5.) Patch-Images can although be very helpful if you are using tileable textures.. rightclick on a group in the pws and choose "Add Image". *Fuchur*

If it is not totally wrong, I would like to use numbers not words (so 20 not twenty). It is faster to get the information and it stands out even more from a continuous text. One little question there: Shouldn't it be "its" and not "it's". "And with it is low price..." doesnt make sense to me... -> "its low price"? I tried to use bold-text, so that the really necessary informations are delivered even so you are only reading the bold text. That is just meant to help people reading on a display (which is usually something people dont like that much...). So they can read the bold text only and dont loose much of the information, or if you like to, you can read the whole text and get a few extra-infos. Everything else made totally sense too me and I integrated it. *Fuchur*