Stuart Rogers

When Apple created OS X 10.4 ("Tiger") they broke certain aspects of the system, which prevented A:M v11 working on it. It's not something you're doing wrong; it's not something Hash did wrong. Blame Apple.

They'll deliver anywhere. Shipping to the UK can be as much as $30, but at least delivery is usually quick - I've never had any problems getting it shipped to the UK. And exchange rates are currently in your favour...

That worked. Interesting design, with interesting lighting/shading, especially on the skin.

I get an "Error: #S001" message on that link...

Nice!

Rendering directly to QuickTime is fine for short, quickly rendering, disposable test pieces. Rendering to TGA is recommended for final render as it's a non-lossy format - which means that when you do create a compressed movie from those TGAs, you're starting from pristine images. Another reason for rendering to TGA is that should the rendering process be interrupted (power cut, cat throwing up on the keyboard, etc) then at worst you've lost one frame, and can restart from where you left off - if you're rendering to a QT file you lose the lot. As for creating a movie file from those TGAs... I coughed up for a QT Pro key, which lets you import a sequence of images and export using any of a wide selection of codecs. You could, of course, import your TGA image sequence back into A:M, apply it as an animated decal to a flat plane, point a camera at it, and render that out as a QT file.

You're in luck - check the Forums front page, scroll down to the "3rd Party" section. In there there is a sub-forum called "A:M Paint" which is for discussing a very new painting add-on.

He reminds me of John Cleese.

It could be a graphics card driver problem, one that only shows up under the conditions that occur when you leave your PC unattended for so long. It might be worthwhile seeing if there are any driver updates available on the manufacturer's website.

I had problems with it while it was playing n my web browser - it would break up and stutter quite badly. Playing it through the Quick Time player is OK.

Yup, I'll be going. I'll probably get to the show early/mid afternoon.

I think you guys are missing the point. You can have all the front face CPs in a line and still end up with ripples, due to the nature of splines. There are several solutions, using (in various proportions) peaking, bias tweaking, and CP positioning. The latter, for example... [attachmentid=21089] Or, if you don't mine a sharp edge around the flat face, peak the radial spline CPs around that edge.

Yes. There are lots of detailed diagrams showing spider anatomy on Google Images.

Oh - my - god.... I'm turning into an animation geek! Channel 4 in the UK is currently showing an "animation top 100" programme, and they have just shown a clip of The Incredibles... ...and all I could think of was "I know exactly who animated that shot!"

I wouldn't use extrusion for the windscreen... I would lay down a spline that outlines the windscreen, concentrating along the top and bottom edges (as the greater curvature is across the windscreen). You shouldn't need many CPs. Make sure it lines up with the rotoscopes from all sides. Then add splines running from the top spline to the bottom spline. Add a CP halfway down each of these new 'vertical' splines, and connect them with a new 'horizontal' spline. Now adjust the CPs along this last spline to get the curvature you need - the magnet tool might be useful here. If necessary, add an extra 'horizontal' spline, but I don't think you'll need it. In this situation it might be best to try doing it with as few CPs as you can, adding CPs only when you really can't get the curvature you need, so some trial-and-error is inevitable. Don't expect to get your curves to ever exactly match the rotoscopes. For the windscreen, I suspect bias tweaking is unnecessary, except perhaps in the corners.