rusty

Dear Chopper, Seamless is suppose to rotate every other copy of the image so that, with your image, you should have gotten this: I just tested this in V13.0s which is the only version I can use right now being on my notebook and... it does not work. This appears to be a bug in 13 (though I can not test the latest version). It also appears to be a bug in V14. I would ask that your report this ASAP in AM reports!! Again, since I do not have the latest versions on my notebook, I can not verify or create examples so I can't report it for you. This is an important function and I'm sure Hash will fix it ASAP. Cheers, Rusty

Chopper, Recently I posted a small tut on doing this... looking for it now. Ah, here it is. This should help! Thanks, Rusty

Exactly right. And at least some anatomy books use 7.75 heads! The other head heights you mentioned are used in different ways. I did a lot of research on this and, in case you guys didn't catch it, put together and posted a proportions guide Roto in here. This was the main topic of the formentioned thread, my proportions guide had a problem at first; if the arm span equaled the models height, when rotated down, they did not fall where they should have at mid thigh. I also did a lot of research on this and in reality the arm-span=height varies a lot depending on a number of things but all in all can be used as a good rule of thumb. The solution to this problem turned out to be the rotation of the shoulder which modified the length of the arms when straight out or down by the side, a rather strange rotation depited in the proportions roto I posted. Looks good! Cheers, Rusty

WARP CORE! Awesome! r

That is VERY COOL! I'm going to use it in my current project! Cheers, Rusty

I hope you made changes for yourself and not for 'me'! As I mentioned, I'm having 'problems' with arm proportions right now! Actually I first realized I had 'arm' problems several years ago during the Horrorthon project (I've progressed to the point where I'm embarrassed to show this piece of work anymore LOL); 'Agent Stephanie Hunt' (the heroine) arm's were way off, the forearms were too long. I got around this (I hope) by using selective camera angles. I have been off doing other things since then and only recently came back to modeling/rigging 'arms'. Sometimes I forget resources I have -- you mentioned art books and I remembered; 'Dynamic Anatomy' Hogarth, 'Human Modeling' Ratner, 'Virtual Pose', plus others as well two CDs were on the shelf 3 feet from me! I frequent Michaels often and I'll look for drawing boy (or whatever LOL). No need to send an image -- I think I've found my problems -- but I appreciate it anyway. Thanks! Rusty BTW, Horrorthon features the voices of john3d, Eugene Liscio (whose forum name escapes me right now), my wife, my daughter, my son and several other friends... and of course me... can you say home grown!?!

Where did you get your 'drawing man'? Can you put 'drawing man' in the standard modeling 'cross position' and send me a picture! So, are your arms a little too short or, are my eyes out of whack? Cheers, Rusty

Well, I could be wrong. I'll probably have to do the same... it occurred to me but I said, 'naw... that's too easy'.

Steve, Can't wait to see this finished. The arms look to short to me and, strictly speaking, they are if you go by the arm-span=height rule. However, the difference is not that much and, since you purposely made the legs longer, this difference is accounted for. And I don't think that this is due to enlarging the hands. Therefore, I'm not sure why the arms look short, perhaps its just me. It just so happens that I'm having a lot of trouble right now with the arm proportions. The 'head height' proportion guides for arms/hands here (half way down the page in the written descriptions) don't seem to match reality at all. Do you know of any other on-line arm (i.e. body) proportion guides (or any other sources anywhere)? Cheers, Rusty

I will have to assume that you are using the current version, V13.0 or, the Beta version, V14. You need to report this to Hash. If you are using an earlier version... I not sure what to tell you. Rusty

ummm exacly how do i attach the bone light on the square patch? i know how to attach a bone to a model but the bone light doesnt flash on and off to attach it to the model :s thx paul First lets forget about bones. All models have a model bone (even before you add one) and all lights have bones and you grab the bone to move them in a modeling window... in chors or actions you can just grab the light. Now we forget bones. If you are in a modeling window and want one patch to light up you can select that patch (in muscle mode), and make that one patch a group by changing the temporary name it now has in the PWS under groups (if you don't name it, it goes away when you unselect... I'm not sure of your AM expertise level). Rename it patchlight (or ?) and now you can open up the properties of that group (aka the patch) and open the surface properties and crank up the ambiance and give it a color. It will act like a square (or whatever shape) when you render it. No "lights" needed at all. The down side of this method is that it will only get so bright and if you use composite it gets a little tricky. The other way is to use a spot light and make the beam a square by placing a wall of patches with a square hole in it, in front of the light! This of course has its down sides like the patches which are blocking the light! It also seems like a rotoscope might work but I have not tried this (be slick though!). When you are in the Chor window it is a different world. You have all your models set up to make a scene and here is where you can add a light and then in the PWS drag the light onto a model shortcut name (note the light itself does not move) and this creates what is called a 'light list' and the light will only shine on that model. Note that the light will shine on 'all' of the model and not just one patch... unless the model 'is' just one patch... and this is how I normally do monitors or tvs or displays on space ship consoles. I drop my model of the TV into the chor and then I have another model -- perhaps one patch or 4 or ? -- which exactly fits the tv screen (normally I have copied the screen and pasted it into a new model) anyway it acts as the screen and then I drag a light onto that and my screen lights up. Hope this helps, Rusty

If you look closely, he made his point. :-)

David and/or Mark -- If I wanted to take the posable install rig (which I assume the same or almost the same as the regular Squetch rig except for the poses) and, I wanted to remove all of the face rig so I would only be left with the bones for the body with the exception of a functional head bone to constrain a separate head rig to... would I remove everything below the "head control" bone? And, the "head control" bone would be the bone I'd constrain the head rig to? Conversely, if I wanted to separate the head rig from the body, would I retain the "head control" bone and all of its children? Of course that's just the bones, not the poses (which seems clear cut) nor all the relationships which, I think, may also be clear cut. Any thoughts on this stuff, or anything else I might be forgetting would be greatly appreciated. For the head it might be easier to just do it manually as I believe the head is already split out as a separate rig. Thanks!! Rusty

Thanks Mark. Obviously the download counter on update 2 was reset or something. I did have the last update (update 2) and I'm sure everyone did too. There's close to a dozen people into this and no one is going to miss an update! Cheers, Rusty

Pls see updates (Edit and Edit2) of my last post. I think the DL counter has gone wacko or was reset. r

JD... in your image you scaled above 300... it would only go to 200. ?? To my knowledge I've DL'ed every thing you've posted. ?? If there is something more recent... where is it? Edit: DAMN! You're right. When was that posted! Don't know how I missed it. Probably the same way everyone else did. Edit2: The version I just DL'd has the same date as the one I had DL'd previously. Perhaps the counter was reset or isn't working... or you forgot to bump the date (05 07 2007)... hm... files are the same size too. ???? Rusty

Okay, my fix might not be completely correct (it might not be correct at all!) but what I did was: 1. edit the 'scale_eyes_XYZ_axis (side)' pose 2. Increased the pose maximum to 500% then set the pose at 500% 3. Selected the Eye_right_INSTALL bone, put it in scale mode (so children would scale too) and then increased the XYZ scales to 500% 4. repeat step 3 with left bones I'm fairly sure this is what needed to be done. I'll look for a response to confirm this. Cheers, Rusty

Whoops! Another boo boo I think... the pose 'scale_eyes_XYZ_axis (side)' only goes up to 200% which only scales the eye bones about half way to where their needed. I'd rather see a manual fix then a new release. I'm going to attempt to fix the pose on this end... I'll reference an older rig... well, if I have one. And before a new release, you might want to wait until I finish to see if there is anything else. Thanks! Rusty

The latest upload appears to have a little problem; if you follow your directions you will wind up with two squetch rigs because the Rig_Along_With_Md.prj already has the rig imported. Rusty

Mark and/or David! The process we discussed to update existing rigs with newly released rigs (i.e allowing the action to simply position the newly released rig and using a plug-in {its name escapes me right now} to redo the cp assignments and weights and even dealing with smart skin {which I don't fully understand yet}... ...give the updates done on the latest release, does all this still seem possible and plausible? Thanks! Rusty

Very, very nice!

Shame on you people... you've high-jacked my thread! Lets get back to... me, me, meeeeeee. How good I am. And so on. Just kidding. It 'would' be a good contest topic but, unless you start a separate thread, it won't get as much attention as it deserves. Rusty

I've done quite a lot of experimenting with hair recently in version 13.q/r/s both NetRender and AM renders. I wish you would have mentioned a) what AM version you are using, if you did your render in AM or using NetRender and, c) if you are using dynamics. Also... Windows or Mac? I have not seen this happen, not once in any of my tests. However, if you are using a render farm (NetRender) I have seen other materials vanish like this when one or more slaves does not have enough virtual memory (easily adjusted... on Windows). I have not had this problem... well, I guess I should say that I fix this problem either by a) the hair guides or, if you are using dynamics, via the stiffness setting. Yes. This is why I use a transparent hair cap set just below the model's mesh. I can not only avoid 5 pt patches but also hooks and, I can reduce any disparity in patch size (patch size affects density). I can also have greater control over the hair line; where it is and making it easier for length maps to create a more natural appearance. Also, individual patches or groups of patches angled to emit hair this way or that add a lot to a natural look. You do not mention the hair shimmer which is evident in your video. My battle against this has come down to render passes... lots of them. I believe that the muhair shaders are important but, I never got far enough to try these before I fell back to helmet hair because of deadlines. I know AM hair is going to be killer (just look at TWO!) but, for myself, I need a lot more time learning how to use it properly. Finally, I'm no longer sure that using one AM hair for every hair strand is the best way to go. I'm now thinking that perhaps one AM hair equaling groups of hair strands (using hair images perhaps with alpha channels) might work out far better (and also render much faster). Hope this helps. Keep posting your progress for all of us! Rusty

Bill, I've been overwhelming busy the last few days -- wanted to render some new images but no time. In fact it wasn't until about 2:00 AM this morning that I found time to look for some existing images but of course the ones I wanted were not were they were supposed to be. However, remembering I'd emailed these recently I was able to find the email and attachments -- sized down for email the resolution is less then ideal but... hopefully good enough. I posted these in a new thread called "Another Self Portrait". The image of my daughter came from a green screen session we did to create the main image on site's home page (www.virtualmediastudios.com). I posted a few frames from my current project but, LOL, I just started doing the scenes with characters and, in the only decent looking shots I have right now both characters are facing away. Anyway, you can take a look. Cheers, Rusty

Thanks David!