rusty

Hi, The Battleship model needed to be 'special' and I’m not the best at creating neat space ships so the sketch below and model are loosely based on a ship I saw a while back in either Doom or Quake (great sources for that kind of thing). After the screen test I could see some of the texturing needed work but I wanted to get it out for comments. [attachmentid=18013] Concept sketch (scribble) Screen test. http://www.virtualmediastudios.com/battleship.avi The bridge could use more lighting – can’t see all the cool consoles. The patch count is enormous; this is 4 models assembled in the chor... something I learned from C-Wheeler (thanks!). Cheers, Rusty

Way to go! Looks great. Rusy

And get the tail out of the floor! Rusty

That's not supposed to be true anymore. Can you show examples of this? Dog gone! I can't make it happen (spline jump). I guess they did fix it! And some how I missed the news. I'm afraid I've formed the habit of avoiding this for so long that I may not ever break the habit LOL! Niels' " ? I've never seen it (probaly because I hardly ever tweak bias). Rusty

In addition to the above, if you mess with the bias in areas that you intend to animate, this can cause the mesh to jump when it is moved. I'm curious about 'why' you'd have to 'keep track of them' -- outside of general areas where I've tweaked the bias, I don't keep track. Rusty

Transition to next action is a check box in the 'shortcut' to actions properties. After you drag and drop your action on to a model in the chor, you'll find this in the action's properties in the properties pane. You'll also find controls for when it starts and stops in the chor along with other stuff. Cheers, Rusty

Yes but a 'clean install' also involves manual removal of registry settings -- unless things have changed. Hash has a utility that use to take care of the registry but last time I checked it would only do something like Version 9.5 through 10. Now there are instructions somewhere for maually removing all AM registry entries using regedit. r

"magnetic field distance" has been set to 0 can be fixed with regedit HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Hash, Inc.\Animation Master V11.1\General set it to 5 or whatever be careful with the registry - don't delete anything & a:m should be closed while you do this hope this helps

To delete all bones select the bones container and press delete. To delete a parent and all its childern, it use to be: create a new model and then either drag or drag the parent to the new model -- delete he new model. However, this method does not seem to work anymore (at least not in V12v+). Rusty

Just saw this... really good job! 2nd model and 12 years old? Amazing. The model's great as is but a few things come to mind: = The straps hanging down from the hat beg for dynamic constraints! = If you have a spline on the pants going down the sides... you might try to select the cross splines and peak them (P key) to get a subtle side hem down the sides. = The head is really good... there's a spline running horizontally through the chin that squares off a little too much -- one or two 'lifter' splines (splines that would lift the mesh up) could be stitched in to smooth it out. Cheers, Rusty

That's a very good job if you are new to AM which it looks like you are from the number of forum posts. Anzovin Studios sells a CD called "Modeling a Face" by Bill Young -- this is very good. Not only do you wind up with something that looks like the rotoscope but it is also constructed to animate well. Thanks for the kind words on my tut. Cheers, Rusty

Nice work... it looks a lot like Larman's younger brother! Cheers, Rusty

Its a post effect and all of these now live under... post effects. Simular to materials you create a new one then right click on it and change its 'type' to Hash->FrameBurn. Cheers, Rusty

From this thread... If anyone knows of additional tuts or discussions on these areas please post here or in the above thread so they can be added. My list so far: [attachmentid=16606] Cheers, Rusty

Robert, Oh boy... a) first the kinky splines are most likely nothing more then the sub-division setting you have; hit the up page key several times and they will go away. I'm not sure. What you should always be doing is saving 'versions' -- save 001.prj go to next level save / save as 002.prj (or whatever method you choose). Disk is cheap, your time is not. I would think that selecting all of the CPs and reversing what you did would have done it. How about undo (Z). Or select all CPs and hit the O key. All I can think of. Rusty

I have seen this but not in a while. You should always indicate what version you are using. I'm not sure what causes this. What I do is either: a) Hit the space bar to refresh If it's still there try 'Undo' c) If that doesn't work I select all the CPs I can see, invert the selection and hit delete. Then I repair the mesh and carry on. Rusty

Good modeling! Like your style. The craft looks like the one used in Mummy II -- wow, very much like it but, that's no big deal. But if you didn't in fact base it on the one from the movie (which would be just fine) you should rent a copy and check it out; I'm going by memory but everything from the shape and construction down to the placement of the wheel and furnace. Cheers, Rusty

I stand corrected.

Robert, The things that you are describing -- colors changing, AM creating groups on its own -- trust me, these things do not happen when AM is used properly. I will try to help you out. It very hard to tell what you are doing -- one new person who was having problems had missed the fact that if you do not 'name' the group, the group goes away! We assumed he was naming his groups when in fact he was not. Everybody thought everybody was going crazy until we figured this out. When you select CPs a temporary group is created. It is called 'Untitled'. If you do not name the group (change this name), it will eventually go away. You can adjust all the surface properties of this temporary group and see them appear on your model but as soon as you deselect the temporary group it will go away (it may stay for a while but it will go away). The properties (color) you selected in this temporary group may also 'stay' but will eventually go away. Colors Change With the above out of the way, a hundred other things can be happening! If a flat patch is directly facing you you will see nothing but the specular color. If you have modeled a pipe and you wish to make it gray with an orange strip and you have extruded a circle 3 times to make the pipe so that you have a section in the middle to make orange... realize that when you make the pipe gray that middle section will completely belong to the gray group. When you select that center section (and name the group) and make it orange the only reason you see the orange color is that the orange group is below the gray group (or the model) in the PWS. Order definitely counts when it comes to groups. I have looked long and hard at the images you have provided and I can not see what is happening except that I think you have a lot of groups. So, I'm just throwing stuff out in the hopes that 'you' will see what is going on. Try selecting a patch within the area that is changing (use the patch select tool) then right click and select 'Remove Groups'. This will show you all the groups that the 'CPs' belong to and may shed a light on what is happening. A:M Creating Groups Okay, yes, A:M will create groups seemingly on its own. It will do this when you copy and paste parts of your model which belong to any named groups. It looks to me like you had a group named "Group" and you copied some CPs which happened to be all or part of this group and pasted these many, many times -- 33 from what I can see. One thing is for sure, if you did copy and paste CPs that belonged to a group named "Group" this is exactly what you would see in the PWS -- AM numbers duplicate group names exactly like this. I hope some of this helped. Cheers, Rusty

I took a few minutes and add in all the links on this page. Cheers, Rusty

Oh darn! Of course I should have done that! Well, I took exactly 2 weeks off from production to put the site together and I came right down to the wire on time. I've made a note to add this the next time I work on it. I probably missed other little things as well. Here's the link to Voice Changer. http://www.audio4fun.com/ You have to work this puppy to get different voices out of it that sound natural but it can be done. Cheers, Rusty Edit: For better or worse the change in 'feel' was done on purpose.

Hey, thanks for the kind words! This project is like a great big chocolate eclair with tons of bavarian cream! If I were going to expand on an area, which area would you like to see more content on? I was thinking of special effects as we had a lot and I ran out of time to do them all? Cheers, Rusty

They were the first intelligent life… Forged in the fires of the early universe twelve billion years ago... Please drop by and take a look at our most ambitious project to date at our ‘The making of ‘The Spiral Slayer’ trailer: The Making of The Spiral Slayer Trailer With some of the most talented artists we’ve ever worked with check out: = how we’re doing the special effects. = concept art = models (characters models, wardrobe design, space ships and aliens!) = some of the animatic = some of the finished work = how we’re managing the project = the processes we’re employing = the tools sets we’re using. = Listen to the musical scores being developed. Warning: This site is graphic intensive; a broadband connection is recommended. Enjoy! Rusty

Justin, Congradulations! I too was drawn into the story. You have a raw original style that flows evenly through the animation, the characters, the story, the staging and lighting and, the music. Awesome dude! Totally sick, but awesome! I'm sure you've heard these two words only too often but, hey, you've earned them... SEEK HELP! You don't live anywhere near San Diego do you? Or CA for that matter? Cheers! Rusty

My goddness that's awesome. I can't begin to imagine the impact on modeling this may have -- how much geometry will this be able to replace? And I thought 13 was an unlucky number. Rusty