rusty

Awesome advise! I have to re-read what you said about IK/FK...look at the related TMS poses...figure out how to set them...it's been years. Babysitting our new grandson plus redoing the first draft of book of my long overdue sci-fi book #2 has priority right now. Right off the bat I see you are applying constraints on bones that are by default not visible. Maybe the IK/FK poses will make them visible or maybe I'll have to do it manually. Thanks! Rusty

John sums it up. It's just another tool. I bought all of the truebone's Mocap files a number of years ago. When I have a scene I search for what I'll need and try it out. I spent many years learning how to do character animation and I'm fairly good at it but sometimes you can natural motion our of mocap files that would be better then anything I could pull off. Tweaking is the name of the game in animation anyway...you always have to tweak the body motion and cloth you can only rough in--when the motion is done there's always CPs to adjust. Rusty.

John, Did you adjust any of the TSM IK/FK poses? Thanks! Rusty

Thanks John! That got it.

Wanted all to know that I figured out the 'action' problem...somehow a chor action set to hold had a key frame on that bone.

Hi, EDIT: Never mind...I copied V17 "Master0.lic" (not license0) to the AM16 folder and it said wrong license number but copying the AM18 .lic file worked. (disregard) Just stumbled onto this thread...installed the 32bit version of AM16. When I run it I'm asked for an activation code. I do not seem to have a license0 file in my version 17 folder (I displayed system and hidden files). Suggestions? Thanks! Rusty

Thanks Rodney. Yeah, I check those items. I'm going to make the action scalable then place the it on another simpler model with the same rig. If it doesn't work there...well it's hard to believe no user has noticed something like this. r

Hi! I tried an action with my overly complex character models last night and the action worked differently in the chor. The Torso control bone key frame gets dropped. There are no key frames on this bone in the chor. Can you think of anything I'm missing or anything I can check? Thanks, Rusty PS: Note the head is attached in the chor.

How awesome is this!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks John!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the instructions for mocap which I'll go through! Maybe 6 years ago I had all this aced...my only problem now is remembering the constraints needed with the old Anzovin TSM2 rig. Cheers, Rusty

I have two tutorials on A:M/BVH mocap...one is Fuchur's and one is a text file, source/author unknown. I'll google William's tut. Thanks for the info! Rusty

Back to the original topic...I tried again to create one model...same old same old. These models are VERY complex much of which I suspect is due to my own lack of expertise...I have dozens of constraints just to keep the shirt buttons in place...the eye lashes in place...etc. What happens when I try to export a single model from the chor is I lose constraints within the body rig and 3D face controls...so many that it is not worth it. Accessing action items in the chor to animate is something I've not tried in half a dozen versions but I had problems there as well...I think you lose access to all the model's pose sliders. Finally, and perhaps this should be a separate post...maybe a bug report but, when I constrain the head to the body in the chor I lose these constraints each time I exit AM. Two constraints vanish, the other four remain but do not work. This situation can't be reproduced using simple models or I'd turn in a bug report. I have to assume it has something to do with my overly complex models. Each time I open the project I have to remove and redo these six constraints for each character model...a real pain in the ass if the scene has several characters but that's just life. Otherwise the models work, which, for myself, is a huge deal so I have no wish to redo the models again (which I've done for years for one reason or another). Thanks for all the suggestions! Cheers, Rusty

PC all fixed...or at least it appears to be working fine. I've never had to reformat/reinstall the OS for any particular virus or malware but on occasion I've done this to just to clear out the accumulated gunk. I had to take it to the geek squad to uninstall the reinstalling programs and they used a trial copy of Malwarebytes which they say catches a lot of small stuff other programs miss. I also ran Windows Defender and Uniblue tune up suite which caught other parts of the invasion. I do not think it had anything to do with the Hash forum site.

Hello, Years ago I played with using bvh MoCap files with AM and various rigs. I also purchased the entire Truebones collection and started indexing the files. I'm looking into bvh MoCap w/AM again and wondered if there were any tuts or other information on the subject. I remember stumbling onto a way to scale each part of a bvh mocap rig to the model rig and also got whole mocap thing working pretty well (though I didn't document any of this...DUMB!). So I want to research it all and try it again. If I get it all working again and find that none of the current AM/BVH MoCap tuts cover any of my own methods/discoveries I'll add a tut to demonstrate these. So, if you are aware of any tuts/info on this, can you let me know? Thanks! Rusty

Thanks Rodney and Robcat for the replies! Two days ago I surfed to the Hash forums to read them and respond and a window popped up saying I needed to install Flash...without thinking (I already have flash and this site had never prompted me like this before) I clicked okay (I just wanted to read/reply posts). Eight different installs took place (none of them flash) in what turned out to be the worst virus/malware attack I'd ever had! I do not believe it had anything to do with the Hash Forum site...I don't know what caused the initial message to appear. Every time I attempted to uninstall one of these obnoxious programs...it immediately reinstalled itself in the background. These progs blocked my view and ran all manner of stuff on screen and in the background!! I finally had to take my notebook in to Best Buy (Geek Squad) to get it fixed!! Anyway I'm back up but will answer both of your very good replies later today or tomorrow (I'm still checking data, running correction programs and testing my notebook). Rusty

Hi, I have a head model (the way I do things, this is the character), a hair cap model (what hair-do I want to use) and a body model (what 'wardrobe' is needed). Currently I constrain the hair cap to the head model in an action (the hair cap being the action item) so I can just drop the action on the head in the chor and then I constrain the head to the body in the chor (involves 6 constraints). I'd like to use an action to do this however, if I do, either the body model or the head model would be an action item and of course I need to be able to select the head and body models in the chor to animate them (and perhaps I can somehow select an action item in the chor to work with it but even if I can, this complicates things). As I need the body model and head model in the chor so I can select and animate them, I can see no way to pre-constrain the head to the body in an action. I can't think of another way to pre-define the head to body constraints so I don't have to repeat this process with each character in each chor...which, isn't so bad but...I'm lazy and thought I'd see if anyone had any ideas. If you can understand what I'm saying, lol...any thoughts? Thanks! Rusty

Rodney, Thanks for replying and for your time and effort! This might work. I'll have to look at it and think about it. The spline I'm sweeping to bends this way and that (rigging the tentacle to move around is more trouble than I need for the still shot for the cover...maybe). Unless the multiple model plugin has changed, all you can do is set an offset...as I recall. I'll check it out when I get home. Still I could restrain to a path with a percentage after importing into the chor...not sure how that translates to export model but I'll check it out...in a perfect world...might work. Thanks again...its a great idea! Rusty

Fuchur, I know about that group and actually, now that I think of it, it would help if I used multiple steps and models. I'll have to think about it. Thanks! Rusty

Hello fellow hash'ers, I'm creating the cover for my next book and also it's book trailer. Unless I'm missing something, it seems that the most awesome sweeper plug-in, in copy mode, will not copy the model's surface attributes (color and I presume materials or decals...nor group names which would also solve my problem). I have a long complex tentacle with hundreds of parts strung along it and I'm looking for a way to create these with surface attributes (or like group names) without having to do each individually as this would take a long time. Anyone know of a way to accomplish this? Thanks for any help you can offer! Rusty

Hi, What I'm after is a still shot of matter spiraling into a black hole. 3D streaks of...lets say dust or clouds. Lets just consider a cube (instead of the entire spiral)...if only there was a material that would fill it with 3D clouds but, to my knowledge, materials don't work that way, they apply themselves to flat patches and can have bump or perhaps even displacement for depth. Like the above, what I'll probably do is just whack out the sides and ends of the cube so I have two patches and, instead of a material (and longer render times), I'll just apply a cookie cutter image of my cloud streaks and then apply a deformation map to give them a 3D look (from the top or camera anyway)...maybe try a bump map to add smaller details. That's only two levels so not too '3D cloud streaky' like but perhaps good enough. Could add a 3rd level...still, it's 'levels'. Any other ideas? Cheers, Rusty

Wow, all this is fabulous! Thanks to all! Why didn't I think of these things??? Sometimes it's right in front of me and I don't see it. Now I have another challenge but I'll create a new post. It's to be used with the spiral though. Rusty

Hi, I was trying to create a simple spiral like the attached drawing...I can do it with a lot of work (do wizards primitives spiral twice and stitch splines across) but there must be an easier more elegant way. Imagination needed, LOL! Thanks, Rusty

Hi, Was anything ever done with saving/using different workspaces? That is to say... the positions of the various pallets (Properties, Pose Sliders, Timeline and so on). And, if so, what version? Thanks, Rusty

Hi gang, Between trying to keep writing deadlines and managing the people I hired to do my author website and promote book one I've zero time for AM (NO FAIR!). Was this problem submitted to Hash as a bug? And, thank you all for all your efforts in reproducing it and testing it!!! I've purchased V18 and am exploring it and trying to decide between it and 17 for book 2's book trailer. (Why doesn't my text wrap??? -- I'll use hard returns for now???) Cheers, Rusty PS: Over 5,000 people in 12 countries have book one now! I'm actually making some money finally.

Thanks for the replies! Are you both on Windows? I'm wondering why one of you saw it happen in V18 and one didn't. I always 'type in the number' because I keep the rotator snap at .5--just works better for me. I guess the primitive wizard is faster...old habits die hard. Ah... the wife is calling me...nothing but run, run, run this time of year. I don't have 18 yet and it is far more important to report the bug in v18...I'm not sure how long they fix bugs in previous versions or how important they view it. If one of you can make it happen in 18, please report it. Plus, I'm not sure when I'll have time online again.