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

John, Since I happen to know the models this problem concerns, if it is in the face model as I suspect, this model comes right off the AM CD and was put together by Shawn Freeman for face rigging tutorial on one of the SIG packages from Hash -- if memory serves (it has different facial maps and the mesh has been tweaked). Yes, it is called Rigged Face 00 (same as now I think... or I may have changed it). Hmm... given this, you should find the same problem with the CD version, and if not, problem solved -- we just switch to the CD version (which must have been changed somehow). 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

Very awesome. I sat for many minutes imaging the incredible sets and renderings these could adorn. Rusty

Very nice. Did you really model the eyes as parrt of the head? -- be tough to animate. However the model is very good and splines have been laid to meet minimal animatable requirements (you might need more in some areas but those you do have are configured correctly). Excelent job. BTW, I live up I-15 in PQ -- SD rules. Rusty

But WAIT!! There's even more! Ever want a little more control when rotating a model with TURN? Hold down the key (not sure for mac). Ever go through each material, model and/or action opening each in order to embed then? Many may know this but I didn't until recently. Right click on the top folder (the one with the project name) and select 'Embed All'! Ever want to clean up your groups, bones, decals, poses but... oh so slow... even crashes now and then! Close the all windows with the model in it! Fast, clean and easy. Rusty

This is a cool idea. I'll contribute... Ever build a model that has several identical parts, each of which contains intricate moving parts controlled by poses (say a robot hand that has 4 identical fingers) and as your building it think; why am I creating the exact same poses over and over? Build one part and create the poses and save it out to model file. Now embed the model into the project file again and rename the poses and the bones associated with them. Now import the one you saved and move it from on top of the existing one -- the poses will be read in and will work. As long as the bones and poses are renamed each time (i.e. are not the same as the model you want to import) you can keep importing the original model and its poses. I hope that makes sense. But wait! As a special thank you, you’ll get… Need to delete half of your model but dread deleting all the left over splines stretching across the break? Do this, copy half of the model, delete the entire model and then paste... bingo, no left over splines (save before you try this okay). But wait! Order NOW and you’ll get absolutely free… You build some shape that is not sitting on the zero axes and you need to duplicate it and flip it to the other side. So you copy, paste and flip on X axes -- now to move it over to the other side to the exact position. Got the setposition plug-in? Run it with the copied mesh selected, select group mode and flip on X (or whatever) axes. Its there! Next person... Rusty

Looks very good! You might vary the color a little in the face to break it up a little -- just a thought. Rusty

Looks good but I see what you mean. The guide splines will go flatter if you add more CPs to them. You migtht try this. Or you might try shorter hair. Finally, if you use decals to control the direction you can get the hair to lay almost completely flat against the patch. I think increasing the number of CPs on the guide spline might be your best bet. Cheers, Rusty

Hi, Does anyone know how I can get mpg4 so I can hear these tuts -- they work fine on my main PC but not on the PC I want to play them on. On this Pc I can see them but not hear them. I know I could spend yet another $29 for QT Pro for this PC but I'm hoping to avoid this as I have this thing on 4 PCs now and just don't want to buy it again. The tuts look awesome. Any help would be appreciated! Rusty

Very nice! Three and a half stars out of four (and I'm jaded as hell). I'm embarrassed to say I could not figure out what the bird did to 'down' the victim. I saw the bird hop up then, at the last, jump towards the guy with the gun who looked to be already falling backwards from ???.... or ???. I went through it a frame at a time and saw the two gun shots and the bird dodging (didn't catch this in real time). Perhaps the bird just attacks the guy at the end -- the falling back falsely leading me to believe there was something more then there is. Bushes and trees are not only hard on render times they're also 'busy' and 'hard' on finer story elements which can get lost in the bushes (thank goodness for 'clearings' -- too bad one wasn't available -- smiles). In any event, the above is not really critical to the 'idea' (or perhaps the 'idea' is good enough to over come it) -- clean and simple and, while nothings original anymore, it was different enough and presented well enough to catch me off guard. Of course, like any back seat director I could nit pick it to death but at the end of the day... IMHO very good! Rusty

Awesome! Just add the slow-mo spinning bullets and green lights! Rusty

Cool character -- much potential for personality! Freckles -- have you considered them? When I look at your character it looks like the freckles across the top of each cheek and across the nose are missing. The face seems made for them. Or not. Just a thought. Cheers, Rusty

Thanks for the info -- I watched the dynamic constraint video tech talk movie -- I was not sure dynamic constraints were used. I'll look at the other tut as well. Perhaps I can figure it out from these. Rusty

Hi, Recently someone did an incredible thing with an almost nude, well endowed female model where certain interesting parts jiggled when she walked. I need to find out how to do that but don't even know what to search on. Mainly I want parts of the face and neck to move when the head turns sharply and also some jiggle on teachers flab under the arms. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks, Rusty

I could be wrong but doesn't hair always face the camera? If this is so, then I don't see how it could work in a mirror or any surface with reflection (which is a real shame and a design error). You would have to 'fake' it as previously suggested. I'm really hoping this is not the case and, if someone got it to work in a newer version, as I think I read then, I must be wrong. Rusty

Very nice... and timely! Did you know we'd need something very simular in our upcoming project? No way you could have but we will! Will send you storyboard in a few weeks. Hows V12 cloth? Rusty

Hi, I just stumbled upon this thread and had a couple of questions. Right now I'm installing the 'Weighted CP face rig' that was demonstrated by Shaun Freeman on the Hash 2004 SIG CDs. Was this rig based on that one? Is there any write up on the features and advantages of this rig? Does the rig have any lag and follow in it (e.g. the head is turned very quickly and the cheek and/or jaw areas jiggle a bit)? Nice work! Thanks, Rusty