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ddustin

*A:M User*
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Posts posted by ddustin

  1. AO will surely increase render times beyond what a single machine will do reasonably (given this is an animation).

     

    We have a render farm and don't use AO for animations because of that reason.

     

    We use an eight bulb light rig, to get comparable results in a much shorter time.

     

    AO is great for stills.

  2. I have Silo and that's what I've been using to twiddle my OBJs.

     

    Yes that program has a good reputation.

     

    The shortest way though is to create a new model from scratch in A:M.

    You'll spend a boat load of hours trying to get it to import, and you'll find it still isn't right.

     

    A:M isn't intended to to work with other programs, in the sense of model interchangability.

  3. I think Stian should create a car tutorial for sale.

     

    He has some apprehension about how to do it, but I think it would be a big seller.

     

    Just my opinion.

     

    (I need to be careful, don't want to have the guys I buy vehicle models from, thinking I am trying to influence the market) :lol:

     

    David

  4. Sounds fun! I'm better in the early day.. still wear out by 4 or 5.

     

    Where are you located David? It might be a good option for some of the Chattanooga people, and I'm willing to drive halfway, especially in the fall.

     

    pick a date.

     

    C

     

    Colin,

    We live right between Cartersville and Calhoun on Interstate 75 (exit 306).

     

    It is about 40 miles from your house I think.

     

    David

  5. It has been a long time since the Atlanta group got together.

     

    With Colin out of the hospital now, we needs to get one scheduled.

     

    We have met in Atlanta the times I have attended.

    We have talked about possibly meeting in Chattanooga.

    Martin has hinted he may be interested in providing shirts etc....

    Just let me know your preferences.

     

    As an alternative, we could meet at my home. We live in between Atlanta and Chattanooga, right off the interstate. Depending on the weather, we could have a volleyball game afterwards.

    Families are welcome. We will have wireless access setup and refreshments.

     

    Please let others in the Atlanta, Chattanooga area know,,,,

    Thanks,

    David

  6. Mark,

     

    I am having a bit of a hard time getting the rig to work.

     

    I followed the instructions to the best of my ability (which would be a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10) and can't get it to work.

     

    Any revisions to your rig?

     

    Thanks,

    David

  7. Next time when you commit and it suggests updating, do that.

    Then if there is a conflict, it will create the .rxx .ryy .mine files which are backups of what you both started with, and both of your changes. Then one of us can resolve the conflict for you.

     

    Yes Rhett did fix it (thanks again) - my problem came in when I tried to resolve it myself when I "updated" & then chose resolve.

     

    AND I don't know how many times I have to say this (must be the 3rd, 4th time):

     

    I did not see any files with the extensions .rxx, .ryy or .mine

     

    Bad bad results on my hard drive. I am glad I made a backup copy first.

     

    The term "update" was confusing. Now I know it is refering to "updating" my local copy, not the remote copy. I thought it was being used as a synonym for committing. Another confusing term. My confusion.

     

    Obviously my clairvoyance does not extend to my being a genetically endowed expert with SVN.

     

    (Does that sound sarcastically defensive? Yes.) :blink:

     

    I have deleted the model MrsYoopNancy.mdl from the SVN - as there is no longer any reason for it to be there and the MrsYoop.mdl that is there should now contain David's & my changes.

     

    They promised me I'd never work in this town again - They lied ... ;)

     

    Nancy,

    Your frustration is obvious, but don't be too hard on yourself.

    We poured over SVN, trying to understand how it worked for some time, and had set up our own svn server.

    It is not an easy concept to understand.

    The Hash guys will be able to get you through this (they're pretty talented).

    Back up, back up, back up...... it can never hurt.

    David

  8. Thanks ddustin. Slick idea. I recall having a similar notion years back [when making trees was pretty much out of the question] using photos and transparency maps, but it foundered on moving lots of trees so the camera never saw an edge.

     

    Now, with A:M, perhaps its time has come. I'll give it a shot. Thanks again.

     

    Robert,

    To have them do it without having to add constraints to each and every one requires you to code the mdl file by hand.

     

    If you only have a few trees it isn't too bad. We have 100's

     

    David

  9. Can anyone point me toward a good plug-in [or tutorial] for trees and other vegetation?

     

    Robert can you be a little more specific as to your goal?

     

     

    First priority is trees. I figure I can use the Hair function for grass of most any height. I saw, and bookmarked, the Zpider tutorial for trees, but the design-type that you get from that isn't what I need. At the moment I'm thinking about using the Hair function on a series of distorted spheres with short, flat hairs, and maybe, just maybe I can stack them to make a convincing tree. I'm using v.11 at the moment so the v.13 plug-in isn't possible until I upgrade, which probably wan't be far off.

     

    I'm building a frontier garrison post, patterened after the mud-brick construction in Timbuktu and Mali. I'd like to add some trees between the buildings. Mostly only the upper part of the trees will be seen.

     

    The HERO DUDE is just for scale, so steps and doors look reasonable

     

    [attachmentid=20930]

     

    The best way to create trees is make them from patch panels.

    You create a simple rectangle made from 2 patches and use a image targa image as a cookie cutter.

    The panel can be constrained to aim at the camera or a better solution is to add a bone to the panel and have the aim roll handle, aim roll at a master null. This master null can be constrained to any camera in the scene, effectively giving you most of the benefits of hair without all the slowdown and other inherent issues with hair (look out for hair jitter).

     

    If you can find an image of the tree you want, hopefully it comes with an alpha channel, otherwise you will need to create one.

     

    We are building our library (I keep saying I'm going to sell it but.....) and have over 13 trees that are hard coded to automatically aim at a master null, as well as having a 2nd constraint for making the top of the tree move, In unison, like the wind.

     

    You can use the MMOP plugin (multiple models on Path) from Stephen Gross to drop hundreds of auto constrained trees at a time.

     

    You would need to create the same thing for V11 trees, as V13 models will not sork with V11.

     

    Hope this helps

  10. Thanks everyone for your support,

     

    Of course Tralfaz, some 3ds models works well when imported as a prop, but not every model. Some of them show artifacts on its mesh and, of course, they don't show the textures and you can't change the color of the vehicle. When A:M tries to import a texture for a 3ds model it crashes and shows a "#19 exception in the jpeg image to plugin" (what?)...

     

    Thanks ddustin for your information about your way to work with 3ds models. Please, if you could give me a URL where finding information about this accutrans it would be great. Thanks for offering me your help but I don't want to bother anyone more than the necessary =) I could take three or four days and model my own 206 but I'm not overpaid for doing this and this work is more a kind of motion graphics where the car is only a part of a postproduction proccess so I suppose that I'll try to open MAX (this is new for me) and do something with it =) GLUPS.

     

    loserem

     

    http://www.micromouse.ca/

     

    I haven't figured out a way to remove the textures from a 3ds model.

    Anyone else know how (even if it was from within another program).

     

    We have a bunch of 3ds props that we would want to do this too....

     

     

    David

  11. Marcos,

     

    1. You are an excellent vehicle modeler

    2. You are an excellent vehicle modeler

    3. If there was a way to have your models not have the rubber skin look they would be perfect. What I mean is the surfaces kind of look (a very small amount) like a diver's wet suit. It is enough for the critical eye to catch. If the vehicle was in motion, you would never see it.

    4. You are an excellent vehicle modeler

     

    Keep those vehicles coming!

     

    David

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