ddustin

Mike, It is looking really good!! The thin sheet metal parts look like they don't have any depth to them, you know kind of like they are paper thin instead of say 12 ga aluminum. Is that just an illusion? The model looks like you have made mountains of progress on it!! David

Here is another method (if you have Photoshop). I drew the shape as a path in PS then exported the path, imported the path in A:M using the AI (Adobe Illustrator) wizard. It took all of a minute to make it. David (there should be a tutorial somewhere on the forum about it) David [attachmentid=19270] Wall_2.zip

There are internal patches because the wall itself is not a single object, but 5 seperate ones... Was a shortcut method I was using to build my wall... but I'm going to attempt building it correctly... thanx... That is the best way. The artifacts you are seeing look like the vertical panels are not over-lapping the horizontal surfaces enough (from what I can tell). Can you zoom in to one of the joints? David

Ok, I was confused for a bit... I couldn't quite figure out how this wall was made... Then the bulb clicked on over my head, and I realized it wasn't a single object, but 4 of them.... (ok, I can be a bit slow sometimes...) very clever... Thanx I appreciate your time and patience... No problem, I was a noob once too. Like I said, the right way to do it would be to model the wall, tweak etc. but that is probably a way off for you. Did you by any chance buy A:M recently like SIGGRAPH? David

Ok, Attached is a quick wall. The rounded edges are a littl small but you get the basic idea. It is not the technical way to do it but it will work for what you are trying to do. You'll get the hang of things. David [attachmentid=19264] Wall.zip

That's what I had in mind as well, but the cube is rounded, and there aren't too many buildings with rounded corners (although I can figure out a way to sharpen them up), and then cutting a hole for the door and the window is what's really eluding my I suppose. I know this is probably most basic, but I'm not sure where to begin, even using the primitive. Actually you want your edges to be rounded. If you get in the practice now, you will be much happier later on. Just position the splines so the edge has less of a radius. If you don't take this approach your animations will have artifacts when you render them. By making a few panels with rounded edges (save it as a sepperate model) you can easily create walls with holes in them (lower panel, verticals and upper panel). Really it works and you'll be done much faster in the long run. Attached is a simple rectangle that I use as a building block for most of my geometric shapes. David [attachmentid=19263] rectangle.zip

The easiest way is to start with primitives from the CD. Most of my mechanical projects contain a lot of primitives. Be sure to save the pimitive to your hard drive as you won't be able to save the modified object back to the CD. I usually create a project directory, then sub directories for models and images etc. Save the project file in this directory and the primitives in the model directory. Hope this helps, and welcome!! David

Sorry, I guess I should have had oakchas interpret for me again. He seems to speak your elusive language.

Case, I have thought about it, in fact I think about it every day. Patch count is a concern as you get into larger projects. Let's just say that you can get a feel for the number of patches by the size and detail of the model. There a number of short-cuts one can employ to create surface details instead of modeling them. Look at some of the vehicles Jin Kazama creates... with very few patches. The model looks very good, it just seems like it should not have taken 6k patches. That doesn't mean it is in any way deficient or less of a work. If he posts a wire frame, there may be suggestions as to where he can be more frugal. This WIP forum is intended for critiques, so it is expected that other A:M users will help each other out. I do it with models and animations all the time. The users of this forum have a very keen eye and can point out anomalies we might otherwise miss. "." "," ";" are keys too....

It could be the: Mechs vs. Orgs Mechanicals vs. Organicals Mechans vs. Organs The Apache doesn't look large enough to have 6,000 patches.

Jin, http://www.marlinstudios.com/ This approach might work for you for the crowd. David

And all of us mechanicals, wish we were better at organic........ It looks really good. Can you post a wire-frame? David

Absolutley, keep us posted on where to view it.

3ds props import well. They can not be animated in the sense that you could move branches etc. David

Both the camera and ground is set to pure white, while the model is given a touch of grey (222,222,222) Any other chor lights on? thanks.

I get the plug-in missing message.....

Sure, but they are nothing more than basic settings: Global Color: white 100% 100% Sampling set to 40 Do you have your camera and ground set to white as well? Thanks, David

Stian, Can you share your AO settings? Thanks, David

Very nice work Eric

Well I don't think I can do a looping background, so this offer is not viable. It was a good idea and if anyone has any thoughts as to how to do it, I'm all ears. Will Sutton suggested having the begining and ending values the same. That will cause the material to be in the correct position at the beginning and the end, but it also means the material will need to return back to it's origin point. This makes the material look like it is moving away then back. What I would really like is a material or animated displacement map that looks like it is boiling, but needs to be loopable (don't think that is a word). David

Ken, Actually as it has rendered farther, I don't like it as much, and will probably change it. I am using it as a backdrop for a piece of automated equipment. It could be used for logo's etc. David EDIT: What is a good duration for a background like this? 10, 20, 30 seconds? EDIT2: I am having a hard time getting this material to repeat, meaning first and last frame being the same........... hmmmm

Hey, Here is a preliminary clip (still rendering) of what should be a looping background. I would like to donate it to the community when it is finished. It is kind of like a primordial, other-worldly kind of view, you could composite things over it. I would post the zipped file with the frames on my site. Let me know what you think. David http://www.dustinproductions.com/files/amstuff/BG-DPLLC.mpg

I thought it was Los Nooga............

You can import the mov file, then you should be able to apply it. Are you saying the original images you have to work with are gifs? Usually gifs are lower quality. Maybe you can elaborate as to what you are trying to do and with what? Importation of most other formats is clunky, 3ds is the best, and than you can just import it as a prop, meaning it can sit, or spin but you can't manipulate it in the sense of a rigged model. Is there anyway you could post the mov file? or email it? I could try to see if ther is an issue with it. David

131,000 patches begs the question.... How are you going to animate that monster (proxy would be one way). How large is the project file? My guess is it is still manageable (thinking of it loading in NR). Very cool. David