NancyGormezano

I am not able to view - have not tried with Chrome - but I suspect it's my video drivers/graphics card

Some price gouging, collusion going on based on supply & demand in this local area time of need? If Dallas was declared a disaster area, that might be illegal (ha ha). Did you ask any of them why the difference in labor costs? Here's what I found online about one guy's opinion of metal roof installation on this page Other comments on that page indicate the price of metal roof installation would be 2X price of shingles (2011, not after a storm). Not 4X. In California, you can forget about getting earthquake insurance right after a major quake. In time, prices will tend to drop, as demand goes down. Here's another link which talks about metal interlocking shingles - might be cheaper? easier? than standing seam metal roof From that page:

Uh..well...uh...how many people does $40K cover? and how long will it take them? I'm assuming that's the bottom line estimate for the whole job, not just the supplies? They already have all the equipment, experience. How many companies gave estimates? Do they all estimate based on something per square foot? Type of roof? (slope, shape, corners, etc). Perhaps there is a subset of work they could do for you? I don't know what that might be. Or, if Texas is anything like California, perhaps there are some big-strong-worker-dudes hanging out at the Home Depot (you know the ones in the parking lot) who could help for cheap? There should be at least someone else helping you with enough experience to call 911. Sounds scary to me. Not impossible. Just risky.

Yikes Rodney! Heal FAST! Great looking characters, good to see you having some time to do some splining. (Geesh. Amazing what some people will do in order to get some "me" time... )

I think it is just a matter of finding a combo of transparency, color, spec size, intensity, reflectivity based on YOUR models size, shape, lighting conditions. I don't have a slurppy cup, so I'm not sure how that particular plastic looks. I took the Smokey Glass material, changed diffuse color to white (from black), changed ambiance intensity to 0, upped transparency. Be sure to check out your changes while viewing it in the chor, rather than in the model window. Things will look different based on surroundings and lighting. EDIT: just noticed you started with fake glass - I didn't check that to see what it was doing.

As far as I can tell - it's just to aid in positioning bones, both in the bone hierarchy, as well as "physically". No unfortunately, it doesn't really help with zeroing, setting offsets for constraints. Usually the steps involved to get constraints (and control structure) for installing literig, 2008, maybe squetch (don't remember) - was similar to 1) import geometry bones into your mesh model. Position, orient geometry bones. 2) then I forget which it is, or which rig install does what, but essentially you import a control structure model that has control bones, nulls, relationships into your model (the one that has the geometry bones positioned correctly) and/or you use a premade action that has action objects which have the constraint structures. 3) In the action, you turn some poses OFF, others ON (usually the ones to position the control bones automatically so they align with the geometry) and then 4) export that model from the action. THEN Open this newly exported model, set poses ON/OFF, delete some Poses (that were only useful for positioning control bones,nulls), save model

The LiteRig does not make use of the INSTALL rig plugin, as far as I remember. It is only the 2008, and Squetch rig installation process that does. That is, unless you are modifying the LiteRIG installation process? I found for my own modified installations, and to be able to make installations modular (eg I mix arms from literig, legs from 2008, facerig from my own scheme) that I have a top level bone that I name with INSTALL as part of it - eg "INSTALL right leg", of whose sole purpose is for positioning the entire hierarchy (all geom bones and control bones, nulls associated with right leg), and nothing else. I find I don't run the plug-in, and leave the INSTALL bones, because it also helps me to easily, visually identify sections of the bone hierarchy. I could have named those top level bones with some other keyword, eg Module, to help me see the structure E.G: Legs Module +Right leg Module +Left leg Module ++Left Leg Geometry ++Left Left Controls

Well - it looks like the link to BigBoote's Newton Tutorial thread for coins dropping on Cicero's pizza? is broken. I believe what he did was run the simulation and then rearrange the results by translating and rotating the individual models into place. Something like that. Looks like Matt's redone his website.

It's the creation process that's the fun, not the product. That's why Sarah Winchester never finished remodeling her Mystery House. That's why there are cliffhangers. It will come back. The spark will come back. It always does. It will probably come back in a different shape, form. If you're like me, you've been here before. You've doubted you could do it again. Trust that the urge, necessity always comes back. And it comes back better. For me, burnout happens when expectations don't happen. Immediately. And when there isn't a balance of activities. That's why marathon sessions of creating, to the exclusion of all else, isn't such a hot idea. You need that canoe trip to revive the juices. Step away from the desk, get out and walk, bike ride, something new. I always find my creative spirit comes back while I'm on a trip. New ideas, new sights, experiences, add to recharging the battery. Everything you've done so far adds to what you are still destined to do. It just may not be obvious right now. Very, very sorry to hear of your brother's situation. That's a tough road, but like you said, it's treatable. Give yourself time to process this. Try to prioritize and balance your time based on what's happening.

On the PC - all the animatable elements for a LAYER are in the Properties for the Layer. Which property do you want to animate? If it is the frame number for your sequence - In the chor, go to Shortcut to Layer/Image/Timing/Frame

Just sent another. Two uber gurly-gurlishness-issimo-maximus entries for me too.

Sent one. Maybe I'll do another.

Hey! hey! Happy Day! Enjoy! Best wishes & Many many more!

Yay John! Happy Day!

That took a while to download, but it's 7.13MB.

love it!

"décolletage" - Yes indeedy, my thoughts as well. I had in mind to add modest bumps, along with more accoutrèments (mantilla, shoes, shawl, ruffled skirt, castenets). A ruffled skirt will be hard to animate with that bushy tail however - so I may wimp out. FYI: Around here, we say "boob job" so that JohnMattBigBooteCampbell will understand what we're talking about...

I was about to start on a new bird-like creature (maybe a goofy stellar jay thing) and came across an old "peacock" model. This wasn't what I had in mind for now, but of course I got distracted trying it out with Fakeao, and different texturing/color schemes. Model needs re-rigging to be useable.

Here's something done without expressions and presents a couple of ideas. The rates at which things revolve, and close in on each other are animated without expressions. The orange ball is constrained to a crudely done spiral path that revolves around the revolving beachball. The position of the orange ball on the path is determined by the ease property of the path constraint. The white larger ball is constrained to the orange ball by a "translate to" that starts out with an offset distance from the orange ball at frame 0. The offset is then animated ie, changed to =0,0,0 at the final frame, thus closing in on the orange ball over the length of the animation. (I slowed down the QT movie to play at 1/2 speed, so the project will look faster. The project only has 48 frames.) revolvh264highsloloop.mov planets.prj

Newton Dynamics - that's a whole lotta stuff - I wouldn't know where to begin with what you are describing. There's a whole sub-forum of info here. Start with looking at examples here and if you see something that sorta looks like you want - then give a holler. But as for 2nd question - Give us the equation (in standard notation) that you would use to describe a sphere's x,y,z position to another sphere's rotational velocity? Depending on what you mean, I suspect that might be tricky to do in A:M as expressions does not store "previous frame data". But one might be able to do a work around of sorts. Rate of rotation to me implies "change in time"

Interesting effect!

I don't know why the flock elements would be getting further and further away, but I believe "flocks" was designed specifically so that the elements would not collide. Flocks are tricky to work with in terms of controlling precise movement. Springs is also something that I believe currently isn't quite working (fully implemented or supported) in current versions of A:M. Or more precisely, I've never been successful in recent versions of A:M of getting springs to work. What acts similar to "flocks" and what you are describing might be done with applying "translate to" and "orient like" constraints with lag (of 1-3 frames). This animation test (done in 2009) uses constraints with lag. Not quite what you are describing, but parts of each model are constrained with lag to follow other parts of its model. Or even perhaps what you need is something using a dynamic constraint? Or perhaps some sort of Newton simulation? Without seeing an example, it sounds like you are describing something that is done with Flash, where elements follow the cursor? or links/nodes presented graphically look like they are held together with "strings" TheEnd3movh264.mov

I have noticed that the more CP's, the more work at weighting, regardless of rig. And if it's David doing the weighting, you can bet that each and every CP is weighted individually, to at least 2, maybe 3 bones, to precisely determined 2 decimal places.

Is that 1440 in either dimension? ie. width or height?

yay! Glad that helped.