NancyGormezano

And just in case you need one more way: you can Flip the image used for the decal (horizontally or vertically only) before you select apply. But if I need to rotate image 90 degrees (not 180), then I prefer first to do it in an image editing program, then bring into A:M

In theory that would be wonderful, in practice, probably not so much. I think the more appropriate question would be: "why not have someone else render and rerender and rerender and rerender and rerender and rerender and rerender..etc etc, and oh...by the way...they also have a life". (Been there with TWO, SO). Back to the issue of rendering stereo: 1) I am still not understanding how and in what software these left/right images are getting combined? AfterEffects? 2) 3D destined for Youtube viewing only? If so, is there only one file produced with all possibilities of viewing? OR are there separate files sent to youtube for red/blue, side-side, yellow/puke, etc? What are the resultant output file settings? Educate me, please and walk me thru the post processing steps that will be used to get these renders into 3D file(s), and how/where they will be viewed. If it's just destined for red/blue (or any color channel combo, maybe even interlaced?) for example, couldn't one render from A:M with stereo OFF, (ie don't need left right) and use AfterEffects to generate the resultant 3D file. Cross eye maybe not. It now sounds like this project has transformed into something more suited for demonstrating special effects, and not a "rear window" story line: eg., Balls/bullets/Thoms bouncing off walls, explosions, flying monsters, swords coming straight atcha. Else why do 3D? It's a gimmick that demands uber gimmickyness. It's not a matter of how I want to watch it, it's a matter of how I want my efforts to look. You, others may not care about coloring, texture, line, composition but I do. 3D obscures all that. I am curious and eager to learn about the technical issues for producing 3d. I would be more interested in creating something arty, abstract and visually flowing, that could be viewed in 3D, but not necessarily using this realistic, hard edged, well crafted, set. And just like I transformed the set to my liking and computer capabilities in "bus stop", then I could always do a similar thing here, if I decide/am able to participate. That would get my juices going.

That is how I rendered the images as shown in my previous post I only had a problem when I had stereo ON.

I suspect it might have to do with memory management? with ver 16b 32bit win xp pro. CPU usage appears to spike to 100% and not let go, my hard drive is revvin' full bore. I don't quite understand the warning notice that pops up. I think it's from Norton? complaining about A:M. I'm not sure it happens trying to render right after a fresh A:M start, but eventually it happens from repeated attempts at rendering. I've also had it crash. Not sure what caused it. I think? it might have been when I tried to change the frame number to 0. Don't go by me. I have other reasons why I probably will not participate.

I ran some tests just to see what render times would be for me. I am probably the only one, but I would ONLY consider doing the 480p size, and would prefer mono vision. On my computer, just the set alone (with default settings) takes 1:46 /frame (with soft on), with soft off - takes 1:35. Mono vision takes :58. The larger render size with default settings takes 3:32/frame on my computer. STEREO, almost doubles the render time, and most likely diminishes the number of viewers. Not everybody has red/blue glasses (especially non-animating friends and relatives), nor necessarily if they do, would they go running to go find where they last put them. And I can't say I enjoy watching stereo animation requiring red/blue glasses for any length of time. Stereo, with the current settings, causes my computer to put out warning of HIGH CPU usage by A:M (for just 1 frame), which more than likely will present problems for me with multiple frames. Even with rendering at 480. The stereo looks cute, but the lighting probably doesn't need to be so render costly. I question having shadows for all lights turned on, even with mono vision. Can probably get away with only the SUN and Mainlight having shadows. I also question if the glass needs to be there (transparency is a render hit). Stereo rendering diminishes the beauty of the set, and I expect, would encourage different types of animation, ie things flying into the camera I don't know how to combine the left-right images so that I could compare the differences between stereo and mono vision imagery. To recap: STEREO, all lights have shadows, with glass, 5 pass: 720 large size: 3:32 480 small size: 1:46 (Soft ON) 480 small size: 1:35 (Soft OFF) MONO (Stereo = OFF) , (all 480, soft on) :59 all lights have shadows, with glass, 5 pass :41 ONLY SUN, Mainlights have shadows, with glass, 5 pass :36 ONLY SUN, Mainlights have shadows, NO glass, 5 pass

Best thing is to try it and see what happens - obviously SAVE your model before you try. For me, that's the best way to learn. As for moving bones I don't think you can move a whole bunch of bones if they are not in the same hierarchy. If you are having trouble moving them, it might be because the rotation of the parent bone and the view from which you are trying to move them are not making it easy for you

Ah, but you can grasshopper! If you have assigned cps to a bone, and you are in bones mode, hit ctrl + either translate or scale manipulator and the cps will also move. If the cp is weighted less than 100% to the bone, it won't move If you use the translate manipulator - then only the bone (and it's children) will move without the cps (EDITED for bad info) If you just use the standard mode manipulator, then only the bone will move without it's children.

Local boy makes good! er...almost local...newly local...ok...ok...California boy makes GOOD! Yay Jesse!

very cute. The first, last and 2nd to last images work particularly well.

Ooooo nice. Could also vary the colors and if ya add some bones here and there, animate the vertical scaling of the patches, and overall shape for more dynamics.

Seems I didn't add reflectivity in the above clip. So for my own education, added 50% reflectivity, along with 50% transparency to globe, which made render times shoot up to 31 secs/frame. When I ramped the transparency back down to 0, render time went to 11 secs/frame (still with 50% reflectivity), as expected. Transparency is always a killer. Forgot to mention I also added roughness to globe (in clip above as well as in this one). This clip has a slightly better look. Obviously could refine this, ad nauseum. So I'll stop now before I puke. globe0reflecttransparetlooph264.mov

Think again. Took John's last animated clip, decaled it onto a sphere with planar mapping ie.- no unwrapping, no unfolding, no complicated placement needed, but could have used spherical mapping. His animation was used to drive displacement as well as some coloring, but I also combined it with some other turquoise color image. Also added specularity and reflectivity Rendered 3 pass and it took 4 secs/frame - ver16b globe0highh264loop.mov

Maybe it's not a fold? I am seeing a triangular pink shape located to the left of the eyeball. (I scaled your image) OR the eyeball doesn't fit, ie. not scaled big enough for the socket and I'm seeing thru the eye socket to the back of the head? I don't notice this pink anomaly in your new pic. (correction: I do see it, it's just less noticeable because the image is smaller)

Make a small test case with just the smooth surface (window casing) - still happen? or is it some shadows being cast from something else?

Very cubey!

Good characters! All of them.

I like ACE! And I like Wheatley (whatever that is) - well done!

As Robcat said, can't just go to an entry, gotta wait till they serve it up to you. And I don't think the votes count until you've voted for them all. I might be wrong about that part. Best of luck John, May it be a productive learning experience!

If you could make a sample case out of that to study and post it... It would be useful to see. I did just test exporting model from action with decals and hair in ver16b and yes it now works! In 15jplus hair would get messed, and decals (especially noticed if they were cylindrical with a repeat count, did not try all cases) would get messed up. Both problems appear to be fixed. yay! However I find that this same model rigged in 15j plus has some poses that do not work the same in 16b, in particular it has to do with hiding and unhiding nulls. I will try to make a simple case. I had to create a new pose in 16b to get it to work.

No no, not true - it is of use! I said I appreciate the intent to find solutions. I would love to find a way that simplifies for everyone - I have even tried to concoct some way for me to use INSTALL plugin. I even used it for naming some of my top level bones, but then decided I liked leaving those particular bones in, as it helped me isolate sections in the bone hierarchy, so that it was easier to visually scan. So I never ran the install plugin to remove them. Yes I shy away from keyframe filters, as at one time, it did seem to mess up. I most likely did not use it correctly, or it was at an early stage of development. I have tried again, but then just went along my merry way without using them. With my rig - it's not like there is a billion bones to wade thru - with squetch rig, it would be most decidely very useful.

okee dokie. This is wandering into circular logic land and becoming pretty funny now. I appreciate the suggestions and the intent to find solutions, but I think there is confusion as to which rig, and who's perspective we're talking about. At first I was clarifying for David which extraneous bones Holmes probably was talking about. With Robert, I am talking about MY modified process of installing as well as using MY modfied hybrid literig arms, hands, spine, modified face rig, modified 2008 legs, plus dynamic ears, tails, whiskas concoction. There is no install rig. I have found for the most part that it is easier (translation: less confusing, not necessarily most elegant, efficient) to just drag, drop, import modular components, position the geometry bones, control bones by hand, reedit if necessary affected constraint relationships (zero offsets). The dummy placer bones in my rig are a residual from starting with Holmes rig (post installation in some phamtom model). These placer bones show up attached to the ends of geometry bones, they have no function in my rig at this point. It is easiest for me obviously to just delete them rather than rename them to INSTALL bone and then have a plugin delete them. I do not believe that if one were to use Holmes installation process that he would want to delete these placer bones, as part of the process is to use an export action that has constraints on other bones to "translate to" these placer bones. These constraints are NOT on when animating, they are only used by the export action (not sure about shoulder, arm placement). If you wanted to reuse the export action - you would need these placer bones to remain in the resultant rig.

These dummy placer bones (in literig only) have nothing to do with any switches, nor IK/FK, nor any active constraints while animating. I am in particular thinking about the face rig placer bones, not sure about shoulder/arm placer bones. They are only useful during the rigging process, when one is using an action to export a model. I have actually deleted them permanently from some parts of my Lothario model/rig, as I don't use the export actions (safer, less confusing to me to position by hand). I just missed a few dummies and they show up when animating. I could delete those permanently as well. But if one wanted to use the export actions then one would want to leave them in.

btw... you can make a selection filter of these unwanted bones so they are easy to delete in one swoop if they get keyed without having to hunt them down in the full list of bones in the chor. Yeah yeah. And they come back again and again. Sometimes it's just better to ignore them. Most everything has a workaround, that I've used and I've lived with it. I've never put in a feature request for anything, ever. I would be willing to pay a subscription fee for things to NOT change, as I hate when new features inevitably cause old features to break.

If the installation bones have "INSTALL" in their name, you can run the InstallRig plugin to have them cleaned out. I am going to guess that the bones Holmes is talking about are the dummy "placer bones" that he put in the liteRIG, liteFACE that are attached at the end of another bone and are only used to act as a target to get some other bone or null to "translate to the end of a bone" rather than to the start of a bone. The way things stand now, he would want to leave these bones in, in the event one did further tweaking and the control bones and geometry bones got out of alignment. Those dummy placer bones are the extraneous bones that sometimes get keyed unnecessarily in the literig. That is why I thought it would be helpful to have a realtime function that one could right click on bone and choose "translate to end of bone" with a picker that could be used in bones mode (to add in positioning of bones), as well as maybe as an added constraint type. Then one wouldn't need these dummy bones.

Ooooo..yucky ickylicious One crit: The pink "fold" showing on outer eyeball doesn't look right. Not normal. But then again maybe you're going for not normal?