NancyGormezano

Ctrl D - show decals - edit: also in the tools/options/rendering for realtime or shaded - set show decals ON

I believe the problem is that 1) your sky dome model is less than 1 inch tall !!!, and 2) you are scaling an enormous amount and that you have your whole chor placed in "outer space" somewhere, along with the lights - rather than situated around the origin - my guess is that there is a computational problem for A:M given the scaling and the weird positioning. I have simplified your project - there are 2 chors: OriginalSimplified.cho is your original chor 2scene1c, but it only contains the 2 cameras, and the lights, and the sky dome model 1 new bles - I changed the color on the sky dome, changed it to NOT cast shadows, receive shadows - it still does not show viewed from camera 8. The sun is way out in outer space as well - worksSCALED.cho - is the first chor - but I scaled the dome down, and repositioned the sun light, and moved it to within a reasonable range of the dome My guess is that you will have to do something similar with your very complicated chors. Make your domes, lights more reasonablely scaled and positioned. Hope that helps. ScaledSimple.prj

Which chor scene? which camera? is giving you problems ? The materials and image files were not included. If it is chor 2scene 1c, & camera 1, - Which frame is giving you trouble? Is it 1296? I notice that camera 1 is moving all over the place in that chor. Which skydome model is giving you problems? - does the sky dome render in a SIMPLE chor? Try to create a simple case that gives you the problem

Oh poo on them - this is a fun character - I LOVE THE SWEATER - great touch... Perhaps this post might help for the next time?

Cute! makes me want to see more!

Aha!...the aliens caused the eclipse! ... no? ...well, they shoulda... (jes' messin' with ya) You one major cranking machine, you are. Is your partner helping with the ideas or is this mainly on your own?

Simple, my good man, jes' don't do it. I will repeat myself: The problem is related to the chor that has sumthin' that has tooooo much complexity. It may have eventually updated - but I just don't have that many years left in me to wait. You are younger and more patient than me. Smoke a cig, have a beer, compose an opera. I find it easier/more relaxing/more fluid to do dialog in the chor than it is to do it in a re-usable action, when a chor has aspects about it that are COMPLEX. That is why I suggested that Alano test it for his situation. Perhaps his chor/models are not as complex. Here is where it became a real PainInTush DRAG for me

BOTH terrific!

Hi David - Thanks for running those tests, but I think you misunderstood the problem that I (and others) have encountered. I probably did not describe the situation very well. I was trying to describe why I felt it less hassle to do DIALOG in a chor action, rather than in an external re-usable action In days of yon, one could have an action window open and a chor window open with a model using the re-usable external action. When one made a change to the action in the action window, the change in the action would show up in the chor window, almost immediately. If it didn't, one could bang on the space key to refresh in the chor. That doesn't always work (15e). You can bang until your fingers are bloody stumps. It don't help. Sometimes one would have to go to the view menu and choose refresh. Sometimes that doesn't work either. Closing the action window after making a change doesn't always help. Closing and re-opening the chor window doesn't always help. Sometimes the change would show up after a long long time - out-of-the-blue. Sometimes never. Closing A:M and restarting A:M would always help. That is a pain in the neck. My apologies! I agree. I speculated-spoke too soon about that, as most recently, I had encountered the worst problems with Bumpyman, which is approx 4800 patches and uses the LiteRig and some version of the Liteface. And I agree it may? be related to patch count (but BumpyBoy is only 4800 patches). I really think it's something else. Expressions? and/or ver A:M? and/or layered chor actions/actions? et al speculations? (I just love to get in trouble). I definitely think it is related to the complexity of sumthin' I always work in minimum windows open/components/display mode when animating, especially in SO, TWO. It didn't help the refresh problem with Bumpy. Admittedly, the Bumpy set was causing lots of problems (extremely-overly patch heavy) - but even turning off the set, and all other actors didn't help if I needed to change the DIALOG action and wanted to see it show up in the chor in a reasonable amount of time. It's much easier to do the DIALOG in a separate chor action (not a re-usable action) and have the change show up immediately, and not have to worry about turning stuff on/off, display modes, etc.

yayyyyy!!! I like your camera cuts and framing, very well done. Fun characters! Good on ya!

in the PWS, in the chor, on the model, choose new/chor action. Then set your start/end frame for the chor action (just like you would for external action). When you have multiple chor actions for an actor/model, make sure you select the correct chor action (shows as a checkmark in the PWS) before starting to animate the bones in that chor action - very important - or else channels for the same bone(s) will exist in multiple chor actions. You may want that in some cases, but in general - you won't. You can export a chor action as an action - but again, sometimes there are problems - so it's best to test first to see how that works.

Ummm...I'm not necessarily recommending that ...I was only trying to say that it could be used for that...and that's what was done for TWO and SO projects. Some people like to do it that way. I don't. I find that I prefer doing dialog as a separate chor action (separate from any body chor action), as in some cases, if the dialog was done in a separate action (not chor action) - there would be difficulty in getting the changes to show up in the real-time if one modified the dialog action. One had to go thru lots of banging on enter, space key, closing and opening of chor, saying prayers, before change would show in chor. I'm not sure what causes this - it may be that the characters for TWO and SO had such complicated rigs (1000's bones, lots of expressions) that it took forever for change to show (pure speculation on my part). Another "problem" is that when the wav file is in the separate action - it usually doesn't show visually in the right place in the timeline when in channel display mode, so makes it hard to sync body parts to the dialog wav form. So best to try it first with a test with your characters, simple chor. The advantage to doing dialog in action is that you can have the wav file in the action, so that you can move them around in chor as a unit, and you can easily have multiple/different characters saying the same dialog, using the same action.

Actions can be used for dialog, as well as for building sets (with action objects), and for bvh motion capture type things. I use to use actions for complicated dance steps, and then would string a bunch together in the chor. However, I found that I needed to modify the actions, so that they would work for different characters of different proportions - even if they used the same rig. I've used actions for repetitive breathing motions, as well as water wave motion, both to be mixed, overlayed with additional chor actions to get more variation. The neat thing about actions is that you can change the timing in the chor (to speed up, slow down), crop to only subset of action, as well as repeat backwards, forwards, change holds, jump around frames, repeat only portions of action, mainly by use of the ease property

Very excellent - YOU are a gem! I like both, but I think I prefer the first - probably because the column expands with time, and resembles dispersion effects more closely (IMO)

me too, didn't like THAT new one. I like THIS new one better than old one.

I'm ok....sorta...with what you've got there for night time lighting, when I think about this panel in context with the rest of the strip. As a stand-alone panel - no. So in case you might want to experiment for future: Here's a simple trick, to "silouhette" your models, that I stole from Holmes the Hustler, who stole it from the Bigboote Boy: A FAKE rimlight MATERIAL (no electricity, foreign oil needed) 1) create a gradient material 2) add an ambiant color of your choice in the 2nd attribute only - Normal people might choose light blue/off-white. 3) change the percent ambiance to something 50-100 4) set the edge threshold property to something other than 0. (the higher the percent - the more/wider the rim light edge effect). Tasteful, subtle people choose 10-20 5) drag material to model 6) play with edge threshold, color, ambiance % (in the model instance) to taste while doing progressive screen renders. You must render "progressive render" to see effect in real-time. It's an interesting look...but may not suit your taste.

Oooo..eeeee-uuuuuu eek eeeek eeekk (translation: Pretty! in whale speak)

They both look great - well done, youse guys

Very nice stuff! with a very nice mood...I love the overcast look & I can hear the silence, except for the water, and faint whale moans and groans... Ummmm....dare I say: Photoshop? That is, if you're not looking for an animatable/dynamic solution, nor a static image purist's solution? It's the resultant image that counts - not how you got there, from the viewer's perspective. If you are going for static image, A:M solution only - have you tried decaling photo of foam/spray (or some noise pattern) onto a shape/grid, messing with surface & decal properties (color, transparency, spec, reflection, roughness), positioning & deforming the spray "object/grid" in the chor, based on camera ?

And seems to render much, MUCH faster in those scenes with hair - especially with lots of hair. 'Tis a dilemma. If you want to use NON Multi-pass, then perhaps you can remove the fake rimlight? (add lighting instead)

Are you using Multi-pass rendering? I ran into this problem (15e) & using bump maps & fake rim light material, only when I rendered with the default (NO Multi-pass). When I rendered WITH Multipass - the bump maps showed up. Where did da bump-bumps go?

Yup, he looks like quite a cupcake - intellectually-wise of course, with a nice set of wings. I find it interesting that you chose not to make him cherub size. Nice model!

Barney? He'sa look like a Pasquale or a Jean-Pierre - but Barney ??? Nice character!

Oooooo - I like that! For some reason I can imagine Calliope music being played with this ...yes...I know...not very war-like sounding. Maybe it's the amusement park carousel like action that conjurs this association for me. Coincidently, according to wikipedia, Calliope was the daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne, and in one account was reported to be the lover of the war god Ares. Sorta fits. Maybe?...ok...Not really. Nice!

Holmes suggested a good quick fix - should work - However, if you are still using ver 15e - there should be a problem with both walls as the decal does not cover the entire patch (even tho image does not have alpha channel). I always get a problem when I've done this in ver15e. The problem will only show up when final rendered - It will not show in the real-time view. Ver 15f should fix it. I will not be able to test it as I have the CD and do not have access to 15f. For the sake of curiosity, and to help solve this mystery - perhaps you can upload a zip file that contains a model that just has the 2 vertical walls (good and bad) along with the image you are using for the decal. -hmmm... not quite understanding this statement - but perhaps this is a clue to problem?