NancyGormezano

I'm not exactly sure what you are asking but I think you want to apply the decal as a cookie-cut type instead of color. The alpha channel will define the shape cutout - and will also give it the color as defined in the alpha channel. In addition, you can combine a cookie cut map with a color map and the cut-out shape will take on the coloring of the color map. If you are wanting to define varying levels of transparency - then you would use a "grey toned" image, without an alpha channel, applied as transparency map - where black = 100% transparent, white = 100% opaque. You would probably also use a color map, along with transparency map (if you wanted something different than surface color) Try a simple test - with a simple image. Have you tried something and it didn't work? EDIT: Robcat beat me to it! he's a fast little devil. Image 1 - uses transparency map (black & white - no alpha) & color map Image 2 - transparency - shades of grey & color Image 3 - cookie cut - image with alpha channel - no color decal Image 4 - cookie cut with a color map

Looks to me like you don't have specularity set somewhere - either in the hair shader (if using something other than normal), lights, hair emitter, etc Show us the settings you are using for the hair material as well as the render with render settings.

Tools/Customize/Appearance/background

Just for completeness sake - here's a white render with AI, AO, IBL, front projection

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! (Hope you can you see that without your reading glasses..)

Gee Bruce - that's really, really nice of you to say that - Crayons on Crack? - made me laugh - funny animation idea as well. Thanks John, Rodney, Robcat - your comments are much appreciated.

Nice plane - nice image (Is it missing it's props? I expect to see some sort of a radial whir/blur at the nose - or do my brain/eyes/screen need cleaning?)

Yup - Serendipity has struck again - I just learned about FOG IMAGES from the Vern-o-matic Newtonian Katchibells Logo Extravaganza Fiesta used a Pink Cloudy image for Fog (fog range set to clip frog in front), with a camera roto = turquoise mottled image, front projected onto ground only. Using an Orange-red mottled Image for IBL, with AI=50%, AO= 0%. Scene also has A:M default lighting, but changed klieg (rim light) shadows to 100% soft, - Ye olde Golden Toade

Looking good Vern - Kettlebells ? - Do they taste good? - Do you get a lifetime supply? FOG IMAGE??? yikes - where have I been for the last 10 years? Amazing. (you know what that means - One pink cloud fogged, turquoise front projected, orange-reddish IBL-ed, Golden frog coming up)

But he is there! Set your model to be front projected, when you go to render - turn on toon render for the scene - set override lines on. Lots of interesting possibilities - if one hides the background with a dome - EDIT: I'm not sure the IBL lighting is having any influence - I take it back - yes it is - because the rotoscope does not look like what is being rendered on the toad

Spurred on by "White Render" thread that got so off topic (I don't do white real well) - I started experimenting some more with IBL, front projection, and added in some Toon rendering - Toad (modeled by Ken Heslip? rigged by Holmes Bryant) is textured simply as Goldenish as in first image - variations are produced only by changing rotoscope - which is used for IBL, and the background and for front projecting.

Hey! Don't forget to imagine my Backside Projection as well, as long as your mind is wandering. Interesting find. I had never tried with image that had alpha channel - but you are correct, wherever there is no data (empty channel) it appears to project white - another way (convoluted a bit) to make a white-ish render, Rotoscope in frog picture is all empty alpha channel - makes everything white (but still see bump maps). Ground is flat shaded. Frog is NOT flat shaded. Background color was black - but empty alpha channel makes it white too. AND if you can't get enough of the Toad - there are many more experiments (non-white) seen here at Oxymoron Theatre

Yes - the problem is probably that you are hitting the "render animation preview" button instead of "render to file" button - so you are most likely running out of memory. (not sure if video card memory as well is getting messed) If you render to file directly - you will probably not have this problem.

couldn't help myself - I came down with a case of the JohnL3d Gnomatic heebie jeebies recursively rendered mouse with flat shading (front projected with white) - changed movie on layer to previously rendered movie(s), changed rotoscope to a fractal image, front projected that on flat shaded mouse mousefractalcompressed.mov

An all A:M solution - similar to what Paul did - but uses a layer mapped with animated movie that acts as the reality clipping plane. Layer, camera, mouse all animated just for demo purposes mousewhite8compressed.mov

Ok - for a quick thought - I think you have multiple concepts going on, as I'm still not sure I understand. In general I would approach something like this by analyzing the exact requirements for the imagery - rather than coming up with a general method. Brute force is usually faster. I would think about using something like After effects for compositing layers, working with alpha channels and dynamic layer masks. Not saying you can't do it all in A:M (probably can). It is not clear how the white models interact with live action models - do they do the same actions (mirror?), are they the same models, must they be seen half in real world/half in white world? If you want to do it all in A:M, then I would think about (just as you have) 1) rendering an A:M tga sequence that has your "live action textured reality models look" & presumably this sequence of imagery will then be decaled onto an A:M layer (or flat plane model) - now called a reality plane 2) add the reality plane layer object into the scene, decal that layer with previously rendered tga sequence. Animate & position that layer how you want the "plane" to cut the scene 3) "white front project " and animate the "other world" selected models as you want them to step in and out of the reality plane/layer. Render. You may need to do some rendering with alpha buffer ON in some step of the process (thus isolating models from background) - but without knowing exact requirements - it ain't clear. You can also think about using A:M composite feature for combining/layering of rendered seuqunces And that's my "off the cuff", probably "off the charts" quicky thoughts.

Not exactly sure what you are asking for - but in this example - the window is a layer with an image on it that has an alpha channel - the background is the camera rotoscope, and the rabbit is a front projection target. If you didn't want to see the rotoscope as background, but still have the object(rabbit) be front projected - then create a background model (walls, etc?) that obscures the ...um...background (camera rotoscope), and is NOT a front projection target (ie, the ground in the 2nd image).

I am not familiar with AVS Video Converter - so you might examine the settings you are using with it to do the conversion/compression and experiment with those. I don't know what settings you have available. The difference in file sizes is due to the fact that the avi (which came from A:M) is probably uncompressed. Or it could have been compressed some. The smaller QT file size is because it was definitely compressed in AVS. When one does compression - which is a necessary evil - there is usually degradation in the resultant imagery. This is a fact of life. Some compression methods work better than others for different kinds of imagery, and how much the imagery changes from frame to frame. I use mpeg4 compression, others like h264 for QT. When I now think about it, it is of course possible that the compression made it darker. One has to play with the compression settings and make compromises between file size, and quality. A good way to play with different compression methods is to render from A:M uncompressed (either to a tga sequence, or QT mov, or avi) and then experiment in your compression program. I use QT pro - only because I have it and it's relatively simple.

Looks very promising. But yes - dark. Conversion? to QT should not make it dark. What are your rendering settings, process steps from A:M? (compression, file type, gamma, etc). Are you rendering to QT from A:M. What version QT? When you say conversion to QT - do you mean you are compressing in QT pro in order to upload to forum?

Ha, ha! I usually set the angle limits to about 70 degrees but that normally overrides the grooming and spoils the effect. I've never had it override the grooming. But I always set dynamic options on hair material to Use forces but NOT use gravity. And I use spring constraint as well

The 11 sec club has some strict rules about frame size/aspect ratio - I forget exactly what it is - I think it's 400x 300 - you should plan your imagery for whatever they require and you will save yourself some file space, animating and rendering times.

That's why the neanderthals died out... Also thats why I make angle limit something smaller than 180 - say 60? - for dynamic options on hair - could also try collision detection (shudder)

bueno!

environment map on dome, sphere is 100% reflective ground is front projected ON

do you have another camera roto that is set to be ON TOP and is partially transparent? My camera roto is NOT on top.