NancyGormezano

hmmmm...very strange - what seems also funny to me is that your lighting on background buildings changed (in first post with just red sphere) when turning camera roto on/off - that shouldn't happen. I am assuming those background buildings are the environ map on the dome. I cannot duplicate your results - I have a 100% reflective sphere, floating above ground, dome with env map, front projected ground plane, camera roto. 1 sun light, IBL (color=white, no occlusion) - and it looks fine to me this is screen capture

Task manager ABORT. I don't fool with that switch. I haven't had a need to yet. BUT I do believe it is for the purpose eventually of isolating redoing particles and leaving others baked - but when I tried it - I also ran into funnies - it's been awhile (at least a coupla weeks - and in old people years - that's awhile). Heres something else to try - I believe I have never had the funny crazy hair when I have used an image for the emitter (not 100% sure, but 99% sure)- so create an image the color(s) that you want your hair to be (any proportions - as your length & width & shape properties will scale it properly) - and use that instead of "no image" - see if that helps with crazy hair.

oy oy oy Don't fool with that switch yet. Abort. There was no reason to redo Bake particles to get rid of streaks. (I don't think?). The toggling between frame 1 and 0 should do it. However - if you want to re-bake - best to rt click (in chor), unbake particles then bake particles - for now. Make sure you are on frame 0 when you do. You will still probably (not always) have to toggle (after baking) between frame 0, 1,0 before rendering (to get rid of streaks).

Ah yes - I know that one well - the "long-crazy-WTF-is-that" hair. What I do when I get that is - before rendering -- go to frame 1 then back to frame 0 - the crazy hair seems to disappear. Then render. Also you are doing shaded - not final render - Baked Hair and baked bone dynamics do not interfere with each other - they are baked - not recalculated on the fly - this is so one can distribute the rendering as well - it's quite an improvement over ver 14. If they are not baked - they will interfere with each other.

I've had that happen (exceptions) sometimes, not always. I haven't had to go to helmet hair. I'm on a PC. I have 3 gb RAM. My hair dynamics are usually default spring settings, with drag changed to 20%, use forces, but don't use gravity EDIT (don't use collision detection either) - but change radius to 60 degrees or something I have found even with getting those exceptions - that if I just try and bake particles again - it works. OR ...Perhaps start clean - delete those baked particle channels (that show in the chor after it adds a "group" thing), and rebake. Perhaps A:M is having trouble writing/closing the particle file? Files are created with extension .par - (can't remember) - and indices into the file are assigned to the different particle groups/types in your chor. Do you have more than hair particles going on ? (sprites, etc) There are settings to bake some particle systems and not others. You might try doing 1 at a time (I haven't had to do that). I've had LOTS of different hair particle systems with lots of dynamics going - have not had to isolate. But I haven't tried it with sprites, etc.

Do you have your environment sphere model active? And is the image on it mapped correctly? I am a little confused as to what I am looking at in your images - it looks to me like the background is the camera rotoscope (projected onto ground plane, and showing in the background, as there is no actual model there) ?

I think the diagram is wonderful - I don't know how much clearer it could get. It's a great quick reference. I think the video is great as well. I generally don't like videos - because it's difficult to watch the whole thing (again) in order to find a point that one might have missed, or forgotten. I prefer written material/pictures. Videos are great for introductions to topics. Yours are terrific. I believe you are running into the fact that people have different learning styles - And there is nothing you can do to for those who expect this stuff to make sense without actually trying it to see what happens, nor do some extra "thinking" about what it means. If you were in a classroom situation - then one could flesh out what the confusion is by answering specific questions. Some new users might have to back up and actually need definitions for what those symbols mean (eg, "translate, scale, rotate, pose, etc"). I think it depends on from where they are starting, and how much they are willing to dig in. Some might want it all to make sense without doing any work on their own.

Have you tried?: 1) turn off hair/particles (shift 8) 2) make sure your chor length is set correctly (expand Choreography triangle - set length if not correct, do not do it in the timeline - as its sometimes doesn't correlate. 3) right click in chor - Simulate Spring Systems (this will bake the dynamic chains) 4) go to frame 0 - turn on hair - right click - Bake Particle systems 5) Save & render This worked for me when I was doing my Pass the ball entries - all 3 of which have both dynamic hair and dynamic chains.

the steam and title & sound looks, sounds GREAT! Very effective.

hmmm...either the ease (for constraint to path ) is set to something other than 0, in which case set it to 0...or the path constraint has an OFFSET? OR If the ease = 0, offsets are 0, and the range for the chor action for path constraint is correct - then you might have modified your path and added a cp and sometime there is confusion as to what really is the first cp of the path (the beginning of the path). I'm really not sure about this. Like I said, paths can be tricky...and it also depends on soooo many other things. eg. like the order of chor actions for the camera and what range of frames each chor action is in effect. Make sure the chor action in which you set the path constraint for the camera is the last chor action for the camera - bluhhh...bluh bluh maybe? Check that path constraint chor is in the range of frames you intend for it to be in force. I hope that wasn't tooooo confusing... So - perhaps if ease is not the issue...start new? - go to frame 0 - delete the path - start new path ...make sure the first cp you put down is where you want to start

Paths can sometimes be tricky - and sometimes it takes changing the order in which one does something - I think this will work for you: 1) frame 0 - add null to chor, create your path 2) move camera from frames 0-10 however you want. 3) on frame 11 constrain camera to path, set to translate only (important) 4) frame 11 - set aim at null constraint for camera - make sure you have compensate mode OFF (so that camera will aim at null exactly - (or else set offsets for constraint = 0) . Probably best to do steps 3,4 in this order. 5) set ease of path constraint = 0 on frame 11. Set ease of path constraint at frame N at 100% , where N = 30 = when you want the path movement to complete. 6) May the Null & Path Constraints be with You.

Typically camera motion is done in the chor. Have you tried something? And it didn't work? Need more info as to what's not working. But to use "aim at constraint" for camera - I usually create a null in the chor. Then set the camera to aim at the null. I can then animate both the null, (to be where I want the center of interest to be) as well as animate (translate, roll) the camera. One doesn't have to use a null - one can also keyframe the camera, using the "shortcut keys" while still viewing from the camera. While in camera view (and the camera is selected in the PWS): eg hit M (move) then while holding shift down, and moving the mouse up, down will cause the camera to move forward & back. M, then holding ctrl, moving mouse up,down, left, right - will move the camera up, down, left, right T(turn), holding shift, move mouse up,down,left, right - changes AIM of camera, up, down, left, right T, holding ctrl, move mouse left, right - changes ROLL of camera

Can you mention the file size limit (10-15mB?) and compression method you want (mpeg4?), again - please. (Unfortunately - any further compressing ain't gonna look so good)

If I look at the Thom2008 model - it appears that the body bone is placed similarly higher than the Pelvis Controller bone - just as Steve has him in his model. With Thom as well - one has to translate the Body bone , if one wants to keep the feet on the ground, while rotating the body bone, or pelvis bone. That appears to be the way the 2008 rig works - It is not a matter of FK or IK (I don't think?)

Nice Matt! Love the bubbles.

Ahhhh... tooo bad! That's a fun setup ... I really like the juxtaposition of characters. It's an interesting combo.

Yes, an action with a repeat count, like Paul suggests is the one tried and true, easiest method for most things. Eventually you might want to write an expression eg, for the swaying behavior of a bone based on sin curve and time - OR you might want to explore setting the end method for a channel's behavior to repeat . The default method is reset, & the other options are ping pong, linear, accumulate, hold. More than 1 way to skin a cat. Repeatably. Just depends on what kind of repetitive action you're needing. I've never had the need to write an expression or change end method - doesn't mean I shouldn't have. Others have done some brilliant things that way.

Mousetail using this method works wonderfully! I've tried dynamic constraints - (with spring, not spring, different drag values) - and could never get this nice kind of motion, with a shaped tail. All bones in tail are lagged by 2 frames from previous bone in chain for a total lag of 20 frames at the tip. Dynamic constraints that are baked have an advantage of being able to manipulate the bones after simulation. But are less easy to control motion. Thank You Thank You Thank you - Captain Rex for asking the question and Vern and others for providing an answer! taillagbothcompressed.mov

Yeah - I like that very much - tis most excellent, sire ! - makes me also think that might be a good technique for a lazy person, such as moi, to automatically animate a mouse's tail (and not use dynamic constraint). I shall have to try that. I will try a control bone that shall whip around, and the individual tail bones will orient like the control bone, with a lag

Funny, Kat! Good idea - (I'm guessing that's Millie Omallie passing the ball...)

Gracias, Nino - I was joking. I hope Jaff understood that, and I hope I didn't offend him. I apologize if I did. Lo Siento. I understood that the confusion was a language issue. I am always impressed when non-native English speaking members post on this forum. They (including you and Jaff) always seem to speak/write much better English than I would be able to speak/write of Spanish, French, etc. And I also enjoy very, very much, yours and Jaff's animations.

funnneee - made me laugh!

Really? I would have thought it would be much lower, like 4multipasses or 2.... you can see in the render dialogue with MP off as it says "antialiasing pass 1, antialiasing pass 2"... For quick video stuff, I've found that there is not too much discernable difference after 3 passes. Especially if you are using 'fields', which automatically doubles your render time. I believe there are 2 different methods being used for anti-aliasing when using multi-pass versus non-multipass. I don't quite understand saying Multipass-OFF is equivalent to 16 passes, although I believe it has been reported as such by others as well (including Hash?). However - I thought with multipass off - that an edge detection type algorhythm was being used to smooth the jaggies. That is the first pass is computed and the second pass examines the first pass results (in the A- buffer?) detecting changes in adjacent pixels and averages them. That's why there is such a difference in computation time. In multipass - I thought a "dithering" type algorhythm was being used. Each pass takes same amount of time to compute - but imagery is offset somehow and that the passes were being averaged together. It would be interesting to hear how the 2 are equivalent. ( EDIT - just saw Robcat's explanation - still don't quite get it.) I agree about the 3 pass - tho I can (maybe?) see a difference between 3 and 4 pass when "soften" is also selected (for 4 pass). But I sure don't see a difference between 4 and 5 pass. Maybe most differences show up if one is doing AO (which introduces a lot of noise) and one wants to blur the noise ... And then ya go and compress it all - making it all icky-yuck, no matter which method.

True - There isn't any - because - If you render with Final, No multipass - it is automatically anti-aliased. If you render with Final & Multipass & MORE than 1 pass - it will be anti-aliased - the more passes, the more anti-aliased like.

You will have much more control over the rendering settings if you click the advanced option (when you go to render) and inspect all the settings - instead of using the presets. It will be much less of a mystery as to what is really set. It's also always a good habit to check the settings before rendering.