John Bigboote

Am I the only one who did this? The moment I heard Joe Biden was to be VP for OBama- I got me a pen and paper and tried to descramble the letters of their names to spell Osama Bin Laden... (too much scrabble and the Doors music)

Can you see a clikbox for 'advanced render settings'? Click that, might not be the solution but I recommend advanced. ALSO- Are you using version 12 off the CD? (not recommended) You will want to download the 10mb LATEST version of 12 (whatever that was...l,m,n,o,p,q,r...) from the Hash FTP. G'luck!

Hillary would benefit from a McCain victory so she could run again in 2012 on the 'I told you so' ticket.

NO! This is an awesome and powerful feature Raf innovated into The Setup Machine. Simply rotate the roll-handle of the one bone and the fingers bend quite nicely! One bone better than 3!

Yup--- I voted for old H.Ross TWICE! (two elections mind you.) Bill Clinton was the only one who benefited that. But BOY! Was he ever right about the 'Giant Sucking Sound'... It is louder than ever right now. If you want to see Obama running his course of 'change' (for better or worse) you should get excited about a strong 3rd party candidate that would take away republican votes.

GREAT clinical animation... I think you may have tapped a potential HUGE market. I recently spent some time (and money) in 'the chair' on a root-canal, and though the modern dentist office is highly modern with video and computer screens everywhere, they were unable to completely describe the processes involved. Now, there were PLENTY of 'wait' times where they could have popped up a Quicktime and educated me on what was about to happen to me. I would appreciate it, who would'nt? You should discuss with your dentist the possibility of covering half-a-dozen of the most common dental procedures, and offer them to other dental offices on a CD for a nominal fee. Now that your model is done you would have quite an economy, and the D.D.S. in the credits lends credibility. If you don't I will. (Or someone. Maybe already has.)

With BOTH parties floating some pretty WEAK choices past us...maybe it's time to start thinking 3rd party?

A good choice. Your artistic ability will serve as a great foundation...A:M should serve you well. Have a look at my portfolio (in my webpage) if you have a chance...I got 'in' to A:M to do cartoony 3D animations and somewhere along the line got sidetracked to making 3D graphics and TV-commercial animations to pay the bills. Advice: Watch all the videos at hash.com... join-up with Rodney's TAOAM (The Art of Animation:Master) boot-camp program. Become a regular on this forum. Practice daily. Don't discourage. WELCOME!

I am no millionaire...but I have 'people' who watch my investments, they are called (among other things) Merrill Lynch. NOW--- we find out Obama's running mate is 'in the pockets' of the big credit card companies... THAT is toon fodder! Go git 'im, Vern.

Shadows can be turned ON/OFF group by group...no? This is my workaround...I am still waiting for someone to chime in with a !DOH! simple solution.

In McCain's defense...if I may... he has 2 residences, a cottage, and several rental/investment properties- the number of which could change at any time as he has 'people' who manage his investments. Once Obama Hussein hits his elder years, I'm sure he will have several homes as well...they USED to be good investments(in McCains day at least.) If that's all the Dems can come up with for dirt on McCain...this things over. Dig deeper! Look for homosexual cousins... geneological links to John Wilkes Booth... maybe his last name is identical to a convicted tyranical mass-murdering terrorist?

OOOPS! I missed a step... once you copy/paste, you will need to offset the new patches 'slightly' in front of the glass CP's...ever so SLIGHTLY.

Don't worry about the music...post that to YouTube and watch the hits! Can't wait to see what you do in your next movie when you slam Obama Hussein!

Wow! Way to go MMZ! The generosity on this forum brings a little tear to my eye...snurf! Well-worth $100buxx!

Jake- Hope you feel better! I recently went down the same path! The glass material is making the decal transparent. What I ended doing---copy and paste the geometry that the label is over, and make sure no transparency or materials apply to that geometry/patches. I also scaled it UP a smidge. I tried cylindrical application first, and could not get what I wanted so then I did this old trick: Make an action and flatten the label geometry so the label will apply without distorting... apply the label and assign it 'cookie-cut' so the alpha defines the shape and transparency... go back to the model and admire! HERE is the silly wine/water labels I made for some bogus products...

Could it be possible to assign a bone to the camera and then export the bones data as a .bvh? It would only hold position/rotation data and not lens info... I'd like to be able to export my A:M camera to Adobe After Effects...

Whoa---someone from TurboSquid here in the A:M forum??? WELCOME!

I've always admired those quick-sketch artists...but also wondered what kind of 'clone' school do they go to where everyone learns to draw the same way- it's kinda spooky! I think this style will translate well into an A:M character, I await the progress reports!

Seems like you want to 'nest' compositions... (put one inside the 'nuther) This is a common practice and extremely useful in (dare I say) AE... I'm away from A:M at the moment, but it seems you would want to setup your 1st chor (lets say, the table and chairs) and delete the camera and lights and save the choreography. Now in the 2nd comp (or even a different project) make a new chor and IMPORT the 1st chor. Here, you can make characters interact with the table and chairs...and the new lights and camera will be utilized. CONVERSELY, the lights and cam from chor 1 could be saved with the chor...and the new ones deleted. At least that's the way I 'think' I have done it before...

THIS has always been a recurring topic...so you may want to utilize a search on OBJ... It's hard to give a straight YES or NO answer as you may be fishing for. It depends on what you mean by 'work'... You CAN import an obj as a 'prop' into a choreography, but that's all it is... a prop. And I believe it imports without decals or shaders, so it would be a grey prop...unless you want to change the whole thing red or some other flat color... SOME PEOPLE have had success with Arthur Walesek's obj importer htx utility...but typically an obj is triangularly tessillated and A:M lokes it's 4 sided shapes... so there is a LOT of cleanup with this method. SOME models work better than others. Give it a whirl!

Yes, your mums a bit on the right side...this time. HOWEVER... I know WAY more people in the 3D business who have NO art experience than do. It is not out of the question... 3D in general combines several disciplines and you'll find you need to know how to wear MANY hats: -Artist -Animator -Sculptor/modeler -Director -Lighter -Stylist -Designer -Researcher -Technical director -Cameraman -Texturer -Writer -Actor -Producer -Editor -Sound designer/foley artist -Story teller and many more. BUT, we all have all that in us, some parts more than others!

Looks like the 'Nowhere Road'... "There's a road, in Oklahoma. Straighter than a preacher, longer than a memory."-Steve Earle Im diggin your nowhere road!

I think I'm gonna go next year...where is it in 09? L.A. I hope... (L.A. ROCKS siggraph) I mean Los Angeles...NOT Louisiana...

Chiming in late... it helps to always use a .tga as your roto image...sorry if this has already been thrown in...

It's difficult to demonstrate over the net... I'll give you the same advice I gave my apprentice, who was modeling his 1st-ever automobile and was discouraged...: Do what you have to do to finish it... just remember, it's your first attempt...it's SUPPOSED to be bad. NEXT--- try again, start over- from scratch. This one will be poor too, but will be noticeably better...THEN- do a third, and a fourth. Finish them all. By about then, you will have improved MARKEDLY and will be very happy with your modeling skill. Hate to say it...perseverance. Open-up a model from the DVD/CD and emulate what you see done there. OR- draw the splines the way you think they should go. You are starting in the right direction! My apprentice's skills ZOOMED with this advice, hope it helps you. GOOD LUCK! Keep us abreast of your progress!