John Bigboote

I've never used gimp before, Chrury. I would guess the test would be: A) Make your vector artwork or text...convert to paths if possible. SAVE AS: Adobe Illustrator .ai format Other applications that I know of that can make great vector artwork easily are Macromedia Flash, Adobe Photoshop, Freehand(?) and if all else fails...try the 'Font Wizard within A:M.

SURE! Here's 2 more with my 'Belle Tire' guy. The hockey one is a 'bug' that will show in the corner of the broadcast to announce a 'Belle Tire' power-play during Red Wings broadcasts...and the Baseball one shows on the Scoreboard at Comerica Park during Tiger's games. PAUL--- Yes, the flare is added in Adobe After Effects using a plug-in called Trapcode Shine... www.trapcode.com BT_BB6_whatApitchSM.mov BT_Slapshot_1SM.mov

Not 9...8. Save your AI files in the .ai version 8 (eight) format. A:M will crash on anything higher.

"LET'S GO WINGS!" as played by 'Al' the octopus...who lives in the center ice scoreboard watching the games from above...sometimes, he loses his balance and falls onto the ice during a game. CHANT_3_LGWorganSM.mov

HECK YEAH!!! I do arena work as well...AND 3D logos for television commercials. The method you mentioned is the way we do it, too. You will 'break-down' your illustrator elements and import them to A:M using the .ai wizard...which will extrude them and add bevels if you want. Then color them and apply decals/materials/color attributes. Here's a sample I did for the Detroit Red Wings that is used as a screen saver at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. I basicly imported 2 groups...the RED with all the little shapes, and the WHITE with the main unit. A little compositing in After Effects and---BINGO! I am also 'told' that it is directly because of MY animations that the Red Wings are doing so well...and that I should get MY name inscribed on the Stanley Cup should they win it. DPS_drw_logoSM.mov

Quite cool. That would be a good image contest subject...'Self-Portrait'. Yeah, we'd like to see some movies!!!

Very nice work as always Stian. And GREAT powerful subject material...are you going to accompany it with a 'Fruehauf'??? I'd be interested in obtaining this model when finished, are you planning on selling? I'm sure David Dustin would want to throw it into his collection as well...or are you making it for him?

Great Work Xtaz! I like that you do some of the interiors as well. How far will you go into automotive rigging?

Sometimes when I am 'speed-modelling' I will play Dr.Frankenstien... if I need a 3 finger hand, I'll copy/paste one from a model I did previously or maybe look thru the Xtra's DVD that comes with Hash's later versions. Do this until you are more comfortable modelling...you will learn a lot.

My interest is 'piqued'.

Sounds like a graphics card refresh issue. ALWAYS use latest versions...sometimes closing the model window and reopening refreshes things.

OH! I'm not in front of my Hash application right now so sorry. I think you need to right click 'within' the new model...meaning in the teal blue area...or on yours the royal blue area... Hope that works.

There is the Font Wizard. Make a new model. Right Clik in said new model, and go down to 'Wizards'...and the select 'Font Wizard'. That simple. You will then have a simple interface where you can type your text, select your font, and a few options for bevels. The Font Wizard works wonders MOST of the time. But because some fonts are crazy, and made by unknown sources, sometimes a little hand-tweeking is necessary to tweek the Font Wizards output. There is also the AI Wizard (Adobe Illustrator) and some folks prefer to layout their text in AI vectors...save in AI V8 format, and then import to 3D with the AI Wizard. Happy

Textures! These things rock! and I believe they are free: http://www.darksim.com/html/simbiont.html Also...when you mentioned 'AI' above...is that referring to 'ambience' as in camera ambience...or something else?

Drakheim was referring to speed increases in V14...Bendy is using V13...could be the problem. The 'trick' of setting the processors to deal with multiple versions of A:M has been around for a long while. I never really got much of a payoff from it, and I'll typically have 3 A:M's running at once...sometimes 4. But IF there is a speed difference to be attained from this method in V14, I would like to know about it!

33%...wow! By 'bind' do you mean: -Open Task Manager -RT clik on A:M icon and select 'go to process' -In 'Process', RT clik A:M and select 'set affinity' -Select processor 2 only instead of all... ???

Well...Martin's got some 'thuggs' he sends out if you do. NAW! Go ahead! Let us know which works better!

Here's an idea... contact a small music label that will let you do one of their artist's songs...maybe even get a small budget, that way, once it's done it will be legal and the company would get behind it and circulate and support it. Just an idea.

I thought AVI supported alpha...could be the type of compression specified that disallows an alpha...kinda like using 'ANIMATION' compression as opposed to "SORENSON3' in the quicktime realm- meaning ANIMATION will support alpha and Sorenson3 won't. I think AVI with NO compression will support an alpha channel.

John- I see you were able to use an animation to drive the displacement...last time I tried to do that it A:M V13.0Q would not allow me to import a sequence of 16bit .pngs....is that what you used?

Materials help for metal. Do you have the DarkSim textures? OR- try the Hash environment map...import a checkerboard image or a photo desert scene picture and set it as the map...instant coolio reflections with NO raytracing (prolonged renders) Do the same as above...make a group...make a new material...change type to Hash Inc, environment...import image...set as map...adjust all settings till 4 a.m.!!!

Just catching up on this old thread--- wow, lotta info! I heard some gossip today that one of the 'big houses' here in D-town (Detroit) is shipping off their Flame and will replace it with several seats of 'Nuke'. I had to scramble to learn what Nuke is...(Digital Domains proprietary compositing software, yet to be released.) The main reason being that Nuke makes good use of .exr's... Anyone hear about Nuke's release date? There's SURE not much about it on Google. Looks like it's high time to get going on the A:M .exr route...it's available in V13 right? Any good links to 'get up and running' tutorials???

I think I burned my hand! Where can we learn more about this 'environment shader'???

I was'nt a real big Rush fan until I saw THIS animation... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP_5Nep7VzE I look forward to your animation! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP_5Nep7VzE

Very cool! I am a big fan of multiplanes. Walt Disney would be proud!