John Bigboote

I think we need images... seems you would (in an action or pose) flatten the model on the Y axis and apply the decal from the top view...

Since A:M's version 9 was an unparrelled flop... and Microsoft has avoided the dreaded 'version 9' of it's OS... could A:M just skip V19 and go right on to V20?

When I think of how much modern 3D software has 'borrowed' from A:M, it boggles the mind... tops on the list... SUB DIVISION SURFACES (basically, a way to turn your polygons into Hash Patches...!) Yes, and here is the KICKER... the current version of A:M today is still, way- way ahead of it's time.

You could adjust the 'additive' brightness for brighter brights in the Chromium mat.

Looking great. Y'know, to fill in the background you 'may' be able to use the amazing background prop from the 'Bus Stop' project a few years ago... just an idea.

Cool! On the door handle and the stool base?

YAY!

Enjoying where this is going. Would love to see what my Chromium.mat would look like on props like your chair and metal objects like the doorhandle... I just uploaded it and it's maps in the Contributors Cue with my Skull model. I am reading your PDF on linearization... hmmm!

Saw those roads washing out... incredible! Hope you are well, Kevin!

Here's a basic 101... the glowing yellow sphere's can be regarded as 'spheres of influence', adjust accordingly. I left them at default settings for this example. Bone Falloff is not an alternative to weighting, rather it works in conjunction. I would weight first, as I did in this example... then set and calculate bone falloffs on a one-by-one basis.

Cool- Has a Beatles Yellow Submarine feel to it!

I'll chime in before mack can... Weighting and fan bones can be implemented at any point, I usually do it POST rigging... I am always in a constant state of re-weighting my CP's... you get it just right, then try another completely different action- reweight! Best Version? I'll leave that for mack- but since it is a newer rig, I would stay current in my A:M sub and use the latest that comes thru the mill unless you and others see problems. Most any rig can use BVH's... it's just a matter of constraining the rig to the BVH bones...

There does seem to be a disconnect between A:M and NetRender in the render settings. You may find you will want to Save a render settings file from A:M to open in NR... thus 2 files.

I think I see more actual listings for TD jobs than animators at the A-list studio level, maybe because there is an extreme over-supply of animators, while good TDs are harder to come by. It's like T-ball... the TD is the Dad who runs after the ball yelling 'did you see that?' and returns it to it's place on the Tee...so the kid can swack it out again. The Dad is the TD, the kid is the animator.

It was explained to me that reflectance is the combination of specularity and reflectivity... IF Someone could go thru and implement Yves 'path-traced PBR' renderer... no guarantee it would be any faster ... I have fun playing with Physical Based Materials (PBR) in Element 3D, there is no real brain-surgery in the way it is setup there, and you get great results and can zoom into them very close with no loss.

SO- by global ambiance, that simply means the choreography setting where you select a global color or HDRI image... if I select a color and add a value, the scene becomes less dependent on lights but does NOT become more realistic, it becomes more 'toony'(flat shadeless) if anything... maybe I need to play around more with HDRI... I know Stian uses that and gets great results... it is the method that more and more programs like Element3D use for their primary lighting... QUESTION: Is there a render 'hit' using HDRI?

I beleive I had expanded every bone that had a constraint... so if bones in that image have an arrow, there is no constraint there. The bones just appear in the list when I open it... I did not do anything to them at all.

Thanks for the elaborate answer... Yves Poissant, Yves Poissant, Yves Poissant! (trying Rob's theory...) Hope you are happy and well!

Oh yeah- you hipped me in to Lumion... did you get the newer version yet?

I have not changed my fontsize in Windows... I am on Win10 and have a dual monitor setup... either of those could be at issue. I have grown very fond of Workbook mode.

Playing with features I had overlooked in the past... I see in the Choreography that I can turn ON Radiosity. A quick forum search turned up nothing (been having bad luck with our search engine... google almost does better...) I remember back in the day Yves put TONS of time and information into this subject on the forum... is it still around? Has Radiosity improved with the newer versions of A:M as far as render times go? Is Radiosity an alternative to or does it work with A:M's lights... raytraced only? Is radiosity whats known in other apps as 'global illumination'? Now that I have NetRender maybe I can take a little more of a hit to my render times if it means more realistic renders...

I am just wondering if it is 'only me'... or if other people using 18.0M are seeing this as well... if I could get anyone else to say 'yup' or 'not happening here...'

BTW- Reset settings did not fix the render time display problem.

WORKS! thanks!

Thanks, Rob... We should all compare notes on our setups... Here's all the stuff I do after I reset my settings or do a clean install: -Introduction screen- unclick 'Show this on startup' -Tip of the Day... unclick 'show tips on StartUp'. This is very useful for newbies, but I am usually in a rush. -Libraries- close (sorry- never got the hang of it.) -Community- close -Property Info- close -Alt-1 opens Project Workspace -Alt-2 opens Timeline -Alt-3 opens Properties -Alt-4 opens Pose Sliders (all of these found under 'View' tab at top. -View- Workbook, puts A:M into 'tabbed' workbook mode. (essential!) -Tools/Customise- Commands tab, Draw Buttons... drag 'turn Decals' ON/Off' up to toolbar. -Tools/Customise- Commands tab, Draw Buttons... drag 'toggle normals' ON/Off' up to toolbar. -Tools/Customise- Commands tab, Draw Buttons... drag 'toggle particle/fur' ON/Off' up to toolbar. (it is great to have a button for these features at hand.) -Tools/Options- Global Tab- check 'particles hair always OFF' (a feature I requested that Steffan implemented! I don't know if it is working the way I envisioned it... when it is clicked, I want hair OFF when I open an existing hair project- but it is not doing that right now. It just makes for longer lag times while you wait for your hair pre-roll to compute, then you just turn hair off.) Hair can always be toggled by shift-8. -Tools/Options- Global Tab- check 'Show advanced properties' and 'Show property triangle'(what this does? idk.). -Render to File button... click advanced, apply.