Simon Edmondson

Nancy Thank you very much indeed for your help once again, much appreciated. I will try that presently. Pardon my ignorence but, what are the AM rules you mention. I don't mind remodelling the ears If I get it right this time, but not sure what my error was ? regards simon Ps Did you get a chance to watch Flatworld yet ?

Tested the sequence with the first model on another computer. It may be the inconsistency but nothing seems to go amiss in the eye. Bert Mini.mov Tried it with the current version of the model and theres a different glitch but hope that is corrected now ( a cp was unassigned in the left pupil ) Bert 04.mov Then tried it with the model Nancy was kind enough to rework for me. Bert N.mov the pupils penetrate the eyelids but that was down to me. Again no render glitch. I do prefer the model with displacement mapping rather than bump, largely I suspect because it masks my modeling. I think I will have to redo the blooming thing and see if I can escape the glitch. simon

Just tested it on the Mini with an older version of the model. It seems to be OK. So introduced the latest one. It has immeadiately started slowing up operation. doing a render test anyway and will post the results later. I think its time to kick this model into touch and redo. Blast !!! simon

Mark Thank you for your reply. I shall try the HD tips now, ( while testing the other on the mini ! ). regards simon

Nancy I am very grateful for your help, it is much appreciated. I would love to know what is causing the trouble so I can avoid it in the future. I am going to check on the Mini a little later with an old version of the model and, if that works, reimport it into this. The biggest problem is one of time. This has already overshot by about 6months and all the course work is piling up too. Regards simon

Mark Thank you for your reply. Good to see you too. I think I may well end up doing that as it is getting very annoying. The main worry, as mentioned above, is the sudden slowing down of the processes. It only seems to affect AM, doesn't seem to affect other programs, although I'll watch out for that now. The "beachball of destiny" is a frustrating sight ! Have you had any trouble with your Macs in a similar way ? regards simon

Nancy Thank you very much indeed for your kind help. I was unaware of the AM rules but will try to observe them in future. The Model of the Bear was developed from the Thom model on the dvd. All the groups listed are to keep track of parts before editing down later. The most annoying problems are inconsistent ones because you can never be sure you've got it. Aside from the render glitch the delayed response time is really irritating. I will try this model on another computer to see if its this one that is causing the trouble, it is getting quite old now. regards simon

I begin to wonder if I have picked up some corruption somewhere (?) Completely remodeled the eye from scratch, no decals applied. Used lathing rather than constructed patches. Put the left eye in place then copied and pasted for the right eye and put that in place. This was the result While I was working on that, it was very frustrating because everything was taking a long time and, more frequentlly than not, causing the swirling Beach ball. Just selecting a group was taking several seconds. This is not normal either with AM or this Imac. Would it be a good idea to uninstall and go for a fresh install from new ? regards simon Should add that its V17g under OSX 10.68 Just trying it with V18 f now

Nancy I had a quick look at redoing the pupils last night but didn't get very far, I've been a bit busy with other things today but will get to it again tomorrow night with luck and post the result Friday. Thank you for your Hedlp. regards simon

Nancy. Thank you. Sincere apologies, I did miss your post. I will check straight away. regards simon

Heres a non toon render of the same sequence. The anomoly is still present but not as visible. simonNon Toon.mov

Robert Thank you for your help. I found it very inconsistent sometimes it would appear on the opposite side, sometimes in the whites of the eyes, others in the pupil. It was a bit like the problem with the bear doing the slalom a while back. Then sections of the snow would appear brown for a few frames then disappear again. That turned out to be because I was using bump as well as displacement so stopped using bump.With this I tried altering the % value on the displacement maps but it seemed to make no difference to the anomoly. There was a odd moment when displacement in toon render, stopped working altogether, but I rebooted and it came back. I wondered if I had picked up a virus but checked with the Mac fanatics I know and that was ruled out. Rendered a 3 second sequence at 1080 overnight and the results were very inconsistent. Here is a qt of the frames. The section in his left pupil appears from after the second blink, disappears again, and then returns in a few of the last ones ? A puzzle. regards simonRender Test.mov Trying a Non Toon version now Will post a QT later but, it would seem that the problem continues in non toon renders as well.

David, Nancy Thank you for your replies, much appreciated. I followed up yoour suggestions and that seems to have been the problem. This was it as a quick render This was it with non toon and this was it as a final render with toon setting I will render a sequence and see if there is any variation. Thank you. regards simon

With apologies for the delayed posting, busy weekend. Went to look at themodel on another machine and the problem was not there. To try and get around it, I deleted the eye with the problem, copied the other eye ( which had no problem ) and pasted it over the problem. Went back and redid the poses with the new eye. That seemed to go well untill I tested it. This was the result Hid the rest, rendered the pupil so I rendered the eyes only No problem apparent Tried both with left pupil missing Bert 003.mdl If anyone could kindly point out the error of my ways I would be very grateful. regards simon

Robert Thank you for looking and for your help. Unfortunately I won't be able to get to it until Friday evening as I have college commitments inbetween. I will try to follow up your suggestions then Its curious because it didn't manifest itself with earlier versions and I only made what I thought were minor changes the other day. I will check on thte other machine to see if its there on that version. regards simon

Robert. Thank you for your help and kind offer. Much appreciated. I think I've sent it. Though not sure. regards simon

Robert Thank you for your reply. Heres a closeup from a camera view in the chor. As you can see, the fault occurs there too. Its not always apparent because of the scale of the image , but it is there,. regards simon

Working in V17g with OSX 10.68 Still trying to finish this project ( in amomgst a lot of other thing ) Presently putting in some blink poses an odd render problem seems to have occurred ? You can see that theres a non white sector in the Left eye ? and the boundary box around the selected CP's. If I hid the other cp's and render again this happens, No miscoloured patch. Nothing else has been changed, only the other cp's are not there. Can anyone kindly suggest a cause and solution ? simon

Nancy, Robert. Thank you very much for your help. Very much appreciated. As you might have guessed.This was V26 of the chor. There have been so many it is difficult to remember all the changes but, as Nancy suggests, there were some when I slid the keys on the timeline, although not on the model bone if I recall properly. Will have a fuller look tomorrow, personal shutdown awaits but will reboot tomorrow. regards simon

Gerald Thank you for your reply. I'm not sure it is normal (?) about two years ago I had a problem with the model bone growing and it was fixed by resetting it in the model /object area.. Since then I don't usually alter the model bone once its position, orientation and scale is set on the first frame. This is the first time I've noticed extra keys in the PWS but that might just be lack of looking on my part? regards simon

reboot ? Long enough to have some sleep overnight ! On a more serious note. The problem with the pose sliders seems to have settled with a reboot but, I was looking in the PWS and noticed some anomolies. One we've discussed before was the model bone growing during the course of the animation. Went in to check and found there some kets set that shouldn't have been there, so set about deleting them. Only for it to completely disrupt the animation. I had animated without touching the model bone, only moving the rig in the model. Despite this, the values changed over time This is the start and this is 25 seconds in You can see the differences ? When I deleted the odd keys, the orientation of the figure changed through 90 degrees from what it had been. There had been some anomolies earlier in the day when copy and pasting pose keys in the PWS which seemed to alter the orientation. But I undid those and tried again This is a bit odd ? I've embedded the files and posted it here. If anyone can have a look at it?Ska 26.prj regards simon

Robert Thank you for your reply. I haven't tried that yet. I'll have another go at it tomorrow. simon

Working in V17G under OSX 10.65 A problem not previously encountered. Going through a chor in the PWS and trying to set the keys using the pose sliders in the properties box. Working fine until, a short while ago, the mouse disappeared after every click. Went to the desktop and it was there and available, just not in AM ? Reverted to using the pose sliders window rather than properties and it seems OK. Soes anyone have any ideas as to what might be causing the problem ? regards simon

With Thanks to Nancy and rRobert for their help. Here is the test of the process in mov format simon runners.mov

Nancy. They are terrific. Great work. I can respect the skills of people who strive for 'photo realism' but, I find the variety your work provides much more engaging. regards simon