Bendytoons

spot on, I do this all the time.

Steve, Highlight the choreography in the PWS, right click, select plugins from the drop down and choose simulate simcloth.

I'll post a link in the off topic section when it's available

So, I just finished a banzai weekend doing the 48hr film project. Among other things (I was the DP) it was my job to do the credit sequence. The trick was that although I was allowed to create objects and images ahead of time, the animation all had to be completed within the 48 hrs. In fact, because I was DP, and due to the nature of the project, I actually had to create them Sunday morning. My solution was to do a credit sequence that required very little keyframing and used simcloth to do the hard labor. I am attaching the final sequence and the project (minus images) ready to simulate. I thought this came out pretty cool. endcred_low.mov credit_sequence.prj

If particles can be included in an alpha channel, render one sequence with an alpha channel and make is a layer or rotoscope in front of the other sequence (which woudl also be a layer or rotoscope.) If they can't... hmmm... BTW, if you are resaving any of your TGA sequences as QT and need to preserve an alpha channel, "Animation" codec is the only one that supports an alpha channel. As I recall particles cannot be included in an alpha channel. The workaround I used was to rerender the scene with the particles in a white bg with black particles (or black bg, white particles), and use that as the mask.

before you click on the bone in the foot you need to turn off compensate mode. It is the little button with grey and red boxes next to the magnet button.

Rob, I think the written information is helpful and clear. I think your chart is a bit confusing. I think it would be clearer as a linear chart, one step to the next, without the branching, even though that means you would repeat most of it several times. Alternately you could lay out your branching chart in a different fashion that creates clearer distinction between the branches. Don't get me wrong, it works as is, but visually I think it could be clearer. my 2c, Ben

It will be greatly improved by ambient occlusion. That will darken the corners and the spots where the beams hit the floor and ground everything better. my2c

They have transparency, it is built into the action. That is how they disappear when the cycle is done. The "solid" frames are about 50% transparent, but you are right that they still look a little solid.

And now with a little more clean up and a streak system to put a few more drops in the background. test06.mov

Thanks to Mark's catch, the rain in Spain now falls ON the plain. test04.mov

Thanks for that catch. Sometimes you can't see the skeleton for the splines.

Here's another shot of the same rain. I added a second flock for drops on the ground. test03.mov Here is the project rain4.prj There is a problem with the flock to surface constraint. The drops conform to the shape of the ground, but float quite a ways above it.

So, it's raining in Asheville and I got inspired to revisit an old approach to making rain. This is done with a flock of animated rain drops. I't's just a proof of concept for this approach to rainmaking. test01.mov Here is the project. rain2.prj

It is exactly like buckling a swash, but the other way around.

You'll need to use an external application like Syntheyes or pfhoe. If you want to know about them just search the forum for those keywords, they come up in a new thread every six or eight months.

I thought that while I was watching, but was really glad you did it the way you did. I often realize the need for a fan bone after I've already rigged and your method of hiding and unhiding the rig is obviously the easiest way of dealing with that. Its good to see someone else's work flow, it reminds y0u of other ways to do things.

Really good TSM tutorial, Robert. Thank you.

Matt- Just did a quick check. apply hair material to model/group. add decal to same model/group. Change decal type to other. The properties driven box (right below where you've changed to other) should now present you with a pop up list of properties yo can drive with the image.

sexy... for a plant.

Stride length is limited to actions. It is not available in chor. actions. However...right click on the chor. action in the PWS and you can save it as an action. Then you can open that action and use stride length.

John- To clarify, are you talking about lights showing interactively in the choreography, or light showing in a rendered image? If the issue you are having is in the interactive choreography it is probably an issue with memory available to your graphics card. If it is in rendered images then something is wonky in your procedures, as I don't think A:M should have any trouble with rendering that many lights.

Awesome. Everybody like butterflies- crunchy on the outside, gooey on the inside. But I hate when wings get stuck to the roof of your mouth.

Everyones advice is good, but if you want to do a gallery show I would recommend a higher resolution than others are suggesting. A couple of years ago I mounted a show of panoramas between four and eight feet long. I found that with archival quality prints (I used an epson 2400) I wanted to print at 600 dpi to get the best image quality. This does make the images harder to work with in Photoshop and requires a lot more render time, but you can't go wrong with higher quality.

You cannot animate the position of a decal, but you can use an animated image as a decal. Clever application and tiling of a decal should let you create an image like the chain example.