GizmoMkI

All right, I got obsessed again. Might be a little too much detail on the label now for its size. I was going to do the bottle cap, but it's been years since I've worked with multiple decals placement.

It bugged me for the last three hours that I failed to include "brand" on the beer label, so here's the revised version. If I really wanted to get obsessive about it, I'd be putting in registered trademark symbols, hometown of the brewery, all that sorts of stuff. The non-script lettering is all Copperplate Gothic Light font, just different sizes and some italics. The cartoons in the corners of the label are from a font called Erotica, which I found at a font site. I still have the original zip file for it if you're interested.

All right, I've tried to save my version as an embedded project file. If the image doesn't come with it, you can at least download my label from the post above. I originally had it as a tga file and changed it to jpg for the forum post. It was a quick and dirty decal, I didn't flatten the bottle before applying, so there is a bit of visual stretch at the ends. Hope this works, remember this is in 13.0t. bottleproj_modified.prj

They're rendering in VGA mode, I usually use low resolution (320x240) for my own tests. Here's my latest render of it. Moved the Rim light back enough that the bottles were still within its field, changed Rim light to White, glow at 100%, plus my custom label decal. Render time was 21:23. And here's my label so you can see it up close: Edit: Oh bah, I forgot to put "brand" in tiny letters under the "Spleen" logo.

I'm using 13.0t, but it did render with the same results as your images. Though in the Choreography it's showing you have Glow set to 200%, not sure if that would be causing the effect, or if it's intentional. I'll try a render at 100% glow. EDIT: 100% glow, no appreciable difference except render time was about 10 minutes less. Since the label for the beer bottle was missing, I made up a dummy of my own but it didn't appear. I'll try another render with it.

Try reading what they're asking for... If you could post screenshots of what you're seeing in the program, or upload the project you're working on, that might help them too. Right now they're trying to make suggestions but you haven't given them any information on what the model is or what it's supposed to be doing, so all they can do is try to guess what your problem is.

I'd also like to see something on modeling old automobile classics of the 40s and 50s. I figure some of the techniques could be used to design retro style spaceships.

I'm going to try and get the update later in the year, but I'm wondering if the Dex and Lambrina models are included this time? Apparently the copy of v13 I got last year didn't have them on the program or extras CDs, and I've heard they're very good. Unfortunately I haven't found any images of them, and Den's site appears to be down.

No. Many of the sites I used to go to for models are no longer operating.

That's where I got the Musana Warrior. Those are all older models, and some of them might act funny in later versions of A:M, but you should be able to tweak or work around any irregularities once you learn how to use the program. If your Knight is the same Knight showing at Eggington's, then most of the models there should work. I'm guessing it's more likely you don't know enough about A:M yet to make them work, which is a problem I still have in regards to the various rigging systems. I was using the Musana Warrior years ago, when I didn't understand all of his rigging setups but would work around them to use what I could. Also, due to the many different ways of rigging a model, it's possible some .act files won't work with all models. The solution is just build a new action file, which is a little more difficult than just assigning an existing action to an existing model, but it's still something you can easily learn to do. Eggngton's is the best site I have found in terms of having a large supply of free A:M models. If you're looking for something that's not only free, but written under the latest version of A:M, you're not going to find much unless you do as someone has already suggested-- find a model on the Program or Extras CDs that you can adapt to your concept. You're asking for models that are free, so you have to prepared that it's highly likely nothing is going to exactly fit the apparently narrow definition of what you consider to be an acceptable alien. If you can't find a free model that fits your vision, then either modify your vision, or build your own alien, or come up with a new idea that lets you use the models already available. I would wager that everyone who has responded in this thread so far has been in your situation at least once, and found a way to adapt.

I found a WotW site a few weeks ago that covers various media presentations of it, and it has a variety of illustrations from those productions as well. Some of it might be useful for you to incorporate ideas. The image below is reportedly from a planned CGI version of Jeff Wayne's production. Here's a link to the story and the WotW website in general: http://www.war-ofthe-worlds.co.uk/war_of_t...wayne_movie.htm

That one user who made the negative comment shows no videos in her account at all, even though she's been a member since 2006. Looks like she's more concerned about pointing users to her MySpace account than anything else. Good luck.

It wasn't on the v13 disks, but this Musana Warrior by Joe Cosman has been one of my favorite aliens to use since I got A:M in 2000. Here he is scaled up to look menacing in one of my sets.

Two knights chasing an alien sounds like a cross-genre film. Are they 13th century knights chasing a B.E.M. from Planet X? Are they Jedi Knights chasing someone who crossed the Rio Grande into Texas?

That was great! It was really driven home (unintentional pun) by the reflections, especially in the victim car. The only thing I noticed was the car being hit didn't rock on its springs.

On the side topic of high definition, here's a site that does a discussion of wide screen theatrical formats and their conversion for television broadcast. At the bottom of page 2, there's some interesting information on how they reformatted "A Bug's Life" for TV ("full screen"). http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/ana...creenorama.html

One thing I read about the original Kirk's version Enterprise, for the nacelle effect the physical miniature used a rotating disk that had something like randomly blinking Christmas lights on it. That might work for an idea on simulating the effect. I must have seen it on Nick Porcino's site, here's the link: http://www.geocities.com/n_porcino/ Select Gallery from the menu, then USS Enterprise, then scroll down to the Nacelles section.

Three years ago, I did a modification to Nick Porcino's Enterprise model for a parody film I was making in A:M 8.5 . I had originally tried to use a repeating image file but tests were unsuccessful, most likely due to my not understanding how to make them work. My brute force solution involved creating an action file which physically rotated decaled half spheres just behind the forward engine domes. It was pretty sloppy since I was improvising and only half understanding what I was doing, but it worked well enough to make a few acceptable beauty shots. Here's the longest take on the engines. Apparently I didn't have it lined up properly because the spinning looks a bit odd, and is most noticeable from this angle. In this shot, the Enterprise was stationary, the camera is moving toward it, and 2 instances of Carmine Rizzolo's Star Spheres models are adding to the illusion of forward motion. engtest2.mov

Hi Jim! My gosh, they still have one there? I tried it a few times but it always seemed dead, I thought they dissolved it. I was using Poser when I was without AM for 2 years, and I always hated trying to animate in it since it's so inferior to A:M for character, camera, light control as well as too many other things to mention. If only I could model people as good as theirs.

All right, thanks much, MMZ. I'm really excited about getting acquainted with AM again. EDIT: I looked at the few of my older models and haven't yet noticed anything abnormally wrong with them, but they are admittedly crude anyway.

My upgrade arrived today and it's the version with the Yeti on the CD. I already have A:M 2000 (Dennis, but updated to 8.5) on my machine. Do I need to uninstall 8.5 before installing this new version? I have all my old models and related files in a separate work directory away from the program, but I'm assuming there may be some problems pulling files created six years ago into what may be a new file format. Will I need to pull in each old model I want to use, tweak them and resave before doing anything else with them? Will there be anything I should especially look out for, like missing patches?

I ordered the upgrade today, as my old version of A:M2000 had stopped working on my old machine nearly 2 years ago, and doesn't like my new machine much at all. I've been going nuts without a creative outlet. So right now I'm a bit filled with anticipation on finding out what new surprises there are, and am anxious to start working with the program again and hope to become more active back here. Looks like Hash acknowledged the order today, and I made it an overnight, so hopefully I'll see it tomorrow or Saturday. One thing I want to do is get back to work on that guy in the avatar, he was the first model I created from scratch in A:M, and it amazed me that the toon renders of him looked so much like my concept sketches. EDIT: Looks like it's going out as 2day delivery via FedEx and won't be here until Tuesday now.

After a torturous 20 months of where I couldn't get A:M to run on my clunky old computer, I now have a new machine so it's working again... but crashing a lot, even with my old models. The main problem is I have an antiquish A:M2000 v. 8.5, and the new machine runs under Windows XP. I intend to step into the 21st century with an upgrade to the newest version of A:M early next month, so I am getting excited (a gross understatement) about soon being able to start modeling and animating again. Am I going to experience a high amount of future shock when I upgrade due to all the improvements? I remember hearing about u-v mapping, and I'm looking forward to that since I've had some minor experience with it through other programs. And I've been drooling ever since seeing Joe Williamsen's Hunter dynamic demos.

Peter Jackson should hire you for his remake.

Wow. Makes me glad I don't do drugs anymore. Quite surreal, much like watching a Picasso come to life. Nicely done. Oh, and happy birthday! ;-)