Fishman

My understanding is that the model bone is only for intial positioning. Once it starts walking around, Caroline has the right method. As far as needing to move the model bone to get the feet to go lower, most characters have the hips at the highest point in the hierarchy and if you move the hips lower then the feet targets can go lower. Of course this completely depends on how the character is rigged. It also assumes that the legs are IK. Scott

A picture would help, but I'll have a quick go at it. 1) Are the pants simcloth or modeled and attached to a bone? If they are simcloth, then look into collision tolerances. 2) If the pants are modeled and attached to a bone, they may be attached to the wrong bone. The otom of the pant leg may need to be attached to the foot rather than the leg or weighted between the two. Scott

When you say you know most of the how to model basics, is that on Animation Master? Your question about removing triangles and smoothing seem to indicate that your experience is with a polygon modeler. If that is true, then you may not be very familiar with patch modeling in Animation Master. Here is a good basic tutorial. Basic Splinemanship information - http://www.alienlogo.com/tincan/ Have you done the Art of Animation Master? Those tutorials are designed to bring you up through the different features of the program. Good Luck! Scott

Make sure that you are in wireframe display mode. Press 8 on your keyboard (not on your number pad. Scott

The more I look at this, the more I think that it is the back of the up raised hand that is driving my impression. It looks like the classic shaking your fist at God. I wonder if it would read better with the wrist turned 90 degrees? Just a thought. Scott

Two ideas. I agree with Rodney that maybe the second arm needs to be doing more. I see two arms raised and think victory. I see one arm raised with a fist and I see defiance. Another way to approach this WIP would be to post your pose and get people to read it for you. Then you can see if the message is transmitted by the pose. If you tell us what you're after, then it will be our interpretation of that concept, not yours. If you can get your poses to transmit the thought without telling us then you've succeeded. I like that you also post the silhouette. Always a good way to test a pose. Keep up the good work. Scott

I vaguely remember this is a problem with z-buffered shadows. You may want to try ray traced shadows to see if that solves the problem. Scott

I believe one of the bones on/off properties is Attach to Parent. Change it to off and you'll be on your way. If you want to change the hierarchy (if you don't want the bone to be the child of the pelvis), then you can drag the bone in the PWS to the same level (make it the child of the root or of the pelvis' parent). Hope that helps! Scott

I went looking for the old website that showed how to install the rig. It was gone. Fortunately, I found that I had saved those pages as a pdf file, so for your reading pleasure, I present - the 2001 Rig documentation! Hope this helps! Scott 2001Rig_Documentation.pdf

If I remember correctly, the small bones go with the geometry and the big bone contols them. When you rotate the big bone, it causes the small bones to rotate such that the fingers clench and unclench. Scott

There are two ways to interpret your question. If you have made half a model and are trying to mirror it to make a whole model, then you are in need of Copy Flip Attach. If you have a whole model and want to move control points on either side of the center line by moving CP's on one side then it is mirror mode that you want. If so, then the CP's need to be in the same spot on either side of the symmetry line within a certain tolerance. I believe that tolerance is set in Options. Hope that helps a little. Scott

And great food!

I'm guessing either a sombrero or a green card! ;-)

It is hard to suggest help on modeling without seeing how the splines are laid out. Take a screen shot when you are showing a solid view with splines. Then people can show you where to add splines to get the effect you are looking for. Scott

Here is the best tutorial I've seen on hair. Very clearly written, covers many aspects of hair and includes a project that demonstrates it. http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=29738 Hope this helps, Scott