Fishman

Go into A:M, import your targa sequence and then right click on the image holder and Save Animation - this will allow you to save your targas out as a avi or mov file and then your off. Scott

If you bought the software new, it should have come with the book. If you bought it used, then you may want to contact the seller. If you cannot find it, look here for a downloadable version of The Art of A:M - ftp://ftp.hashmirror.com/pub/updates/windows/ - pick the folder with your year and download the manual. What version of the software are you using? How familiar are you with 3D modeling software? 1) If you right click in the modeling window, you can select View and then the direction you want to view from. Also, on your key board, using the number pad, you can change the view. 2 = Front View 5 = Top View 8 = Back View 6 = Right View 4 = Left View 7 = Bird's eye view You can also zoom in and out and turn you model. I recommend the video tutorials to get the feel for the interface. 2) You will assign Cp's fromo the mesh to the bones. This is covered in one of the Art of Animation Master lessons (Show Some Backbone) Scott

When you are ready to render to file, where it says format, click on the file type and change it to jpeg or tga or bmp or whatever still type you want. Scott

You've pretty much got it. If you have not done any animation, just a still that you've set up with all the lighting, then just change the frame range to start at 0:00:00 and end at 0:00:00 and it will rneder frame 0. If you've done an animation and you want to render a still from the middle of it, say frame 68, then set the frame range from 68 to 68, depending on your frames per second it will result in different looks. If you are rendering at 30 frames per second(fps), then it will read 0:02:08. You get the idea! Have fun, Scott

Ross, Typically in video editors to add audio to video you add another track. If you've brought in your video as one track, then you add your audio as another track. The you position the audio where you want it. I work in Sony Movie Studio, but most of them are the same. If you really get in a bind, do it in Windows Movie Maker! If you're on a Mac then use iMovie. Both are very similar and should be able to do all you want - add audio, ttitles, do fades. Even though WMM will only create a WMV file, I think that would still be acceptable form your submission. Good Luck, Scott

I would recommend rendering out to targas and then doing the sound in another program to create your final work. I think the TWO movie forum lists the free software that Martin had found. I know that Audacity would allow yoou to mix your sound files with varyiing levels of volume,echo effects, what ever you wanted. I think he also had found a freeware video editor. This will give you excellent control over matching your sounds to your action. It should also let you add titles, etc. Unless you have some pressing reason to do it all in A:M, do it in whatever is the easiest (especially if you are pressed for time!). Looking forward to your movie entry! Scott PS: Here's the forum topic with the free software link. http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=14452

Good Luck! Scott

There should be a folder with primitives in it. These are not parametric objects like in a polygon program. If you are making a cube with a certain size for the reason of using it as a cube, I would suggest taking the primative and scaling it. If you are using a cube as a starting point for modeling (a la a polygon program), then you probably need to go back over the modeling exercizes to get a better feel for spline modeling. Spline modeling is more like edge extrusion rather than face manipulation. Welcome to the world of A:M! Scott

You are not having computer problems. Jon's tutorial does not have any sound. It also assumes a certain amount of basic A:M skills. At one point he hovers over the Show More Than Drivers symbol on the model. This allows you to animate the rate of emmission. Did you down load Shaun's tutorial or are you trying to watch it streaming? I would recommend downloading it and then watching it. If you have downloaded it and it freezes, I'm not sure what to tell you. Good Luck, Scott

Patter, ".mat" files are procedural materials which cannot be created in Photoshop. What you have created in Photoshop is more accurately called a texture. These are applied as decals (they can aslo be used as bump and displacemnet maps, etc). See either the Fighter modeling exercise or the Giraffe modeling exercise in The Art of Animation Master. Texture files are typically stored in folders and added to the project under Images (Right Click > Add New Image) Have fun! Scott

The constraint to path is controlled by the enforcement. If you reduce the enforcement to 0, the character will no longer be constrained to the path. beware, when you reduce the enforcement to 0, the character will probably jump to where it qwas before the constraint was imposed. You should be able to move the character then. The movement along the path is controlled by the ease. The ease can be keyframed, therefor you can apply holds to the ease, etc. Checke the tutorials section of the forum, there was a tutorial for combining two actions. I realize this isn't very detailed, but the general concepts are there. Good Luck, Scott

If you are into monstrously large downloads, this tutorial is about all one would ever need to know about sprites. Good Luck, Scott ftp://ftp.hashmirror.com/pub/misc/sprites_tute/

I think I can out-nerd you here... It's years since I last played chess and I can't recall the correct shorthand, but this sequence is possible... White: King's pawn one step forward Black: King's pawn one step forward White: King's bishop's pawn one step forward Black: King's bishop's pawn two steps forward White: King's bishop's pawn one step forward Black: King's knight two steps to, erm, where it's shown White: Queen to where it's shown ...it's suicidal for the queen, but it is a legal sequence. Oh yes - before I get side-tracked - I do like the painterly look to the scene! Actually, I chose the word implausible rather than impossible because I realized that it was a legal, but bad position. Scott

I like the look of the scene! The walls look like that sponge painting my wife is fond of. Scott PS: Not to be a total nerd or anything but the chess position is implausible if white moved first (black was in check and didn't move to block it). If it is black's move, why did white sacrifice the queen? Maybe you're making a short and the queen commits suicide and the rest of the pieces try to figure out why! That's it!

I watched this several times and one of the things that struck me is that her left leg never really extends as she walks. It is still quite bent when it goes to the ground. It makes her walk like she's got some kind of physical handicap. If that is the intent, then apologies, but if not, then maybe extending that leg will make that portion of the stride less jerky. She's a cute character though! Scott

Very Nice! It looks way too clean to be any of my kids rooms, but I'm sure that is in the future. Good luck, Scott

I looked in the help file under paths. They suggest two solutions. The first is to turn off Store Roll, otherwise it tries to keep the roll handle aimed upwards which creates the effect you are seeing. The second is to use an Aim Roll at Constraint and place a null at the center of the loop. That way the camera or car will stay on the track in the proper orientation. I think the two together will create the desired effect. Hope this helps, Scott Scott

I think the way to approach this is to add some key frames when the car makes the transition from horizontal to vertical. My son ran into this once (with another program) and we solved it by key framing the camera rotation such that it forced the orientation when it tried to flip. It has to do with the camera not being able not knowing what the top of the path is, so you have to show it. Good luck, Scott

Guys, I am really sad that I missed the meeting now. My plane landed at Philly airport at 3:15 PM and I didn't get out and on the road until 4:10 PM, so I figured I missed it all. I will do all in my power to get there for the next meeting (when will that be?) if only to defend the honor of my wife's cookies. We can have a bake off! I would like to see the video when it is available. Let me know how I can get my hands on it. Scott

All MAAM members, Please do not ban me, but I will not be able to make the meeting now, therefore no cookies. I was really looking forward to the meeting, too! Maybe I'll be able to make it to the summer or fall session. Scott

Two comments on that one. The ground looks like it needs a higher res texture. The rock is extremely well detailed and the ground looks like it is blurry due to lack of resolution. Is the ground texture tiled or is it one texture scaled up to cover the whole ground. The other thing is that the top of the rock seems to not stand out from the background. That could either be the difference inthe resolutions in the textures or it could be the lighting. Perhaps if you moved the light to the left or right to shift the shadows to one side it would give some separation. Last comment - the top edge of the rock is perfectly smooth showing that the texture on the rock is a bump map. Probably not worth doing it with displacement map, but maybe the v13 pixel displacement would be a good application. There is a thread about that in the showcase section. Still love that texture job on the rock. Scott

Not sure what type of look you are going for, but here are my amateur observations. 1) The rock is excellent, it lloks like a real rock. The only thing that might make it better would be a rim light to make it stand out slightly from the background, but that is not texturing. 2) Maybe a little bit more specular on the rock, amybe not. 3) The grass looks tiled. It clearly is not grasslike, looks more like it was planted as a crop in nice neat rows. I'm guessing hair grasss would enable you to get the more natural looking variation. 4) The mushroom looks plastic and therefore out of place next to your very realistic looking rock. I think something less shiny would work better. Beautiful rock! Scott

Don, Thanks again for assuming the mantle of leadership. I will commission my wife to create one of her cookie masterpieces. (Vern, would you like me to bring a separate plate just for you?) We should probably take a gander at the Hash Frappr and see if there are any people in the area that might want to attend and mayvbe send them an invite. I saw that Mark Skodacek lives in Cranbury, NJ. He's doing all the rigging on TWO, so maybe if we beg him he would come. Him doing a presentation on applying the squetch rig would be a huge draw. 18th works best for me. Scott EDIT: Checked the Frappr - Ed Lynch is probably the only on I see that might be within range (maybe he and Zach could car pool) - Scott I guess short of searching profiles for PA, NJ, MD and DE that might be it.

Don, Would love to get together again. Weekends in February more open than in March. Once consensus starts to roll in I can be more specific. Thanks! Scott

Isn't that in the Fighter plane exercise and the giraffe exercise? Scott