Eric2575

Tanner: I got the answer: Go to the hair material and select hair emitter. On the properties pane for the hair emitter select hair direction and enter 0%. Us hair guys gotta stick together, ha ha!

Hey Tanner: if we both yell loud enough, maybe someone will hear our cries of grooming agony? What really gets me is the fact that the model imports into a new project nicely groomed in the modeling window, but is a mess once pulled into a new chor. Come on guys, surely this has happened to some of you old pros before? What are we missing here? I can't afford to take my model to Beverly Hills to get her hair done, so how's about an answer here??

I understand dynamic options to be used when you want gravity, mass, drag, forces, etc to be part of the mix. I want that, so I have dynamic options set on. It is also my understanding that pre-roll allows one to see the hair the way it would look after all those dynamics have been applied. If you have dynamics turned on but don't have a pre-roll value, then you would not see the effect. In any case, just to eliminate preroll and dynamics from the occasion, I turned them both off/0 and still have no updated groomed model in the chor. I even started a new project file and imported the groomed model only to find that it too does not show the hair to be groomed in the chor window. Any other ideas?

It's not the pre roll, I set that at 3:00. Closing the chor and re-opening it doesn't work either, nor does it update if I close AM completely and re-start. Below is a comparison between the modeling window and the chor. This is after I closed AM and re-opened the project file. I know it's a little hard to tell that I did any grooming, but you can still tell that the hair is not the same in both windows.

While working on a new WIP, I started playing around with hair. In the modeling window I groomed the hair just like I wanted only to discover that the grooming does not translate into the chor. In the chor the model looks just like it did before I groomed it. I have to mention that the model was already in the chor before I groomed it in the modeling window. I say this because I just did an experiment where I made a new chor and imported the groomed model into the new chor. This time the grooming transferred into the chor. I would have thought that hitting the spacebar would update the model with the grooming intact, but it doesn't. Is there another way to update grooming done in the model window? Should grooming be done in the model window or the chor? It seems it should be done in the modeling window so the groomed model can be imported into other scenes with hair intact.

The answer depends on what you are trying to achieve. In your example, I am going to assume you want the decal to cover the whole patch with just one image of the caterpillar? If so, then you should just hold down the shift key as you are positioning the decal until you resize the decal to fit entirely over the patch. Once positioned, hit apply and you should have just the one decal showing - make sure repeats is set to 1x1. I have always done it this way and have never actually used repeat. If you want a decal to repeat, you must use a seamless decal. AM will not automatically make a seamless decal out of one that isn't seamless to begin with. Your caterpillar image is definitely not seamless. Do a search on the forum or the web on how to make seamless decals. Bitmap plus is a plugin that Marcel made (hope I recalled that right) that does wonders with repeating decals. Hope that helps.

Yes, glow is set on, but I also have a dedicated light (light lists) shining directly on the nacelles to keep them bright no matter what other illumination is present.

Hey fellow Nor-Cal guy: thanks fot the koodos! I'm from Orangevale here in Sacramento. Nice to know there is a fellow Hasher nearby.

Mike: I got the same impression as you when I viewed the avi, but I didn't expect much with just a quick test. The model really needs at least 5x multipass to really shine. I want to make a flyby with lights blinking and shadows moving, but that needs to cook overnight if I am going to do the multipass avi. Ruscular: The bay doors are inside the saucer just out of sight from these angles. It would be easy enough to make them function, but for now I have no plans to go much further with this project. Matt: The planet is a background image from NASA. I was going to model the planet but didn't have enough time to make it as realistic looking as I wanted to before the deadline came up. A while back I read a post on making planets with a gradient material. The material was mentioned and a pic was shown, but the details were not posted. I had a nice planet going with high def surface maps, but the clouds and the halo atmoshpere were being stubborn. Now that I have time, I am going to follow up on that post and see if I can get details on the gradient for the atmosphere.

Thought I'd post a thread here since the NX-03 is still a work in progress. I tried to use several different techniques in making this model. One of them I used for the first time and now I wonder how many possibilites this opens up - boolean cutters. I used booleans to cut out the shuttle bays on the left and right side of the saucer and again to cut out the sections that have the aft thrusters. The shiny metallic look is accomplished with spec intensity and spec size maps. I was surprised at how much I had to crank up the values to get that effect. There are also several normal maps to get the plate line definitions and of course the model is composed of several parts that are pulled together by action objects. Oh, yes, I tried using light lists, which I did, but found that putting lights in the model and then using light lists was more stable than just lights and light lists in the chor. I had many crashes when I tried just the light lists in the chor. Anyways, I'm still working on the bottom saucer decals and will post as I go. Here is a quick flyby: Challenger Thanks for the votes.

EXR decals?

No, your texturing job on this is outstandingly amazingful! Coming along really nice, keep it up.

I don't know if this is an existing comic character, but I think red eyes could be very interesting. Otherwise, awesome!

That looks terriffic!!! I've been away from the forum for a long time, is there a thread you guys have that describes your progres on how you textured that incredible spaceship? You should enter that in one of the image contests. Love it.

How about a few black powder burns for very close calls? A few shrapnel chips out of the armor here and there? Otherwise not bad t'all. Is this an existing Star Wars armour design or one you came up with? And for god's sake, dirty up those boots a bit. Haha

Go mixed for sure. Not too much, just to give it some more variation like you did above. Looking real good.

Looks pretty good as is, but I would texture the buckle(?) on the right breastplate separately. As it stands now, the texture on the buckle looks like it should be scaled down. My dime's worth.

I had to look twice to make sure I wasn't looking at a polygon model - damn, that's a lot of splines. Could you post some renders when you first started to model the face? I'd like to see some progression shots.

First of all, you must mean "seams." Second, post a pic of your work including a shaded wireframe. Third, have you done the tutorials, including "Cooper", and the giraffe? And last, have you searched through the forum for tips and tutorials? After all that, we'll look at your splinage and post comments.

Really nice work Jody. Maybe when you're all done, we can take my Saleen, add your Bridge, and make a poster for Hash's trade shows. Keep up the good work. -Eric

What kind of background do you have? I mean, have you done any drawing, any 3D work, anything along those lines? It really helps if you can visualize something in 3D before creating it. If that's not the problem, but rather the AM interface itself, then I agree with all previous posts (well, I agree with them no matter what) and advocate persistence and starting the WIP thread. Have you posted the chapter excercises in the beginners forum? There is lots of feedback and great examples there. Also, check out the projects and models that came with the AM cd. It really helps to reverse engineer them and see how other 3D artists have accomplished their work. One more thing, visit the Hash forum regularly and see what other people are doing and coming up with. If you come up against something that really has you stuck, you can usually do a search here and find that someone already went through what you are stuck on and has found a solution. I believe everyone who is doing really great work here has gone through some frustrations in the beginning just like you are experiencing now. Get over the hump and you'll amaze yourself and everyone else. I amaze myself every day. I haven't been able to amaze everyone else yet, but I'm working on it Eric

Should the windshield have a bit more of a curve as seen front to back? I'm not sure, just seem to recall the windshield looked like half a bubble.

My "one of those things" bin is almost overflowing. Gotta go unload that sucker soon!

Have you got painter yet? When will we see him bumped on the head?

Dhar, I had a light above the ceiling as a sun shining through windows and door, but decided to delete that and use other lights inside the room instead. Here is the thread: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=23734&hl= The scene is actually looking pretty good to me right now. Martin: Ooohhhhh, is that what Render lock is for? I thought it was a security measure to keep Render away from unauthorized users What's the best way to model/texture a ball of yarn?