Eric2575

Dalemation: Really a great look you achieved there with your Haunted House!! I like everything about it. My project involves a submarine coming out of the murky darkness and slowly heading past a camera very close to the water and the sub. The sub will come so close to the camera that it will completely fill out the screen at some point until it glides past. I would like to do this with similar effect and lighting that you have achieved with your Haunted House. Would you also send me a file on how to do that? Any help is appreciated. Thanks Eric

Turn it upside down, add a nice cushioned pad and you have Dr. Frankenstein's chair. Keep at it.

I'm an Immortal, I don't need no stinkin veggies...besides, my girlfriend only looks like she's in a coma

For instance: If I name a circle as pathA, a bowl (rivit) object as object to extrude onto pathA, can I control the orientation of the bowl/rivit object? I want the flat ends of the copied bowls/rivits to lie on the same plane as the pathA circle. See pic. Hope this description makes sense. Also, is there an exact way to orient the view perpendicular to a plane that is not aligned to the x/y/z planes? I've been doing it by trial and error, but I need more precision.

For instance: If I name a circle as pathA, a bowl (rivit) object as object to extrude onto pathA, can I control the orientation of the bowl/rivit object? I want the flat ends of the copied bowls/rivits to lie on the same plane as the pathA circle. See pic. Hope this description makes sense. Also, is there an exact way to orient the view perpendicular to a plane that is not aligned to the x/y/z planes? I've been doing it by trial and error, but I need more precision.

I like it too filipmun. Here is my final piece. I haven't dealt with lighting yet, so the rendering doesn't do the shape justice. It is warped on all axis, has the shape I need and looks very smooth. This is part of the Nautilus (Disney) that I am modeling as my first project. Again, thanks to all of you for your guidance.

I want to thank everybody for the great input and being patient in teaching me. This has been a very good experience. I'll post the final piece when I'm done with it.

Rob: Thanks for the brief, yet very concise explanation of the distort. I played around with it and in a few seconds had the shape to where I wanted it (will tweak it a bit later.) The ability to change the xyz box factors is great - AM rocks, this forum rocks, you rock Here is a question before I started distorting the mesh - before. The mesh was already pretty smooth, so I wanted to see what porcelain would do. See the attached pic. What is causing the unwanted distortion, and what can be done about it besides removing the porcelain? The distortion is not there without the porcelain.

Here is my latest attempt with everyone's help. Although it is very smooth, I can't brag because I still need to bend it. I'm gonna try distortion - have to find a tutorial on how to do that. Will keep ya posted.

Thanks for all the input. Ken, I know about the shift key. The problem is the slight adjustment after laying down the splines. Since the piece isn't on any axis, any movement of a cp, even if ever so slight will deform the dang thing. I can't model it on an axis and rotate it later because it is curved in two directions. The attached pic shows two attempts (out of many), one on each corner of trying to get a smooth surface at the corners. I will try all of your suggestions and keep you posted. Thank you

This has been giving me fits all night long. I can't get the surface smooth of this simple, yet compound shape - notice the deformations around the cutout. The cutout is giving me all the problems, but I have to have it there. Any suggestions on how to do this? None of the planes are flat and none are directly on the xyz plane. The piece is curved too. The picture doesn't do the shape justice. The shape I am trying to get is very similar to the rounded quarterpanel of a roadster like the AC Cobra. Who is the expert on forming sheetmetal in AM?

The spheres are cut in half and each half has 9 patches. I used a higher resolution sphere because the 8 patch sphere you mentioned tended to deform slightly. Not a whole bunch, but I didn't like the rendered result.

I have modeled every rivit on this upper structure with a small sphere. As the number of spheres increased, my copy/paste function slowed considerably. To get back some speed, I cut each sphere in half, which helped quite a bit by cuttin down on spline count. I received a suggestion that I might be able to achieve rivits with displacement maps? Take a look at my project and tell me if and how I could do this? It is important to be able to actually see raised rivits on the upper structure since close-up will be taken of it when finished. Thanks

Yes, v.11. Not blocky, resolution is fine. The CP's are actually off from where they were before. I noticed it because I was following a rotoscope in great detail. When I saved it and opened it again the next day, two CP's were a very tiny bit out of whack. I wouldn't care if it weren't for the fact that the two CP's were part of a sphere, and if the CP's are just a little off, the sphere gets distorted. I've been playing around with grouping and naming the various groups in order to hide/unhide them. Maybe I am causing the problem by not being careful enough in picking my CP's

New to AM: I'm not sure if this is the right forum to post this, but I know this is the only one I can post a pic. Usually after saving and then reopening a project will this glitch occur. Upon reopening, I may see some artifacts or slight changes in alignment that I want to correct (another glitch?) When I try to move the CP's or the CP Bias points, the Bias handles jump way off the working area and can't be brought back in line. I have to shut down, not save and start over. In the attached pic, you see a sphere that I wanted to tweak in a very close view around the bottom where all points converge. When I clicked on a Bias handle, it jumped to the point in the picture. I had to unzoom several times just to see where the Bias handle jumped to. What causes this odd behavior?

Just started learning AM two weeks ago. Am modeling this metal object as an excercise. It has complex surfaces with smooth and sharp edges (no porcelan.) All normals are facing out. Been tweaking this a long time but can't seem to get the creases out. Any help?