carlf

(Anybody have a suggestion about where I can get more realistically proportioned human figures to use?) Look in 'All Libraries' in the folder 'AM Extras CD Vol.1' There's a lot of good stuff in there. As a rank newbie, I'm having trouble just knowing how to use them, but even so, what I'm doing is a close-up of the legs and feet and the shoes that these guys are wearing are just black blobs. Faced with the choice of fixing the proportions of the Eddie character vs. remaking the shoes of the adult characters on the CD, I chose to stretch Eddie's legs. The CD characters seem to still be pretty much charicatures and not really well proportioned people. At least the white soles and shoe laces on the Eddie character's shoes have enough cues to read as shoes without doing that much work (I did alter them quite a bit, besides making the laces a LOT shorter.) Thanks for the suggestion, anyway. Still looking... Carl

Sorry, I missed this post until now. The problem, as I see it, is that the legs are out of scale in proportion to the feet. Scaling the whole character doesn't help that. I was able to stretch the lower legs and then readjust the bones, but it is less than perfect. I would like to understand more about the complex process of using bones so that I can know how to connect them so that they work like they should. Also, the character is wearing shorts. When his legs bend a certain way the legs "pass through" the shorts. It's not very realistic. It seems to me that this is where smart skin comes in, but again, I would like to undestand how to make smartskin work for me. I know there is a brief smartskin tut, but it is not comprehensive enough for me to understand how to make the character work better.... Speaking of better, I would prefer to have the character wear long pants. Clearly this is a more complex structure, but I'd like to get there, if I knew how. Carl

I have a piece that I am working on. I'd like to post a short movie of where I'm at, to get some pointers. How do I do that? Are there size guidelines for attachments? Carl

I'm creating an animation of a person walking down some steps. I started with "Eddie" and got him walking down the steps ok, but in scaling his feet up to what I considered to be about the right size for the steps it seems that his legs are very short. So I want to scale his legs up (longer). That screws up the bones. In trying to fix the bones I reviewed the "Show some backbone" tut. The book has more detail than the video, but still leaves something to be desired. His lower legs seem to work, but his upper legs kinda crimp. This raises a broader question. Is there a better reference available that gives a lot of detail about how to set up bones, exactly? (Anybody have a suggestion about where I can get more realistically proportioned human figures to use?) Thanks, Carl

I contacted Hash Tech Support and they got me set up with a less buggy version.... Carl

I've tried this tutorial twice. Both times when I get to where I've "copied keyframe" say, from frame 0, I advance to frame 20, go to paste mirrored, but it doesn't take. The contents of frame 15 remain. What have I been doing wrong? Carl

Thanks!!! Carl

The links to Fontwiz seem to be dead. Is there a new link or a newer utility for importing text and Illy files as 3D objects? Carl

Always glad to help! Perhaps you can point me toward instructions for realigning the manipulator handles on groups (objects I've created). As I work with them the handles seem to end up far away from where they should be. For example, I created a square rod and then rotated it to an odd angle. Now I want to change it to a rectangular cross section but I can't get the handles to cooperate. Thanks again, Carl

Hello again, I have always loved AM from afar. Then I bought AM2002 (v9.51) many years ago. I have had several brief false starts since then. I'm BACK! Hopefully I will get over the hump this time and get to cruising altitude. I have been working on a project while working through the tutorials again. I have encountered a problem. I am creating a complex structure out of a set of fairly straight-forward pieces (groups). Earlier, I had no problem creating a new group of CPs and renaming them. Now, when I try to rename ANYTHING, I get no response. I must have locked something. Also, I have taken a group and modified it (I can't rename it, but the software renamed it Group2 for me. Now I want to change its color. The color I choose shows up in the little rectangle next to the name Group2 in the project workspace, but the color of the object remains the color of the original item I started with. Moving the Group up higher on the project workspace list didn't help. (I am using the "9" key to view it) Please help me. Carl