Karl

According to this it won't work in V14 and later...

For what it's worth I just called Invision who sells the IP.Board that runs A:M Forums and it would be possible to place users into child and adult groups and not allow children into certain forums - but individual posts cannot be so restricted.

Thanks - you're right-- my intent was to point out that Sadaam was not shown dangling-- that was the worst (or best, depending on your perspective) and that was shown at the end of the cell phone footage and not in Bruce's animation. By Middle Eastern (Arab/Muslim) standards the Sadaam execution was VERY TAME. Imagine going to a Sunday church service and having arms/legs/heads chopped off as part of the service! That's the equivalent to what goes on every Friday all over the Middle East. Having witnessed numerous executions in "Chop Chop Square" in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia during the 1990's (being close enough to get sprayed w/ blood) - as well as seeing and experiencing the live and uncensored horrors of war, having worked as a Pentagon contractor 2001-2006 (far worse than the Riyadh beheadings), I THINK REAL MUSLIM/ARAB MEN AND FOR THAT MATTER REAL U.S. SERVICE MEN AND WOMEN would think we're all a bunch of not grown-up cartoon drawing wimpies!

I don't think they'd have any case because this was the sanitized video that was all over the news - now if the cell phone video had been used instead, then PERHAPS there could be an issue - just GOOGLE on Sadaam Hanging to see this - it's all over the Internet. BTW, every once in a while the issue of Hash, Inc. and A:M growing up comes up and I think this is just another case in point... Make kids register as kids and then give the option to restrict their viewing, surely this wonderful forum software has that capability.

Kids see worse than that Sadaam cell phone video all the time in video games, Hollywood PG13 movies, and cable TV... ya'll are a bunch of wimpies!

Here's the model w/ groupings: [attachmentid=22976] Here's the prop mesh: [attachmentid=22974] Here's the model and prop together: [attachmentid=22975]

I've got a very detailed photo-realistic facial mesh that I'm trying to re-fit to a 3ds prop that's a 3D scan of an actual person, I then have high resolution flat lighting orthogonal photos that I'll be using as decals... The eyes, nose, mouth, and ears are obvious things to group and move around to match their positions on the actual face, so I've made groups for these and the surrounding patches. Later on the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears will have to be tweaked, adjusted, and (possibly) remodeled (a bit) to closely match the real person - but I'm just wanting to get them into the right relative positions to start. The problem I'm running into is that as I move the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears around is that it does real "violence" to the rest of the mesh. I'm torn between deleting everything but the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears and then later just rebuilding them by carefully referencing the original model AND going through the pain of straightening out the parts of the mesh that get screwed up after moving the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. A middle ground might be to delete "everything but" and later on paste it back in from the original model and reconnect. This is a complex task and I will no doubt use Marcel's Conform plugin to handle some of the drudgery of placing CP's onto the surface of the 3ds prop. NOW IT MIGHT BE APPARENT AS TO WHY I POSTED ELSEWHERE ABOUT WRITING A WRAPPROP PLUGIN OR STAND ALONE PROGRAM. Anyway, if somebody's done something like this before or has any wise insights on how to proceed, I would very much appreciate any help/advice you can offer. Thanks!

Last time I drove from DC - now I'm living in Fort Wayne - I MIGHT still consider driving down - it'd actually be slightly shorter...

I thought it would at first too, but 2 years into it, I don't find it that big o' deal.

John Bigboote was the "winner", here's his fine work: [attachmentid=17295] Thanks Big John!

MMZ_TimeLord - What you've done looks really good! I sent the check out a couple days ago and should have something sometime in the next week or so from "the winner" - we'll have to see how it compares!

Membership is free - you have to pay the voice actors. thanks for the suggestion, but i was thinking of just swapping voices between animators, don't you have to pay for voice 123 ? You get what you paid for! If you want hobbyist quality then what you're doing would suffice. If you want something demo reel or commercial quality, then voice123.com would be one way to go... You can put scripts out for public bid there and that helps control pricing somewhat - also those voice actors with phone patches will let you remote direct.

Might try voice123.com...

I've got plenty of boilerplate for that, but thanks anyway.

This idea comes up every now and again. It seems like it's be a winner, considering the robust Poser-based trading posts out there. But everyone who tries to do something similar for the A:M community winds up disappointed. For one thing, A:M users tend to be unusually generous, as evidenced by the Extras CD project, not to mention all the tutorials and free forum-based troubleshooting. Which makes it harder to sell stuff. The other hurdle is originality. Almost no two A:M user projects are alike, and everyone wants to create their own stuff anyway. Which is exactly what A:M is designed to enable them to do. So, in a way, the marketplace idea is a victim of both A:M's versatility and the forum users' generosity. Not such a bad thing, really--though it would be nice to have, I agree... The generosity of the community in forming the community CD is admirable - but I'm not so sure that the following wouldn't work: 1. Users could try to sell any artistic product on an A:M marketplace if they want - this "marketplace" could be as simple as another Hash forum or as complex as a mini-Ebay - that'd be up to Martin. 2. If #1 doesn't work out (few or no buyers, perhaps), then at the owner's option, they could donate their artistic product to Hash, Inc for either the community or product CD. Again I think Hash should supply a Donation Agreement, just to protect 3rd party commercial use. 3. Prior to #1 - Hash, Inc. would have the option to purchase any artistic product and then incorporate it into their product CD - I know of at least 2 models (there's probably more) on the A:M product CD where such a purchase has been made by Hash. NOTE: In order to accomodate #1 above, Hash, Inc. should also provide a standard seller contract indicating non-exclusivity, with a buyer beware statement that the owner may choose to give away the artistic product at a future date, with no refund due back to buyers. Resale of the artistic product or derivatives would be forbidden and normal (U.S.) commercial rights (not f*cked up Moral Rights in Europe and elsewhere) should be set forth in the seller contract too.

Sorry Martin, but nope - I'm Mark's client for these models and I need to retain commercial rights... But his work does look great doesn't it!!?? Karl, get your value out of the props then let Mark donate them. The A:M community needs generous contributions to remain vital. Did you see what those High School kids did with the models from "Extras CD I"? Maybe there are some models in the community that you can use? Martin, Can't donate the Colt 45 because it's too closely based on an EggProps.com model. With the way our contract is structured, it'd be up to me to donate (not Mark) anyway. I may eventually choose to do this, but not anytime in the next couple years anyway... I still think you'd get more high quality models in the long run if you'd create an A:M marketplace, but I'm not going to use this opportunity to bite (or criticize) the hand that's feeding me such excellent software... (tempting though it is!)

Sorry Martin, but nope - I'm Mark's client for these models and I need to retain commercial rights... But his work does look great doesn't it!!?? BTW, the Colt 45 is based on EggProps.com's gun - Mark added the clip, and cycling actions, with appropriate internal details - as these were not in the original.

Xtaz, Cool!!! Would you please share how you accomplished this in A:M?? Meaning what features were used???

Nope.

NAN - Not A Number.

Try using blobbies.

Hey Colin - Cool! For what it's worth regarding his abdominal area... It almost looks like a cut away with a bigger body from lower rib cage and up and a smaller body from lower rib cage and down... However, from what I can see of the sides, there is a smooth blending there... Also, the joining between the head/neck and what would be the trapezius would look cooler in my mind if it was more continuous (like human anatomy) Also, one philosphical/theological question - DO DEMONS HAVE BELLY BUTTONS?

Just do a forum search on V12 cloth and/or simcloth, and then look at the tutes too!

I found it best to go thru their tutorials and then to start off by modifying existing materials. After some of that, you should have the hang of it enough to get more creative, I suspect anyway. THERE'S SOME A:M BUGS RELATED TO ANIMATEABLE TEXTURES AND TWEAKS, HOWEVER... I DON'T KNOW WHERE THESE ARE IN TERMS OF BUG FIX PRIORITY THOUGH...

You'll find creating custom materials in DarkTree much more powerful and intuitive than A:M's combiners. It takes a few hours of learning up front, but it can really be worth it in the end if you want/need sophisticated materials. I've had it for a few months and used it to create the following things, that I just couldn't get to my liking in A:M 1. Beautiful, but artificially colored eye iris's 2. Starfields with blue and red shifted stars and star to star size variance 3. Replacing skin decaling on characters with a material skin to my liking 4. A leopard skin material