robcat2075

I believe the process is to drag an image onto a light.

Hey, those are wonderful entries! I'm glad we got to pick three because picking one would have been impossible! Historical trivia: I recently read for the first time an explanation about why the US Presidential election was originally a "pick two" contest in the Electoral college. Apparently, in the time before political parties existed, it was presumed that regional prejudices would be so great that no one person could get a majority in a "pick one" contest where every elector got only one vote to pick their favorite. It was hoped that by making every elector vote for an additional second person that the combination of first and second favorite votes would make one person rise to the top as an acceptable consensus choice among a majority of electors. The next highest vote getter would get the VP job. However that mechanism broke down when parties formed and explicitly nominated both President and VP candidates.

I believe this was a feature created for that studio that did "Tak" and other games. I suspect that these files were meant for use in their game engine somehow and that getting them back into A:M was not a necessary part of the pipeline. If it actually does record the lighting into a bitmap, perhaps not much further work is needed to complete the circle and a feature request to Steffen would get it done.

It looks that way on straight lines but maybe not on curves?

Yes, let us see how your project progresses!

I hope it's a pick-three vote.

Here's what is stored in an action that was created at 24 fps MatchName=X 1 0 0 ( 0 seconds) 1 1:0 0 ( 1 second + 0 30ths) 1 1:7.2250 0 ( 1 second + 7.2250 30ths equal to 1 second + 6 24ths) 1 1:15 0 ( 1 second + 15 30ths equal to 1 second + 12 24ths) 1 1:28.3375 0 ( 1 second + 28.3375 30ths equal to 1 second + 23 24ths) I presume that writing the time as seconds + 30ths was deemed to be more human readable than a pure seconds and decimal number.

Project independent, yes, although the time keeping is more exact than frames. from a previous discussion... A:M files writes those time values as Seconds plus 30ths of a second to 4 decimal places An action you made at 24fps and import into a 30fps PRJ will not place its keyframes at 30 fps intervals. It will preserve the actual time relationship between then.

That's a wonderful looking idea! I'm disappointed you didn't get to finish it for the contest.

I like that! He's kind of like those tree people in LOTR.

Eureka! I've figured out a solution to the problem that was holding me up. Somebody bring me my time machine!

I've never known enough about graphics cards to know what they really do for a program like A:M. Is there a complete copy of the 3D model in the graphics card RAM? Does it have to get rebuilt from scratch for every frame?

I'll still look at your project if you want. It's probably some small thing.

I'm afraid I had too many details undone to submit mine but I look forward to seeing the entries.

I believe that is mostly a matter of CPU speed. I don't know what the ideal graphics card RAM is for A:M, however.

I'd have to see you do it to get a sense of what's wrong. If you want to post the PRJ, I could try to look at it.

Ease... I keep saying "ease path" but I mean to say "ease parameter" clip4035EaseParameter.mov

I recall the path constraint has an "ease" property that you can keyframe to put the object at any point of the path at any time. In my tuts look for "ease" which is discussed in regards to Actions

I believe the "Take a Walk " tutorial shows how to put an object on an action.

I believe it is possible to animate the ON/OFF status of rotoscopes in the camera; storyboard drawings could be displayed that way. Also... If they were in a numbered image sequence, they could be imported that way and the "frame" parameter animated to advance them when needed.

It is possible to box select a spline and then SHIFT-select one CP on it and do a lathe, however, this lathe will be around the pivot point of the selected group. That is useful because, prior to the Lathe, you can move and rotate the pivot point of the group to get a Lathe that is not around the default Y axis.

It looks cool! I'm way behind on LEGO lore. You should add "A:M" "Hash" and "Animation:Master" tags to these videos so they might come up in searches.

Another solution is to lathe the ball with twice as many Lathe cross sections. Tools>Options>Modeling has that parameter.

You will need alternating groups. A Group is really a selection of splines and CPs rather than a selection of patches so you will need to have an unselected spline between the selected ones. Alternatively, you can make a stripe pattern like that with materials and then it can be completely independent of the mesh.