robcat2075

v18 does still have some larval-stage issues but if it doesn't work well for you you can also run v17 on your current license and even have both installed at the same time. We have fewer forum members today but fortunately the departed include all the "RTFM!" crowd.

Welcome back to A:M! Since you have Windows already installed... go for Windows. That's my advice. Mark Largent, AKA largento on the forum, has used both and is none-the-less pleased with the Mac side I recall. The Mac version is not 64-bit. I believe it is possible to ask Hash to extend your license to work on both Windows and Mac on the same computer. If that is important ask before you buy at support@hash.com

the monitor is just a monitor, but there's a lot of software that has to happen to read the position of the pen at the monitor and turn that around into something that is displayed on the monitor. If I sweep my pen across the width of the monitor over one second the cursor will be about an inch behind. I'm sure there must be some lag in the mouse also because that is something that needs to be computed too, but I don't perceive any lag as I move it around.

Did we ever figure out if Emilio is contactable? If he is perhaps the code for the plugins could be had for Steffen to update.

It's faster than anything that existed when this Cintiq was built 11 years ago. There's no way it's below the requirements for normal operation of this thing.

Is it anymore than a Cintiq? My Cintiq already has pretty noticeable lag. That's interesting. I'm getting calluses on my left fingers from cello playing.

Here is a "hexahedronical" sphere all done in A:M... 1- extrude out a simple 6 patch cube. 2- use Splitpatch to subdivide that. I unpeak all the center splines. 3- I scale out all the face center CPs until the centersplines are circular. 4- I scale in the original 8 corner CPs until they lie on the proper sphere radius. (eyeballed this) 5- SplitPatch twice for more density. It can be done!

The Julian Fong Sphere is different from Matt's. Matt's does not have any triangle patches, while Julian's does. Julian's would be more correct splining however. Here is something similar to Matt's made in A:M. The simplest possible all-4-point sphere is made manually, then subdivided 4x4...

A former manager of mine once noted that whenever he cut a client a deal in the hope of future work, it never resulted in future work. It seems a lot of big VFX companies have gone broke on that plan.

For the hexa-thing did you start out by manually making the simplest possible version of that topology and then subdividing?

the best way to map a sphere is to cylinder- or sphere-apply a decal rather than trying to unwrap the mesh to accept a planar-applied decal.

Good to hear you're still here.

Nope, nothing arrived here. Another mystery!

Pitcher, I guess the test PM i sent you never arrived?

I've been able to make most inquiries I've gotten over the last 15 years very brief by saying they would need to pay 1/3 up front. If they can't pay anything up front they probably won't pay anything ever.

You're doing something wrong that is making this 100x more difficult that it needs to be but words are not telling me what it is. If you could send me the PRJ i would look at it. There absolutely is a reason for what ever is happening but I can't figure it out without seeing it. On the bubbles... here's what sprite bubbles might look like: bubbles.mov That's got to be easier than animating bubbles by hand. Here's the PRJ that makes that. bubblesdemo03.zip

It sounds like an interesting problem but i don't understand enough from the description. If you could make an example PRJ that has the problem I could look at that. However... if bubbles are what you want... particle sprites using a bubble image would probably do well for you.

Here is the PRJ with the material for further experimenting... chess pieces5.prj Note that displacement materials require multipass rendering to work properly. I'm not sure why that is.

Yes, a displacement material could work also. Last time I checked, displacement materials needed an unusual arrangement of surface normals and displacement percentage to shade right, but once you get that right they can work too.

How about something like this?

Ya know... I bet one could make a material that would give a low density A:M model that faceted/carved look. Hmmm...

The thread where I found that mentioned. Contains some useful ideas... Getting Tank treads to work...

Tank treads are a bit tricky. A solution with Path constraints is probably the easier to understand for new users, but still tricky. Here is an old, old tut that visits the problem Sherwood Tank tut (Some parts of the A:M interface may have changed since then but the concepts are still valid.) Give that a look and if you get stuck or have questions, be sure to ask!

Don't be shy about getting your address in! Your DVD is already paid for and remember... A DVD isn't truly happy until someone watches it.

I'm glad you got this going, Will! This is a strong opener.