robcat2075

Does this happen on all projects, even a new one? Try a Reset all Settings?

on "Materials" in the PWS and choose "Import Material". That is standard for loading any material. Navigate to where the material you want is stored and select it. A search for a file that you know the name of ("porcelain.mat") is always a worthy gambit for locating where a file is stored. I believe porcelain.mat is installed with the standard dataset In the case of my V17 the location is: C:\Program Files\Hash Inc\V17.0\Data\Materials\Geometry Don't expect A LOT from porcelain; it is able to somewhat smooth the appearance of a surface, but good splining will get you more.

In V17 you may notice some very slight changes in the default Choreography that is created if you do New>Chor - The old "Rim" light is now named "Spot". This light, shining from the front, is in the wrong place to be a true "rim" light in proper photography/lighting terminology. "Spot" will be a correct name for its function and placement in this chor. -"Spot" light's color is now white instead of orange because orange was ugly. -"Ground" is now a 5x5 grid instead of one patch. This puts some visible spline lines in shaded wireframe view, to better show the perspective of the ground plane. This also renders the placement of kleig lighting slightly better in shaded mode than the single patch Ground did. - "Ground" now has Cast Shadows set to ON. Cast Shadows OFF was causing single patch thickness models to not cast shadows on the ground, which was confusing to new users. Long ago, Martin once explained that setting Ground Cast Shadows OFF saved render time but I haven't been able to detect any savings with the current A:M. -Camera>TV Safe is now OFF. The "TV Safe" area is no longer a serious issue with modern digital video where the entire frame of video is always fully shown. You may still turn it on in your camera properties if you need it. These changes will happen only to new chors that are created, they won't affect any work you have saved and I'm not aware of any tutorials that depended upon the old chor settings. A:M creates new chors by loading the "Default Chor.cho" from the main A:M program folder. If you wish to revert to the old chor style you can rename this file to "Default Chor.cho" and copying it over the one currently in place: Default_Chor_original.cho Save a copy of it elsewhere, future A:M installers will always overwrite these standard-named files.

I screen captured some frames from progressive render. There would still be tweaking to do but this is the essential concept. HeatWave.mov The more typical CG solution is to render a pass that just has suitable gray scale particles being emitted from the jet and use that in a compositing program to drive a blur or distortion filter over the regular render.

Here's my AMReport PRJ. It works in Prgressive render! HeatDistortion.zip

I just see the barest hint of smoke there. This doesn't look like a jet engine. But you do want a heat effect? I just tried a distortion glass with a material effector added to make only part of it use refraction but i just found that material effects dont' work in final render, so that will become an AMReport

Hey, She's looking alive!

Did you check the Recycle bin? I never save any data to the C drive where the OS and programs are installed. I partition the drive so that there is someplace absolutely separate from the OS to keep my data. Then if I have to restore the OS, there's no data involved and it goes fast. When I want to back up data, I'm not backing up OS stuff.

Hooray! informal list: substantial speed improvements More robust Sub Surface Scattering usable in Groups and Materials A:M Answers ( on any property for Tech Ref entry. Not fully populated with "answers" yet but the mechanism is there) "A" button OFF warning! many bug fixes

I think he was speaking more generally about controls, Simon, can you tell more about the trouble you are having?

My own preference is not to do that, since that locks you into a particular arrangement of motion for the whole finger. I do like to make draggable poses for whole hand poses that I need frequently (for example: default open, relaxed fingers, vulcan salute, index finger point, hyper extended fingers, peace sign...). Dragging the pose onto the character quickly keys all the necessary bones and if I need something slightly different it's easy to adjust the few bones that need to be different. Video in this post

in case you haven't seen it already... a video about the ever important concept of Spline Continuity http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...st&p=365435

I will make more. Just today I was sketching out a planned sequence of lessons. But thinking it through and doing all the footage to explain it in the best way possible is a challenging task. The orphan CP I'd have to spend time trying to recreate. It's a rarity. If it happens more, eventually you'll connect it with something you have done, and tell us what it was. Trial>error>learn.

You're right, A:M is great for mechanical models too. I wouldn't model with anything else. But if you were ONLY making mechanical models then your life might go faster with an app that can, for example, automatically bevel an edge. You can make great bevels in A:M but it's not as easy as a with a strong polygon modeler. For me, it's not a deal killer, I prefer A:M when I consider all the things that are easier. I think you were really close with what you had, there were just a couple bumps to diagnose. After you have made some more models you will start to see the bumps before you hit them.

Does it not give you a save dialog at all? Try a different browser first

I think it's a case of the alpha channel not being tight enough. I took it into PS and saw there were still areas where the alpha channel wasn't quite making it to the black edge of the drawing. For a quick fix I... Under "Selection" I did "Load Selection" of the the alpha channel with "invert" checked", did "Grow" several times, Filled the selected area of the Alpha channel with black resaved Black_Dog_revisedAlpha.zip Some parts like the tassels still have a white edge, they would need to be tightened by hand some more. Also drawing a black border all around the perimeter of the figure would ensure the alpha channel is catching no white pixels.

That does look like an alpha channel problem. Can you post the image?

I hope you won't go away mad! We're all trying to help. I bring up the face rigging because I'm looking "big picture" I presume you're not only wanting to make signs, I presume you really want to make characters. If mechanical modeling is the main goal then A:M is not your best choice, if only because it does take more time to do some of the things mechanical models typically do. But i think you're not just here for mechanical models, so I point out that A:M will be the better choice for a lot of things that go into character animation. Making thin mesh models out of splines DOES require a bit more understanding of how it all is attached together. It is not as simple as straight lines connecting simple points, unfortunately. The upside of that is... it's not straight lines connecting simple points , you get a lot of shape out of a little bit of data. Have you watched my NewTAoA:M "Lesson 1"? It's free! One of my goals there is to introduce the very new user to "the spline". Future lessons will expand on that.

One way of doing wavy distortion is to model a transparent distortion glass. Wavy transparent object with refraction and no color. http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...post&p=9311 But you need to restrict its effect to the plume of the jet exhaust... hmmm....

Shorter answer to your question: No, it's not supposed to be harder, we don't want it to be harder, but it is, a little bit, for this task. We might ask the same if we were rigging a face with Blender. One of my Facebook acquaintances has been posting his progress on rigging a face he modeled. He's been going at it for weeks and can just get the mouth to open a bit satisfactorily. I can get that same thing going on an A:M face in an hour maybe: mouth.mov Blender is a lot harder for this task.

There's the core misstep at the outset... approaching splining as if it is variation of polygon modeling. A very common misstep among people who have been using polygon modelers but it's still a misstep. If you start out wrong it WILL BE HARD to get right again. No, A:M is NOT intended as the fastest modeler of angular mechanical models, although fine work is done in that area. A:M IS intended as a great platform for modeling, rigging and animating characters. That's where the thin meshes, the splines and patches become advantageous. That said, I feel comfortable making any mechanical thing I need also. Good splining IS much easier if you think through the shape of your object at the start and use strategy in placing your splines. That pre-thinking WILL be harder for some people. For me, i see the splines i need as soon as I see the object. That comes with practice. The sign post is not a bad first project. I'm sure it is taking longer than Blender but you're not a novice in Blender. How long did the first model in Blender take? And will you ever be able to model and rig a character in Blender? Really the only serious bump in the sign project was the 5-pointer that wouldn't close and we solved that one. And many lessons learned along the way.

the modeling ones are all good and fundamental. They are a good start. The animation ones are a bit basic and do not exploit the timeline as I would like to see, but no harm is done by doing the ones that are there. My own hope is to make a better explanation of rigging than "Show some backbone" but it does show one method to get a rig in a character. the ones on materials, cloth, particles are niche interests but they are decent brief introductions to huge topics.

Testing the Circus Media Cap Wizard a bit... it gives more predictable results if you use it on a spline that is on a vertical plane, a spline drawn in the front view.

Cool, John!

You must be doing it in a vary particular way. If I do that, the Five-pointer button will turn on but it still doesn't make the patch fill in.