robcat2075

It's the same idea as Malo's but I moved the centerpoint to be more like a five-pointer.

You are right that triangle patches seem to be like a 4-sided patch with one side squished together. For smoothness, I think they seem to be more of a problem than 5-pointers. I don't know how much of a problem changing the internals of 3-pointers would cause for old models? I'd draw your subdivision more like this... In the beginning of... A:M! Of course CG had polygons long before A:M. I understand Martin's first program, Animation:Apprentice, used voxels but i don't know much about it.

Look in Fuchur's signature for links to useful tools.

I think FUchur has done some thinking on it. Someone has asked about it before. It may be something that is done via the .X exporter.

try this link to the top of the thread and go to post #6 http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...st&p=286136

I just tried the link you have there and it worked and the files worked too. Try it again, maybe it was an internet hiccup.

In your screen capture the "A" key is off. Could that be it? btw, v17 now has a visible warning for that situation.

I'll note that you can put a value smaller than 1.0 in the resolution slot to get smaller maps if you need them. I haven't quite figured out what the res number means for the res you get. It seems to vary depending on the model.

You can actually change the mesh in the UV view?

It seems not to work. That might be AMReport material

I'm not sure what that means either. Those have been around since v1 in 1992 or 1993. They may have been even earlier in Animation:Journeyman, but I know nothing of that program. I recall those being introduced sometime after v5, perhaps around 1997 Martin said once here that in the beginning there were no polygons at all, ever, it was ALL splines through the whole pipeline. Later, to improve render time, temporary subdivision of the patches was added. I don't understand it all. Based on Martins' comments, A:M's renderer seems to be a REYES renderer Possibly, but it would have to be for a fabulous reason.

When you can. I think they are going into the next release already, but the sooner we know something is wrong with them, the sooner it can be fixed in a further release. thanks!

I've tentatively revised some stock A:M characters that are used in early tuts for these reasons If you have some time could you download and install the "updated.zip" data set (found at AMReport 6203)and give those characters a test on basic things like posing the bones, using the sliders, doing a Paste-Mirror, and see if they perform as expected? Also see if they are showing up in the Library as expected. I know next to nothing about the workings of the Library. If they are good to go they'll replace the flawed ones that are in the basic A:M installer now.

That's lookin' fine, Mark!

That's a cute one!

I was taking a project back and forth between v16 and v17 and noticed that I couldn't see sprites in an on-screen progressive in v16 but I can see them in v17. They show up in shaded mode in both but v16 didn't show them in progressive render. Did that really not work in v16?

fabulous! Noticeable bags under the eyes.

We'll figure something out!

Good looking shot two ideas... -I think they would look more "there" if they cast a visible shadow on the ground -The copper parts would benefit from a much wider and somewhat weaker specular highlight.

In the "Heat Distortion" Thread I posted a sample project that uses a Material effector to change the refraction value of a small portion of a lumpy transparent tube. HeatDistortion.zip The idea is that where the refraction is greater than 1.0 the lumps will bend the light and distort the background seen through the object, creating something like the wavy distortion you seen in the air above a very hot object. You may also recall a similar tactic used by Jeff Lew in "Killer Bean 2" to make the "trail" of a bullet in the air visible. However the effect only appears properly in Progressive render, not Final renders. Steffen Gross has looked at the problem and found that it will be difficult to fix (many potential side effects) but also found a simple work around: Set the "Density" of the lumpy object to some small value like 0.0001 (anything smaller than 0.01 will display as 0). That will force the refraction of the lumpy object to render where the Material Effector intends it to render. ("Density" is like Transparency but varies the transparency based on the thickness of the object. A tiny Density value will have no visible effect in most cases.) heat.mov I post this for posterity in case anyone in the future is stumped by this small render bug that may not be immediately fixed.

If there isn't a mascot contest around year's end, we ought to have some themed contest for around that time.

They said it couldn't be done! , but I haven't got a hat!

Rule of re-usable actions... Your model needs to use the same rig as whatever the Action was animated with. The head may move in your test because your head bone and the one in the Action have the exact same name. Bone names are what A:M uses to match things up.

The plugins (one for 32 and one for 64-bit) haven't been recompiled. I guess it's just crazy C++ stuff that keeps the 64-bit version working in spite of the change.

looking good. one suggestion would be to make the middle spline in the eyelids more in the middle, at the peak of the curve, and more evenly space the others. This would make the eyelids better suited for eyelid shaping.