robcat2075

This would probably work, but you would end up with alot of models in the chor. That's what folders are for.

How about it you made one blind model, constrained it, then put copies of the model in the chor directly rather than via an action? or... crazy idea... if you exported that building from the chor as an mdl... would that somehow consolidate things, by getting rid of the Action?

I'm glad you're on top of it, Mark! Does the thing break if you do it all in v15? (I'd try it but I'm not exactly sure what I should be trying) I'm also troubled by the Day_Night pose slider not appearing in the pose window. Do you get that?

Happy to both of you and Mediaho (Ed Lynch, another long time A:M user) too!

Is there a post somewhere that explains how the window blinds and shades and drapes operate? I see some constraints in their construction that suggest there's something already there that one could use to open and close a blind as needed, but i haven't gotten anything to move appropriately.

I was sure I had warned you off of that. D'oh!

I like that. I like houses with spooky attic windows.

I think that's a bug. You ought to be able to set that in the chor. I think you'd want to be able to animate that on and off and animate the lens flare properties in the chor much as you would want to animate other light properties like color or brightness. I've AM Reported it for v17

I see you're on A:M 2006 would that be v13 about? Messages like that were quite an improvement over the previous tendency to just disappear when an error happened. I haven't seen something like that in a long time so it's possible it's a fixed bug since then or the error message has been improved. However, for your situation... If you restart the render on that frame does it still crash? How about the frames after it? If it does, what i do is eliminate things one at a time until the frame will render then I know what the problem element is and see if there's some change that can be made to it get through it.

Fabulous! Congratulations.

This technique may be useful to you... modeling a beveled N-gon

If you model the glass dome so it has thickness like real glass would, you can avoid the fishbowl look.

Yes, that does look better! Welcome back to A:M!

Holds are easy to do. Force a key on all the relevant bones at the start of the hold, then copy and paste those keys at the time where the hold would end. If the keys are zero sloped the hold will be absolutely still, which you probably wouldn't want in finished animation. To make a "moving hold" you typically adjust some of the keys at the start of the hold so that they haven't quite reached their destination and instead nudge into it over the time of the hold. Good moving holds are tricky to do, and if you are still in the blocking stage it's pragmatic to leave them non-moving until you've ascertained you like all your acting choices and are ready to polish.

I would hope for a longer entry window. At least two months.

Where do i get the most recent incarnation of the set with all the objects external to the chor? If it's on an SVN someone email me the access info again. thanks

Good-lookin' Chaplin!

I actually liked the 3/4 view you had before better. Facing him straight into the camera is very flat. On the arms... still too busy. One tactic might be to put one hand on a hip and only gesture with the other one until you go to fold both arms together. I'm not sure what the line is... "I repeat, sir, where is the breeze?"

I'm going to stop looking... too many spoilers!

That is a normals thing. SHIFT 1 will turn the normal pointers on and off so you can see. Or you can turn off "Show back-facing patches" in your render options for shaded mode and see which ones are not pointing out.

Another well-worn animation tip is to avoid symmetrical gestures with the arms and hands. It tends to look stiff and rigid. Humans do it quite a bit but good actors generally don't. If you give one hand a prop to hold like a cup of coffee or a briefcase or have it resting on another surface it's easier think of poses that don't involve symmetrical gesturing with the arms.

Fading a decal FadeDecal.mov

I'll note that if you very much wanted to use a Darktree material and still use Nancy's suggestion to animate the blend property you coudl "bake" the material into a decal.

hmmm... it sounds like Barney Rubble a bit, but it doesn't sound like something from the Flintstones. Is it some other Mel Blanc voice? On Smartskin.. there is some coverage of that in TAoA:M , I forget which chapter. I think a fan bone at each joint might be simpler, however. A note about body mechanics... the natural inclination of the torso is for the top and bottom to act as opposite ends of a lever. If the top (the head and shoulders) goes left, the bottom (hips) go right to balance. If the top goes forward, the bottom goes back to balance. Part of the reason is that the torso is a huge mass that is difficult to move all in one direction at once. Also, because it is a huge mass we tend to keep it centered over our support point on the ground, the feet. Anther useful trick is to dip the hips slightly as they are traveling from one destination to another. Also... feet will look more natural if they are not both pointed straight ahead. The natural tendency is to point them out a bit.

Put the "Modeled, animated and rendered with Martin Hash's Animation:Master" in fine print on the copyright slide. Pixar and Dreamworks give their software a plug in their movies. You can too!