robcat2075

For the Bouncing ball with squetch exercises, I'd also suggest something on the scale of a soccer ball being dropped from about head height (~6 feet). Then the ball is big enough for us to think about squetch on a nuanced level.

If I'm making something with a lot of rings like a finger or a leg I like to start with a lathed shape. A:M will automatically set the bias magnitude for smooth circles with any number of CPs.

Hi David, Here are some notes... BouncingWithParabolas.mov

I was really thinking the claws should be only on the feet and leave the hands with more conventional fingers or find some way to suggest claws on a conventional finger shape.. Also, hand fingers shouldn't be all the same length or it makes teh hand look very board-like. Try making the middle longest and the pinkie smallest

I think a cuticle flap around the claw would help, and make the claw pretty stubby so it doesn't look dangerous. On the chest, why not just model another slab to put on the side?

It sounds like you got lots to get started on. Today's interface is almost identical to V12 so anything you do in V12 will transfer well when you upgrade. I will note that any A:M files made in v13 or later won't load in V12 but you'll know those when you run into them.

I think that may have run a few early betas of V13 but I don't think it ran the release versions. But you can get the final V12 from the Hash ftp site. What is on the CD is probably not the final version of V12 What do i download???? I don't have that particular CD so I can't test them. Try a few. If it doesn't say it's installing V12 you can stop it there and go on to the next one.

Glad to hear you're still on it. Eager to see the bouncing balls too.

I think that may have run a few early betas of V13 but I don't think it ran the release versions. But you can get the final V12 from the Hash ftp site. What is on the CD is probably not the final version of V12

Post (or send me) a version that has all your mesh deleted except the hand and the lightsaber and I could take a look at it if you want.

A kinematic constraint doesn't sound useful here. Just "orient Like" and "translate to" constrain the sword to the hand and then you only need to animate the hand.

The model bone is not accessible in an Action so you will have to conventionally pose the character to face ina different direction. Tell me more about the heirarchy of the "saber" to the"handle"

Maybe I don't understand what you are wanting. Are you wanting the bias handle to stay motionless even if the neighboring CPs are moved? Keeping a CP's bias numbers constant won't keep the bias handles pointing motionless.

Looks like a promising start! I think the fenders are the toughest part of a car. Try those.

Die besten Wünsche zum Geburtstag!

I suppose one person could do audio and another could do the animation. That might be the simplest form of collaboration.

For now, do you bias adjusting last and you'll only do it once.

Surely an intelligent fellow!

Simplest case, two adjacent groups will share CPs on their common side. Lots of separate groups will have CPs in common. I think Group locking and hiding would be one more thing for people to lose track of and not know what's going wrong. Interesting idea, I don't know it the math of splines allows it or not. Basically the bias handles are normally parallel to a line drawn thru the two neighboring CPs. When you "adjust bias" you are making an offset from that original default, not an absolute direction like you do in a vector program such as Illustrator. A new data element would have to be added to every CP to somehow make the bias handle ignore its natural inclinations and instead stay oriented to... the model bone? Another bone? World space? Something else?

The definition of enthusiasm!

The link at the top takes me to a done contest. How do I vote for the current one?

Very brassy looking!

You might get up the "Resource Monitor" and look at the CPU tab while you have A:M runningin the backgroudn and your other app in front of it and see if it really is getting shortchanged. I have four core so mine shows A:M at 25% when it's rendering. I presume yours should show 50%? Is it possible your laptop has some powersaving feature enabled that cuts background tasks? There may be a setting that forces it to run as if it were a desktop and not a battery powered laptop.

What version of Windows? And do you have more than one core?

Do you want them all on one plane? Select them and scale that group to 0% on the axis perpendicular to that plane.