robcat2075

Show a few seconds of animation. We can gauge the behavior better.

Now that I think about it more maybe an easier option is to rig the sides of the book with dynamic bones. It might just take two or three on each side arranged like bird wings.

Open. Think fire and brimstone preacher...Holding it with his thumb in the middle. quick movements and jabbing motions with the book I've done a shot where the character moved the book and turned a page and the pages were manually animated, but that was a bitch to do. A cloth solution would be my first gambit. I'd make a simple two open pages put of stiff cloth, animate the character gesturing with thatand then when the animation was done, constrain a more fully modeled open book to the two cloth pages.

Is the book open? Closed? Is he just waving with it?

If I have baked the particles in my scene, am i supposed to leave "render particles" ON when render or turn it OFF?

That looks good Mark! I think the large shadow area on the left need some sort of fill so it's not so dark and less flatly shaded.

I have dim memories of those shows!

Dali-esque

Lovely!

"Play with The Force values, Luke"

It's amazing it works at all! It is possible to copy a keyframe from one PRJ, load a new PRJ and paste the Keyframe onto the same character. Try doing that in any other software! However, without watching you do it i don't know what filters you have set, nor how fully keyed the bones are keyed in each case. For example, if you copy a key from a bone that has translation keyed but is still unkeyed at it's default rotation, and paste that onto a bone that has translation and rotation keyed, you'll get the new translation but no new rotation. What you are trying to do is far beyond the scope of "It's a pitch" which is intended as a bare introduction to keyframing. My suggestion... bite the bullet, pick one PRJ and redo the missing pose and then continue on. Lesson learned and the extra practice posing the character will do you good! Also, watch my "Keyframing Basics" video, in the tuts link in my signature, for further explanation of keyframing workflow and info about filters. I hope to cover the topic better in a NewTaoA:M segment, but that's for the future.

Now over 70,000

Cool! Looks breezy!

I wish we could identify why the lines happen when they happen.

I spotted one at 0:20 and a few later. I dont' see any correlation between the lines and any keyframes. It can't be a Force because there's no force in the chor. Since they are rather infrequent and the particle effect is brief, I'd say paint the lines out of the affected frames and hunt for the cause later. That will get your shot done today.

When do they happen? How much do i have to render?

Try loading this and see if the particle keys work. Sparks4_explosion_fina5x2.prj

the MaryKate model has lots of references to decals from somewhere but I'm never asked to load those ?

Something is looking for something.

If I load your original file into a text editor and change MatchName=Shortcut to Material1 MatchName=Streak Emitter to be like this MatchName=Material1 Name=Shortcut to Material1 MatchName=Streak Emitter and load that into A:M, then your original emission rate keys are recognized again.

If you start a blank project, save it and reload it, you still get that?

looking at teh PRJ in a text editor I see that the channels that are being ignored start ike this... MatchName=Shortcut to Material1 MatchName=Streak Emitter the channel that is being recognized starts like this MatchName=Material1 Name=Shortcut to Material1 MatchName=Streak Emitter I'm not sure what that means but it's a clue.

the "Shortcut to Material1 " that has the grey gear icon is the one that is being ignored.

There's stuff missing. It wants me to find a file with no name... I'm also missing "Shortcut to Material1_0.par" that's a baking file. Can you put up a PRJ that doesn't need either of those, then I'll know I'm testing the same thing you are. Going ahead I found i could make a keyframe to reduce the emission rate to 0 and it woudl survive a save and reload, but it was in a new "shortcut to", the original one is being ignored. I have seen this before. We should ascertain the circumstances that cause the original material channels to be ignored. Is it because it was baked at some point??

I tried to do your listed steps as I interpreted them but I don't get lines. Post your version of the PRJ that does it and then we'll know.