robcat2075

Based on a suggestion by Rodney! EggBot_Warp.mov Basically... -Create a new Action for your model -in the Action create a new Distortion Box -in the D Box's properties select a "target" bone that is parent to all your model's mesh -edit the CPs of the D-Box to make the squshing you want -drop the Action on your model (previously animated to move around in the chor) -the D Box will normally move with the model, so it must be constrained to a Null in the chor to hold it in one place ( a place the model will pass thru)

If the shield is deflecting them from the camera then it sounds like particles hitting the camera is not the problem.

Make the particles aware of objects with die on impact or collisions on.

I think this has been addressed by Steffen... at least it is in the change log... I don't see it in the change log yet. This is not #5983, the 5-pointer problem is 5987.

Good catch! IF the camera absolutely has to be where it is you could put a transparent shield in front of it to deflect the particles.

That's good news!

This problem made me worried about 3DPainter, but it seems to make a pretty good go at representing decals on 5-pointers in real-time. I wonder what it does differently?

There's gotta be something you can delete that makes the lines go away. Then you'll know!

I haven't tried your PRJ, but is it possible the frames with lines all came from the same render node(s)?

Now I'm hungry for waffles.

Good to see someone out there teaching it.

Maybe you are already doing this, but some repetitive items like individual cells could be models themselves, and you could assemble many of them in the chor to make the whole set, then you could turn their "Active" property ON when they are needed on camera and OFF when they are not visible to possibly save on render time. You can also turn their realtime visibility ON and OFF in the chor to speed up your general working. Whether this is useful depends on how much you need to be working in the whole set. Sorry you lost your previous work! That new external drive is for backups, I hope?

? a material effector

You made me dizzy! that's pretty fab, matt!

Reminds me of the aerobicise that used to run on tv in the 80's

Thanks, Jason! I think we can prune those down a bit for brevity and style but those are a good starting point. The "Tool tips" window I'll cover in my first quick start Lesson 0 so you won't need to pursue that one. I'm not going to use either the Library or Community window in any of the regular tuts so we will want coverage of those for people who are curious. Here's the question a tut on "Library" needs to answer... Why do I want to use this when i can already load files directly from my hard drive? And... If do decide to use it, how do i add things to it? I view the Library as a vestigial feature from days when new users probably didn't know how to navigate to a file on their hard drive and it had to be made visible in the interface for them. Is there a still killer use for Library today? What is it? The items in the Options window I'm going to try to cover as they become relevant in flow of the regular tutorials so let's wait on that until we know what doesn't get caught that way. However... i was thinking you were going to cover this material that I outlined earlier regarding customizing the interface.

If your ground plane has more than just the bare minimum of splines, the magnet tool could be used to evenly raise a portion.

Specularity adds almost no render time, it's a fast trick rather than a realistic calculation.

Very cool! For specularity...Of course have specularity onthe surface ON and set to a size greater than 0, but also aim a light at it that has Specularity ON. You can have a Specular-only light that that doesn't light anything but the highlight.

I didn't know Win7 could have a boot animation. How does that work?

Arthur is a creator of several import/export plugins in A:M. Happy Birthday Arthur!

I like that gif!

I would inquire with jason@hash.com for an official answer on that. The physical "CD version" could indeed be installed on multiple computers and run on any computer that had the CD in it but, last I heard, that arrangement isn't available right now. I would inquire with jason@hash.com for an official answer on that.

Hooray! I'm glad to hear we have at least partial success. Direct3D isn't available in the 64-bit versions... yet. (Quicktime isn't available in 64-bit either). Typically OpenGL works faster for everyone but if your video adapter doesn't like it, I'm glad there's still Direct3D for you. I like your transforming vehicles. Yes, a 6mb model may be a little pokey in rel time, but shouldn't be a cause of crashing in itself. The fact that Direct3D works for you and OpenGl doesn't is a strong indication that there is some sort of driver problem at work here. When you've caught your breath you might check out the other options for drivers and see if they do better.

Here's a progressive render that seems to be showing hair rendered. I turned the regular density down to 50% for that. If it is going to be a distant shot, some other strategy besides "hair" may get you better looking/faster grassland.