robcat2075

Does anyone know a way to convert this example SWF to a conventional MP4 video file? There are several Hash Tech Talks in SWF format, which can no longer be played in browsers now that Flash is gone. I've tried several converter sites but they all fail in some way. One site I found will intelligibly play the SWF video but doesn't enable any scrubbing of a timeline. We need some way to convert these to regular video.

The Hash Tech Talk for Dynamic Constraints (and many others) can be downloaded from... The ones that are MOV format can be played in VLC media player Some of the presentations are in the old SWF format. Playing details on Tech Talk page.

Maybe we should ask @Jason Simonds what the standard login and password are to download off the Hash ftp site?

You can do this constraint in the Chor but for a use like an antenna on a character you probably want to have it ready every time you use the character so doing it in a Pose is better.

Is that a z-buffered or a ray-traced light?

Here is a simple case you can try download this PRJ... Dynamic Demo001.prj In the Chor a simple alien head is animated to wag back and forth. on Objects>Alien Head... >New>Pose>On-Off In the Pose window the antenna has three bones. One the last one >New Constraint>Dynamic Constraint In the properties for that new constraint make the following settings... In the properties for the model turn the Pose ON... Play the Chor. The antenna should bend and wave. Experiment with lower "Stiffness" settings Experiment with higher "Drag" settings

BTW, when you asked about "Spring bone" I guessed you meant the constraint that is actually called "spring" If you mean dynamic constraints that work kind of like that antenna in "Alien Song" those do work properly in A:M. Is that what you meant or did you mean actual "spring"

I'm pretty sure Victor Navonne animated that manually. It's possible we had dynamic constraints in A:M back then but I don't think he used them for that project.

I think what happens is that if a patch is so small that no "patch" shows between the spline lines it doesn't get stamped. But if you zoom in, only patches that are visible in the window get stamped. So... I turned my monitor 90° so i could get the biggest possible vertical window to fit your model. I did Recall view/position to get your original alignment. I zoomed into see just the upper left quadrant and did an Apply Then I panned around to get the other three quadrants. That's why there are four stamps. You can on a stamp and choose "edit" to see the patches it covers.

She got the "bad" acid at Woodstock!

Hi Edward, When I tried it it was the very thin or very tiny patches that got missed. Load this and see if there are any still missing... LandTest4Stamps.prj

Would you believe I've never tried that? Those were introduced as part of an early "cloth" simulation technique. There was also a wizard you used to set up a whole bunch of springs over a mesh to make it behave like cloth. But it was soon replaced with the SimCloth we have now which is much more useful. I just tried making a simple Bone to Spring constraint and I think something is broken about it. I can't select the target "spring". I'll try to make a bug report to Steffen. If anyone knows more, I'd be eager to hear it.

@createo The Live Answer Time discussion of Distortion Boxes is up. November 20, 2021 Ce n'est pas en français, mais c'est peut-être utile! https://forums.hash.com/topic/48801-live-answer-time-less-live-archived-versions/

We talked more about this Distortion Box thing at Live Answer Time today. If i get the video up I'll let you know.

FFD must be the name of the feature in the Brand X software. Distortion boxes can be created and animated as "Action Objects" in the Chor. The Box can be animated directly in Muscle mode or it can be rigged with bones adn those bones can even be SmartSkinned. That doesn't explain HOW to do it but it CAN be done. It's not simple or obvious. This PRJ show a model being distorted in the Chor by a Distortion Box that is animated with one bone with smartskin. DBTest006.prj DBoxTest000.mp4

For better previews of Materials, I prefer to put the material on my model and Use Progressive render (Shift Q) to see it rendered The window will up date as you make changes to the material.

What is an FFD?

When you are in a Smartskin window and in Muscle Mode you can use the |<< (Previous Keyframe) and >>| (Next Keyframe) buttons to jump between Smartskin keyframes. They don't always sequence in a logical order, you may need to press the buttons several times to access all of them This will work if the bone you made the smartskin for has no constraint controlling its movement. If it does, you will need to open the Pose with that constraint and temporarily Edit the constraint's Enforcement to 0%. Do this before you open the SmartSkin window and remember to set it back after you edit your SmartSkin. Never save over old work. If you make a mistake you can't undo , you want to be able to reload your previous version to try again.

Those look good! The video looks warmer than the stills, but it's all the same renders?

I was imagining something like a doctor with the mirror on his forehead but yours looks like the existing camera icon http://www.politedissent.com/images/jun10/camels.jpg

This seems like a shortcoming. There is "Use Front Realtime Light" in the Chor but nothing like that for the Modeler or any other window. Perhaps this could be extended to the modeler as a general parameter in the Options window. If it had a button,what would the button look like?

Rodger, make sure the Options>Cast Shadows>Darkness of your light is set to 100%. Although new lights default to 80%, 100%is the more typically useful setting.

Rodger, could you post your sample PRJ that demonstrates the problem? The effect in your animation is very convincing!

Where may we do this?

Hair can render faster if it has Cast Shadows OFF it has fewer Control Points it has Accurate Transparency OFF it is lit with z-buffered lights instead of ray-traced lights