robcat2075

Can the ears be a different group with different SSS settings?

That's just the progressive render. Final doesn't do that.

did you try the lowest res setting? you won't need much. That's unnecessarily large for what you are doing. I'm impressed it renders at all.

OK, but you're gonna be disappointed, it's completely un amazing... Syrup.mat

They both look interesting. You can get faster rendering by not using ray traced shadow lights. Use z-buffered Kleig lights. If those are materials on your landscape you can probably bake them to textures for faster rendering. (remember to take your material off after you bake)

Here's something someone should try... Make a simple PRJ that has one simple external model that it loads. save that PRJ to your central storage place. Then go to your other computer and load that PRJ from that central storage place and if you have to refind that one model, do that and then save the PRJ under a new name. Then get out a text editor and compare the file path to that one model that is in the PRJ.

Procedural neck wrinkles! update. more wrinkling...

Cutplane works on visible mesh only, so you can hide anything you don't want cut. Extrude will extend a mesh.

If your background will be blank like that then IOR may not be a factor. Your gradient combiner approach may get you more.

Aha! I was able to import them into Flash and export to AI5 from there and they do load into A:M. No guarantees here... Toyota_Flash.zip These are so much smaller than your original files that I have to think there is some export option selected wrong or an inappropriate default in your version of AI. There's no way these simple logos should be taking up 100K. But I don't have CS4 and probably never will so I can't guess beyond that

I don't have Illustrator but I couldn't even open those in Macromedia Freehand which reads AI files. Is your shape just lines, continuous closed shapes with no fills or shading or intersections? Try saving in AI5 or AI7 format. AI5 is what I've been using from Freehand.

glass is easy. model your beaker so the walls have thickness. make it slightly less than 100% transparent. give it some very slight color like green or blue give it Index of refraction more than 1.0 give it very slight reflectivity. You test the object in its setting and vary all of those to suit the look you want.

There is probably a light with shadows OFF. Or possibly you have a light aimed straight into the mouth. The eye lights should just be specular only if that's all they need to do. Or the mouth is textured with ambiance not set to zero. Less likely... the model is set to not receive shadows.

I embed when I'm doing experimental stuff with things that depend on other things, like a material that depends on how it is positioned on a model. Or if I've animated or lit something in a chor with a model, then decide I want to change the model some, but want to preserve this complete situation that was working before I lept off into the unknown and make it not work. I could save the chor and model separately and match them up later, but if they are embedded in a PRJ I won't have to figure it out. It's easier to repeat experiments or backtrack from failures if all the assets are in one file for each try. If I'm animating with assets that wont' change I only save chors. They load everything they need anyway. It might be illuminating to get a text editor and compare the path to an asset that loads on the original system with the path you have to lead it to on the other system. There's gotta be a difference. Different drive names? Different folder names? Different folder heirarchy Things like that. You might consider an SVN system like we use for the A:M movies. I just downloaded the SO archive today, loaded the one scene I'm working on and it loaded every asset with no trouble.

There used to be an "apply before" (apply after?) switch in constraints that let you animate offsets on a bone directly by manipulating it. Is that what "Lock offsets" is now?

Well, that's what my book was going to be about. Basically, it's just normal reflection. A car is a big reflective shape so you have to put things around it to reflect in it just like you do for gold or chrome objects.

My rigs are TSM2 rigs which have kinematic constraints and I'm not having trouble with them.

That's a little fuzzy, is it adding a ring? Cutplane will do that.

Can you post the character? Or just do the generic character shown in the manual and post that when you are done with it. It takes a minute to do that. Do it... what happens?

And you have attached CPs to bones?

First, regarding the mesh not moving, remember to turn the "TSM Constraints" pose ON when you put the character in a new action or chor. Or you can turn it on in the User props of the character and save teh model so it is on by default. Hidden bones...? I just rigged something with TSM2 yesterday so it's generally working. If you just open up a blank model window and run builder, flipper and rigger with no mesh or any thing, just the basic default process, do you still get absolutely no bones when you drop the model in a chor and go to skeletal mode? And what A:M version?

But it is what you are describing here... ...right?

(drag over black boxes to reveal spoiler text.) I picked only because it has a bit more of at the that suggested the was being . I think they would all be functional. I last watched Battlestar Galactica in 1979.

Is Zevel what you are describing?

This is interesting. Can you make a simple lest case that shows this? I'm not sure what you mean by "character default pose"