robcat2075

This may explain why the stray ankylosauri are so hard to place at the animal adoption center. Apparently these things were elephant-sized so they probably didn't do much lunging. Herbivorous, of course; they might smash you but they wouldn't actually eat you.

Happy to see you. Ankylosaurus08TailWag.mov

I finally got to your sample PRJ. I just did a Copy Paste Mirror and it came out perfect. So perfect I was stunned when I dared open my eyes to see it. This is the best Paste mirror has been in the 13 years I've been using A:M. TSM_NotAProblem.prj I did this with only the Key Skeletal Translations, Key Skeletal Rotations and Key Model filters on. No others. I selected the Body bone Are you using the current version? Steffen did some major fixes on CPM just in the last few versions. BTW, although it's not related to your CPM problem, delete the channels for "hip int" bones (or any other "int") if they get created while you are keyframing. A side effect of keying changes in V13 makes these get keyed sometimes and they should not be. They can be safely deleted as many times as you need to delete them. I added a "deletables" tab to my "selection filters" that listed all of them so they were easy to spot and delete when I'm working with TSM2 rigged characters.

Here's the material displacement model again , with a smoother hump pattern. It's still popping, but as I watch it closely it's not like the humps are getting higher or lower, it's more like a patch on the top is disappearing and reappearing. platesAllNonEuclidH264.mov

I'm sure this will look less like a lab rat when I'm done with it.

I've never made a dinosaur before, but I want one to test out my dinosaur plate materials on.

ease is a percentage of the action that has been completed on a particular frame. Generally you leave that unset and let the action run it's course normally. I think "replace" is usual. hard to know without seeing the whole PRJ

But smooth spikes are no fun!

Yes, there are many variations possible. I didn't have an immediate use for the clouds so I just put them out there. Forum member "entity" showed a similar technique some years ago but I can't find his post. THere were also some great sprite clouds in TWO I recall.

Thanks. Looks windy! I wonder if the cape might benefit from a greater stretch stiffness setting.

I'm not sure why those bones come out crooked, I've looked at the process in the past and couldn't figure out why. The odd thing is it doesn't happen on every character. However, once you know the culprit bones it's easy to turn them the right way and resave the character.

Yes, notice the basic problem. round Thom has lots of highlights, but flat cube hardly has any. In that sample clip you showed, even the flat surfaces really had some curve in them. It's just an environment map material again on Thom and the cube. GlossyThom01.zip This has some variations of the map in it but you will almost certainly have to paint your own to work for your shot because you have a different camera angle and different motion.

What about using a 16-bit grayscale image for displacement instead of 8-bit? It's already an exr, which is to infinity and beyond 16 bit . I tried 8 bit maps first but they have too much banding when you get out to 1000% displacement levels. I know mesh resolution should not matter, but have you tried increasing it? I haven't tried on this one because on my previous experiments it seemed not to change anything. I may just have to wait for Martin to get excited about this feature again.

Good start! I'd say move the cheek bulges back a bit and they'll match your drawing more.

Octaves increases the level of detail in the greyscale pattern. But it doesn't seem any less pop vulnerable, based on my previous test using displacement material for the landscape flyover. However, the example above on the white model is bitmapped displacement not a material like the example at the very top.

That was an idea worth a try. Here the levels top out a 180 instead of 255... PlatesShallowerTestMP4.mov Still popping though... I have tried higher res and that didn't help. And the test with the material displacement would be infinite res and that still had popping too.

Tell me how this is not what you are trying to do...

It's not a new problem really. It's been around for as long as we've had this new displacement. But I still think it's about the angle the original patch is seen by the camera. Here's a test with the same rotation seen from two different angles. platesAngleComparison.mov This is v15i

Tell me more about the lighting theory. Here's a test of the bitmapped displacement model lit from two different directions. The popping still seems to be happening on the same frames. LightDirectionComparison.mov

Someone oughta compile these mac fixes into one document and get it pinned to the top of the new users forum. I worry that new users are getting needlessly discouraged over something that could be easily fixed if they just knew about it.

With TSM2 I found that if I saved right after running Rigger, then restarted A:M and reloaded the character most of the text strings would appear properly. However they are just display names, and don't affect the working of the rig. Usually it's the word "Relationship", but i forget what 4386 is.

The popping is always there. Lower displacement makes it seem less because the pop travels over a shorter distance. I can't tell that the shape has anything to do with it. I think it has something to do with the angle that the original surface is seen by the camera or possibly the angle that two details on the original surface happen to make to the camera. If the exact circumstances could be identified a fix could probably be had. None-the-less this displacement material stuff has potential, I think.

Happy Birthday and thanks for all your A:M contributions!

There are some important differences between your model and the sample you show. Theirs is all rounded surfaces which makes it easy reflect the surroundings. Yours is mostly flat surfaces which have to be precisely aimed to catch reflection. Their objects are very black which makes it easy to see reflections on it. Yours is grey, the bright surface competes with any reflections it catches. In this quick try I deleted all the groups from "big screen" and made it all black and I dropped an "Environment Map" material on it that uses the "SparkelMap05" image. Look at the map it uses and compare the colors on it with where they show up on your model in the render. If a highlight is too bright or the wrong color or in the wrong place in the render, you can edit the map to change it. You can switch out other maps in the material to see how they look. You might well paint other maps to use for other objects' reflections. This isn't real reflection, so you don't need to have Reflections on when you render unless some other model uses real reflections. It is faster than real reflection. With more study this can be improved greatly, but this is a quick example. SpecTestMP4.mov reflectPRJ.zip

My grandest material essay so far... bony stegosaurus style-plates with contrasting tiger-striped Dino-Hyde© in between. This is one color material... and one displacement material (the skin detail is very faint but it's there)... and no maps! a turn-around: platesAllDispH264.mov Yeah, it's got some pops.