robcat2075

That's something you should do after you've used a good one quite a bit. In A:M. Maybe you already have. Ok then. But if you haven't, then you are starting out with some mistaken goals. Without knowing how they are rigged, impossible to say. I'm going to guess it's the lack of a knee control. Have you watched the "Simplest IK leg" video on my tuts page? That shows a knee pointer or knee target. Which is something already built into the rigs I mentioned. BTW, there are zero animation posing situations in which you leave the feet targets away from the feet or let them stretch the legs absolutely straight. Never get into that situation and you'll never have to undo weird rig behavior because of it.

Great looking liion thing! You mean "kinematic", right? constraints have a precedence based on the order they appear in the PWS. I forget whether Higher is higher or higher is lower, but you can drag them up and down to reorder them. I'm not sure what the precedence rule is for constraints in separate poses, but I bet there is one. I bet you don't need those euler limits. It's pretty rare for a character rig to need euler limits. It's so rare that TSM2 never uses any. I dont' think Squetch or Lite or 2008 do either. What rig are you using?

A fabulous fantasia fully festooned with flirtatiously flowered, freely flowing filigreed feathers!

looks good. I guess you'll want to show a reason that the ball stops so suddenly. I bet you will.

"Ambient occlusion" is probably what you saw. A:M does that.

If Options>Rendering>Quality>Shaded and Show Decals ON doesn't do it, then maybe your decals images didn't load, or they were never applied, or something is wrong with a graphics card issue.

Neat experiment! i had sometimes thought about modeling a "splash"

I enjoyed that very much. That was a good collaboration!

I'll just interject that rendering to OpenEXR format enables all sorts of layers, like color, specular, shadows, separate lights... Fucher put up a tut on it somehere. It's a bit involved but it's powerful stuff.

That works pretty well. My main comment would be that when he first catches the bar he looks like most of his weight is behind his feet, which would make him fall backwards.

CPs are what gives a spline its shape. You pretty much need them. In the example you show it would be possible to adjust the bias of the two neighboring CPs to approximate the previous shape. Easy to do, but not automatic.

a named group will retain its pivot's special placement and rotation settings. Personally i prefer using bones for arc-like motions, as Meowx suggested. But you can retain that pivot stuff if need be.

The ultimate would be to paint your own decals, but if you want something quicker, the free darktree materials have several nice "brick"s. The darktree plugin is built into A:M. on attribute>change type to>plugin>darktree>symbiont you'll need to have the actual "shaders" loaded on your computer. Those can be gotten from the darktree site

If you're using a character with something like the AM2001 rig, that has a "balance" feature that should be turned off at the very start. It's a slider in the User properties or poses window. "Steady", "Balance", and "Balance Rigid" should all be set to 0% They were interesting ideas but more hassle than they were worth. If you're using a rig without those you'll have to describe your problem more.

polygon models (what you were trying to import) can take a very long time to finish importing. However they almost always are not made well for use in A:M. They will always need serious editing to be used. Almost everything you will find on the web is a polygon model. I have a fat guy and a carnotaur on my V9 CD. Neither has what we would today call a "rig" . Just basic geometry bones. They would be awkward to animate. Send me an e-mail.

make sure the "Key Model" filter is on and also the "Key Skeletal Translate" and "Key Skeletal Rotate filters". In the tuts link in my signature there is a vid called "keyframing options" that explains these buttons and their use.

Something is seriously wrong about the way your rig is installed or the way you are using it. I've never had those problems with any rig, even the primitive ones. I've been doing character animation for four years now and never had a reason to use IK lock. Some significant misunderstanding about using the rig is at work here. What puzzles did you have with TSM2?

If you have the rotate manipulator on , there's a little gnomon in the center with red green and blue squares on the ends. you can manipulate those to change the directions that the axa will turn.

I found several models from those choreographies which seemingly have been infected like a virus with these folders. I found this by opening them up in word pad.. Now...if you load them into other choreographies....Wamooo the folders arrive. IT IS A SERIOUS PROBLEM for me...that has the potential of shutting my production down... It's like an infection that grows. William Skype me on this

Someone mentioned a problem like this just a few days ago. Your having previously deleted a rotoscope is a new clue.

It's fixed for V15.f Cool! I was thinking I might be crazy. The thing I thought was really odd was that increasing the patch density didn't reduce the straightline jagginess.

wonderful! He looks ready to do "Puttin' on the Ritz" in "Young Frankenstein"

OK, here's simpler example... VariVase2e.zip turning pose "random bone" ON ties translate Y of "random" bone to an expression with Rand() turning pose "storer like random" ON constrains "storer" bone to "random" bone turning pose "Red like storer" ON links surface color red value to translate Y value of "storer" bone. turning pose "storer like random" OFF turns off constraint to "random bone" and forces key on "storer" to lock it in current position. mystery: once you turn "random bone" ON, the bone will continue to randomize even after you turn this pose OFF or delete its ON keys.

correction: the "2nd pose" I mention above is a regular translate to constraint, not an expression basically expressions are all about the here and now and not what happened in the last frame. I wish it worked your way. Fun fact: before I posted the old VariWinkie example i tried making a simpler example that would be easier to follow. I couldn't get it to work! I don't know why.

A:M expressions don't have "variables" in the sense that scripting languages so i don't think a purely expression solution is possible. It is possible to do this, however. For TWO, I made the generic Winkie so that any number of them could be dropped into a chor and each one would randomly choose clothing colors and then stick with that choice for the rest of the shot. This was a year ago. I forget the specifics but basically you create two dummy bones for the value you want to work with... "Randomizer and "ValueStorer" Your model has a pose that when ON activates an expression that constantly varies a "Randomizer" parameter, like translate Y value, with "Rand()" Your model has a 2nd pose that when ON activates an expression that makes "Value Storer" take it's translate Y value from whatever "Randomizer"'s is. Your model has a 3rd pose that when ON activates an expression that makes the parameter you wanted to vary-then-hold equal to whatever the Y value of "value Storer" is At the start of the chor you turn on all three poses. the parameter will vary randomly until you hit a framewhere you like the random value, then turn OFF the 2nd pose which will cause a keyframe to be made on the "value storer" bone in its current position, locking the random value. I don't recall the exact specifics but here is the variWinkie in a demo chor you can study. You will need to study it carefully since the mechanism is not obvious and I don't recall the specifics to elaborate any further.. They vary their clothes colors until frame 10 when the "storer like random" pose is turned OFF. The also have poses to self vary hair style and body proportions but I left those off here. edit: see simpler example project below