robcat2075

The essentials of A:M have been pretty constant since V5. The interface for dealing with the timeline and keyframes has changed somewhat, but for the better. The only reason I can think of for staying with V8 is if you are on Windows 95. No idea if current A:M would run on such an old OS.

oops, i guess rotoscopes do have the frame property. make sure your rotoscope is under the camera and not just in the chor.

Keyframing the Image>Frame property in a Layer seems to be the way to go. It works here in V13. If you had a video that was 10 frames long you'd keyframe 0 at frame 0, 9 at frame 9 and 0 at frame 10 , the set the post extrapolation to "repeat" make sure the keyframes are set to linear interpolation, not spline. Rotoscopes don't seem to have that property available. Last resort, edit as clip together that repeats the vid as many times as you need for your shot.

That character was made by Kevin Detwiler, one of my AnimationMentor classmates. He asked me to rig it for him and somewhere out there is his demo reel with a wonderful short he did with "Larry" for his final class project. Animated with Animation:Master, of course. I guess that would actually be the way the standard TSM2 fingers work with one bone for the whole finger. This example was the "advanced finger" option which divides the control between two bones.

demonstration: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...st&p=299043

The basic TSM2 rig controls, just in case you are confused by TSM2's non-use of nulls in the rig. TSM2ControlsH264.mov there are other nuances, but these are the basics.

Pixar made a lot of movies without any ambient occlusion, but they didn't do many shots like this either. Yeah, i think AO would help very much in a diffuse lighting situation like this. On the other hand, "morning" would have very strong, long shadows; this seems more of a midday shot.

Yup, you're missing something major since all those controls are in TSM2. It doesn't use nulls but bones are moved just like nulls. if you want a box around a bone just hit n to turn on the translate manipulator.

I might have a few notes but before I do, how about if you write a bit about what you feel is working well and what you feel is not? Now that you've had a moment to step back from it you probably have some observations.

TSM2 doesn't do the "face" rig so a symmetrical face isn't required. You brew your own face rig or adopt one from something someone else has developed. TSM2 supposes you have made you body symmetrical since it has that "Flipper" step that makes a symmetrical left hand copy of the bones. But if your left side is different you can just move the left bones into position like you did for the right ones initially. TSM Rigger ( the third step) usually doesn't care about symmetry.

If you need to temporarily turn on Pose A while making Pose B but don't want Pose B to actually key Pose A, then turn off the "Define Relationship" button while you turn on Pose A and the turn it back on while you are making your Pose B stuff. It's near the top and looks like two chain links.

Those look great. I'm surprised there's a big difference in rendering time since a hair with an image is basically a cookie cut image too.

And you can also find the models by looking on the CD in the models folder. top menu File>Open> browse to folder anything ending in .mdl is a model.

If it's genuinely inside the body it should not be a problem. Making it 100% transparent might be easier, however.

You dont' have to do TAoA:M but later when you ask a question that was covered in one of them, don't be surprised that no one leaps to answer. TAoA:M is there to get new users all up to the same basic level such that they can begin to pose more individual questions. It's true that the first group are more about animation than modeling, and personally I think modeling should have come first but they are all so brief that the precedence of one over the other hardly matters. Well, #6 is a bitch but the others are mostly brief. Most new users are eager to see something move. TAoA:M gets them there ASAP. TAoA:M isn't intended to answer ALL possible questions, it is intended to answer the initial questions that almost everyone will have. You will certainly have additional ones after TAoA:M. That's what the forum is for. Nothing wrong with experimenting. The results will be pretty evident in most of the cases you mention. And some you wont' even have to try if you've done TAoA:M because it would have acquainted you with the matter already. A simple "save" before you try something daring would be an easy solution. I frequently do daring things and always save a new version of my work before I do. You've heard my opinion about the best place to start. The accomplished users you will need the advice of later on may start to dismiss you as a problem child if you are frequently here asking questions they know are already covered in TAoA:M. Don't say i didn't warn you. Of course if you get stuck on something in TAoA:M, that's a fair thing to ask about here.

Yes, it is challenging to work in 3 dimensions on a 2D screen. Have you done the modeling tutorials in "The Art of Animation:Master"? Those are an essential starting point.

The directions for TSM2 are in the TSM2 folder that gets installed in your Hash>AM>hxt folder.

He seems to generally move with his bones but something is wrong with the knees. If I lower his hips or tilt the forward his kness bend backwards. There is some problem there. I also notice the "back" and "pelvis" bones have been moved away from the Hip Null. I believe they should all originate in the same spot. The "leg hinges" no longer reach all the way to their respective foot targets. Those are a couple things i nitice right away when I compare this to the "2001 Skeleton.mdl" on the CD. I dont' know a lot about the 2001 rig. Any reason not to use TSM2? I really think it's easier.

It's in the Options Panel. If you hold down Shift when you press the lathe button it will bring up that Options page for you.

You do need to have the muscle filter on when you hit the delete keyframe button for muscle keyframes to be removed. If you're in a percentage pose window you can use the next and last keyframe buttons to skip from on key to the next to find the one you want. And you need to have the correct filter on for that to work.

Wow, you're a character modeling machine!

Exporting to OBJ has been around for a long time. Arthur Walasek has made plugins And export to other polygon formats has been around since v3 at least.

A fine looking model.

It seems that TSM2 may create three bones incorrectly in "Rear Quad" legs that will cause them to twist weirdly when the TSM constraints are turned on. I'm not sure of the cause yet, but the fix is fairly easy. After you've run TSM Rigger*, open up the model's Bones folder in the PWS and select "body" at the very top. Hit the * key on the number pad once or twice to expand out the entire skeleton tree. scroll down to find this area for the back leg: I've noted the three problem bones with red arrows. If you select one in the PWS, and look at the model from the top you will see its roll handle is pointing off to the side: You could try to turn it forward from the top view but you can get it more exactly aligned by dragging the roll handle in the side view: Do this for all three bones. Select one in the PWS, then fix the roll handle in the model window. Do this also for the analogous bones in the "left" back quad leg. Do I need to tell you to be careful not to accidentally select some other bone when you're stabbing for that roll handle? Well, I will. Save your model again. Do I need to tell you to save it under a new name just in case you didn't do this quite right and you need to try again with your "unfixed" model? Well, I will. Now the TSM constraints should no longer cause the leg to twist when they are on. This procedure is for a quad leg that is generally oriented like a horse's or dog's leg; a leg that goes down from the body. I haven't tried this on something like an alligator leg that is modeled out to the side. When some one comes up with a case like that I will be interested in seeing what happens. *I always save the model after I've run TSM Rigger, then restart A:M and reload the model. This gets rid of most of the "string errors" that are written into the names of some of the constraints. They don't affect the operation of TSM2 but they were messy to look at.

May this be an exciting new chapter in life. You do have some money saved right?