robcat2075

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?

I know you're just dong a quick experiment with the model right now, but in the tuts link in my sig there are a few videos on keyposing walks that you might find useful.

Why does that movie play completely blank for me? My QT plays other H264 movies.

Hooray! Isn't that great to finally see your model move?

That's the biggest cell phone antenna i've ever seen. Looks good!

Another thing you could do is save your model just BEFORE you simulate. Then you can just reload it if you need to get back the non-on-the-fly state.

Looks great! Will it have gargoyles? That's my favorite part. I've always wondered how a stone cathedral can burn down, but somehow they manage.

Would there be a noticeable glitch if the SSS settings were different on the fingers? Less depth or whatever?

Those are good looking characters. I'll look forward to seeing them in action.

Fine looking model! However, I notice in that pic that the clouds are lit from the left while the ship is lit from the right.

I can see it and I haven't even started mine yet.

Happy Birthday, Mark and Paul, and thanks for all your fine work in A:M! The other two guys don't look like they've been around for a while, but may they have a happy day none-the-less.

They are basically the same. A layer is automatically set to 100% ambiance intensity. But a decal on a patch will allow you to set toon line thickness to 0 and toon shading method to "standard" which will make it render non-toon. Make sure that in Render Settings Toon>Override Shading and Override Lines are OFF

That looks beautiful!

An Euler limit can do that. You'd set the max and min angles for one axis to 0°. I believe it needs to be lower on the list than the orient constraint to have precedence over it.