robcat2075

Here's what I don't understand... If you can't import the animation into your images folder, there won't be anything in your images folder to right-click on to try to "save as animation" and you wouldn't get to to the list that doesn't have "Sorenson 3" on it. Without knowing more, at this point I'd just suggest rerendering your animation, choose quicktime not AVI, and as i noted before, if Sor3 isn't a choice for compression type, choose MPEG4. Almost anything will be a better choice than "Animation"

Here's what I said before... be very specific about what is not working for you:

inthe PWS right-click on your Force>Add Turbulence my streaks were set to "die on impact"

Since you see thru the wireframe model anyway, and since you are going to copy one half of the model to the other side anyway, you really only need to import a side view to one side. And if you did want to put it on the other side you'd have to flip it so it was oriented right. And the chances of aligning it exactly with the other view, that you can't see, are remote anyway.

try mpeg4 instead what is the full name of the file you are trying to load, including the filetype extension? Is yours a .avi or are you trying to load somethig else?

When I render at 400x225 it locks up on frame 16. But if I render at your original res of 800x450 it sails thru. Try that. If you get the same result note that in your AMReport I just tested the 1st second. 800x450_ShadowOnStarfield.mov

.mov is the usual format for movies here. Was yours .avi? you can convert it without re rendering by loading it into your Images folder in the Project Workspace, then right-clock>SAve animation As... click the ... button to change the type to quicktime and the extension to .mov click the "compression" button to pick Sorenson3. Don't pick "Animation"

I was going to test it but "STAR FIELD_01.tga" isn't in the zip. Also there are three chors in the PRJ, which one is the one that sticks? I think he meant it's "by definition" a bug.

A mere blink of an eye, in animation land time that is.

I agree, this is a bit of an overwhelming thing you have picked up. There's a lot to know. But (here it comes) start with the tutorials in "The Art of Animation Master". Actually do them, don't just look. Those feed it to you in small bits, and when you have done those you will know enough lingo to ask questions that other people here can make sense of and can give good answers to. If you get stuck on them you can ask quesitons about the tuts here too.

on the window you are seeing there is a checkbox for "Show advanced settings". check that.

"Streaks" make nice snow and if you add a turbulence to your sideways wind force they will flutter a bit. shiverst100small.mov for that shot I modeled a patch above the camera (and constrained it to the camera) to shield it from flakes that got too close to the lens.

Welcome to A:M! I'm sure the forum here will be able to answer most of your questions as you learn A:M. Collaborators are harder to come by since almost everyone who has A:M has a project of their own they are chipping away at when they can. But get started, and if you impress people you might get someone on board!

There used to be a utility called "eggslice" for just this thing. If you pivot the camera only on its axis there won't be a perspective change, but objects near the edge of the frame do get a bit stretched more than ones near the center. I bet a program that is typically used to stitch together panoramas could handle that.

You can always translate A to B as long as B is not a child of A depending on your rig that would probably not work since the elbow is probably a child of the abdomen.

That's the model bone. you can shrink it if you want by opening up Shaggy in a model window, going to bones mode and clicking on a blank spot. The black bone will appear and blink. you can now set its length in the properties window>Bone position>length to something small. resave shaggy to your HD and use that version for your work. Ultimately it's like a lot of other bones that are near other bones... be careful where you click.

are those balls originally colored in the property for the ball model or do they have a group that is colored?

Welcome back to A:M! Would that be V13? You're pretty safe with that, although there is a new liquid simulation in later versions that might serve your sludge needs well.

It's possible that A:M is just really busy and would come back if you waited a bit. What are you rendering? What is the "detail" you are varying? "Not responding" sounds like a message you'd see in the Windows task manager, but I've never seen it in a title bar.

That giraffe tut show you how to import an image as a rotoscope to base a model on. Rotoscoping for animation generally means that you have a som evidoe footage of a person doing some action, and you've converted that into an image sequence that A:M can import. That is put into a side or front view like in the giraffe tut and then you match your CG character to the image, frame by frame.

I just tried this in V13..... if I colored at the model level the colors do get lost upon export to mdl. But if I make a group for the whole model and do the color on that, the color will survive the export.

As far as just the splining task of attaching arms... you have done the giraffe tut in TAoAM, that shows how to splice on body parts, right? And there's Colin Freeman tut out there for doing a human body. Maybe that's in TAoAM now too?

Camera fog won't do that but mtpeak2 did a cool ground fog with particles , i think. I thought you were the one he showed that to already, but i guess not. somewhere on this forum that fog is.

ok, so you people are trying to change the location within the model of the model bone... during the chor? No, I don't think that can be done. You can only move the model bone in the model window and that isn't editable from within the chor. However, (and maybe this had been mentioned above already, i'm not sure) all you need to do for the same effect is add a null to the chor, place it at the place you wanted the model bone to originate from and then translate and orient constrain the model bone to that null. New pivot point! Animate with the null instead of the model bone. Bonus: you can vary the location of the model relative to the null for different situations. For example: model bone pivots near tip of gun, then Null pivots near the trigger, but say later in the shot the rifle gets dropped, and lands on the butt before falling to the ground. Move the null pivot to the end of the rifle butt and it is easy to animate the rifle falling over with the butt staying where it landed. riflepivot.mov riflePivot02.zip

if you go into muscle mode and create keyframes for the pertinent CPs they will get listings n the PWS and then you can right click on thier properties to create expressions involving them. Haven't tried it but it looks possible. But there's probably a better solution than expressions. Can you show a pic of what you are trying to do?