robcat2075

For all of you embarking on character animation (That's why you got A:M) here's an opportunity to develop your eye. A Heavy Lift that doesn't look very heavy: Lifting things is something everyone should be able to do convincingly with their characters. But some basics have been forgotten. What do you see going wrong here? You can rip this one because it's not by anyone here, and it's always easier to see the log that is in someone else's animation, which makes it even more useful.

The bitmap onthe ground looks like it's been stretched to almost infinity. That might be part of it. Try a higher res bitmap and see what happens.

Fine vulture! (I hope that's a vulture) I preferred the blue, it was more cartoony.

Is there a bitmap on that ground? Are the patches on that ground large or small compared to the other objects in the scene?

unless you have dynamic constraints on other face bones, simulating dynamics shouldn't have any effect on them. make sure the origin of the first bone in your chain isn't right on the surface of the head. It should be a little bit off.

possibly simpler solution: hose.mov the hose is a chain of bones with a Kinematic constraint to follow the nozzle, but they are all also Aim At Constrained to point to the "bottom target" null to make the hose always hang down. They are also all Aim Roll At constrained to "HoseRollTarget" to keep them from flipping sometimes. "HoseRollTarget" is constrained to float 50% between the two ends of the hose you animate the nozzle first, then move the "bottom target" at each keyframe to make the hang of the hose look right. All you animate is those two bones, the rest take care of themselve. more hose bones and more spline rings would make for a smoother looking hose. MDL and CHOR you can examine. hose.zip

on the duplication or your original head? I can't tell which one you mean is not working. only when you simulate or also just play without simulating. I'm pretty sure the simulating isn't making anything shrink

yup nope

In the tech Talk on dynamic constraints I believe there is a part on chains that hang from two points, which would be what you are trying to do.

next, did you try my other suggestion:

When you load Dreadtest_NotYetSimmed and go to the front view (keypad 2) and then right-click>Simulate Spring Systems... absolutely nothing happens?

Ear flap control! I knew I was leaving something out of my face rigs!

you need to turn on "show more than drivers" for the model in the chor then navigate down to the Decals folder and down until the properties window shows "Image>Frame" that's what my V13 shows.

All hail the Christmas Snail! That looks wonderful!

Thanks. One work-around is to add a camera in a position that does give you the angle view you need (set it to non-perspective) and look thru that to animate rather than the keypad views. Keypad 1 will cycle thru all cameras in the chor.

After you get your props in the chor for the first time, save it before you do any animating. Then you can reload that initial chor when you want to do something new in that set up.

It involves adding a new chor action I think this one covers it http://www.hash.com/two/RCHolmen/shaggyanddoormp4b.mov

Wow! You've been busy! That's a very impressive first time out. You have every right to be proud of that.

make an action that keyframes that once and repeat the action in the chor.

a bitmap with stars painted on it, used as a background rotoscope won't take much rendertime. Long ago someone modeled a star sphere that modeled the points of light with tiny patches so the camera could turn to any angle. http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...ost&p=67493 but the link is dead. maybe someone has the file.

You mean you dont' see the wavy channel line? There are two buttons at the bottom of the PWS that choose the view mode. the one with red-green-blue lines turns on the channel view. the next one turns the red-dot keyframe view back on.

Sort of. A typical A:M walk-cycle is really animated as if the character were stationary on a treadmill with the feet sliding backwards. The path constraint is what really moves him forward. it sounds like you understand the essentials now.

you can keyframe "Active" on and off . In the properties for the model bone. But it will take keyframing to do it.

Here's an example of using "ease" to vary the speed of a walk. WalkVary.mov look at the ease channel for the path constraint. Notice how it can make the character slow down, speed up and even walk backwards, all without changing the original walk cycle. The properly animated Walk cycle makes this work without foot slipping. In the second half you can see the effect of an additional chor action that has keyframes on the Hip bone only. Same walk cycle but the new Hip keyframes are "added" to the old motion to alter the character's stance. and here's the PRJ: WalkVary03.zip

Restart A:M. Just curious, does it do this after every kind of render? Or only when you render to Quicktime? to TGA? to AVI?