robcat2075

This isn't exactly an introduction to the curve editor (which is accessed by pressing the button with the RGB lines on it) but it shows manipulating the shape of the curves with the bias handles. CPs can be peaked or smooth, just like in models. http://www.hash.com/two/RCHolmen/biasmagnitudeMP4Low.mov Someday I'll do a bouncing ball tut that covers all this but I haven't done that yet.

The "takeoff" looks odd, partly because the spacing is inconsistent and partly because there's no anticipation prior to leaving the ground. Anticipation is a later lesson , however. A more typical gambit is to have the ball enter from the side, near the apex of a hop, or just start from high and fall into the first bounce. the first two hops look good, none-the-less. Are you actually keyframing on every frame? That's a worthwhile exercise and not far removed from what 2D animators have to do anyway but the magic of CG is that by editing the "curves" you can get A:M to properly place those inbetweens and to whatever precision required. But maybe you haven't been introduced to the curve editor yet. Working on a bigger scale would make sense because the long graceful hops you are doing wouldn't be possible for a ball that is only getting 2cm of altitude. And fewer decimal places are needed. But I'm a little doubtful that a distance of less than .01 cm is the problem, I suspect some other error. No, if this helps you make sense of why the motion is the way it is, then it's good. Eventually you get so you can eyeball this stuff.

Hold on. I'll try to make a demo later to day using your character. I'm not saying it's easy, but it doesn't get any easier than TSM.

besides the special cases of a cone or a cylinder it's probably topologically impossible. yes. I'm pretty sure that's standard practice. However.... There is an "A:M Paint" program you can find discussed somewhere on this forum that allows you to paint on the whole model in 3D. Sounds like a bargain at $99

I see quite few things not done right. For example "torso" has been changed to be a child of "pelvis". It needs to be a child of "body". That's how TSM built it. I also see that the Foot IK Control bones have been moved to be children of the lower legs. They need to remain at the very top level of the heirarchy. Also CPs have been attached to the control bones that Rigger makes. No. You attach CPs to the bones that you have after you run Builder and Flipper. Thy will get hidden after you run Rigger, but they are the bones that the CPS go to. Similarly I see that the fan bones aren't part of the geometry bone heirarchy. You've been attaching them to the control bones that Rigger makes. That wont' work for long. I'm sure there are other things I haven't caught. I'd have to really dig into it to figure out why the legs fly around, but I know that doesn't happen in a regular TSM rig. In the TSM2 folder inthe Hxt folder in your AM folder there is a manual that explains the workflow for installing TSM2. I recommend starting over and installing TSM the way the manual shows. Dont' guess. Don't try to skip steps. Not following the steps in the manual is making it WAY harder than it needs to be.

If it works it works, but it really ought to work with "replace", so to me it's still a mystery.

A TSM2 character doing a squat. TSMsquat.mov the PRJ: TSM2Squat.zip I hope this ends the controversy. But seriously... you gotta be more specific about your problem. I've done walks with TSM2. It's just fine. There are some videos in the tutorial link in my signature about making walks. There's also a vid about "Keyframing Options" there you should be familiar with before you try something like a walk.

While you're on this... is there a shortcut key to change the timeline from the keyframe view to the spline view and back?

my signature at the bottom of my posts

There's a better one on that in the tut link in my sig..."KeyFraming Options"

I understand that it would be uneconomical to continue stocking low-volume products. Perhaps we could persuade Anzovin to put their out-of-print CDs in some sort of on-demand CafePress situation (CafePress does do data CDs) where they could still make money off each sale and yet not have to manage the order taking and duplication.

Thanks! I just realized I made one major misstep while I was doing that... I should have done my CP assigning and weighting before I ran TSM rigger. Then I wouldn't have had to turn on and off any geometry bones; it would have been far simpler. I think I got used to doing my weighting after Rigger for some reason on another project, but generally that's the wrong workflow. Ultimately I got everything assigned ok, but it would have been easier if I had done it before running TSMRigger.

You can still resell the originals! If you've absorbed the knowledge, might as well let the CDs enlighten another person.

William Gaylord made a cool five-legged creature. This is one way one might rig such a character with TSM2. Not the only way... just one way. Errata and correction I noted below but I'll copy here just in case some one doesn't read the rest of the thead:

Even though a CD is out of print, it's still under copyright and the whole thing about not selling it for money doesn't negate that. (No one needs to chime in to tell me the law should be changed, I already know everyone thinks it should be changed. I'm just saying. The Anzovins made some really good instructional material; pirating them now seems wrong) Hopefully there can be a way to make the Anzovin CDs available again. Anyway, once you get to know your way around the software, a good, wide-ranging reference on how to animate well is Richard Williams' "The Animator's Survival Kit". It can be had for under $20 on Amazon. On the face of it it is a book about 2D animation, but good motion and good poses are good motion and good poses in any medium.

Things I notice, without them necessarily being the reason... -you're on a Mac rather than a PC -you're working in the Timeline Window timeline, rather than the PWS Window timeline -your new chor action was called "2" rather than "1" -when you force the keyframes, the feet shift, but don't look like they have actually gone to the default position. For example the left foot is pointing down which is not its default orientation. But after you walk Shaggy back a step and then forward again to the transition point the foot isn't pointing down anymore. I wonder why it changed. Embedd Shaggy in a PRJ, and then could you do the manuver again as you did it in your vid? Start from a blank, fresh PRJ. Save a PRJ just before you force the keyframes and save again just after you force the keyframes. zip them up and post them and perhaps something can be found by looking at them. No guarantees, as I have no clues. That was my first thought but i couldn't quite get his result by messing those up.

I had heard that it was automatically on when making a constraint so I thought maybe it's stuck. But no. So I'm doubtful this is a V15 problem, I haven't heard anyone else have this trouble. You have those OFF, of course. All three transformation key buttons are on. I haven't seen any notable differences yet. That is plan B and I used to do it that way before I knew about multiple selecting and forcing keyframes. So it can be done. If you do it this way you have to remember to nudge the bone in every manner that you want it keyed... a translation nudge may not make rotation keyframes. Scale nudges are hard to do, but you rarely need scale anyway. Hard to know the problem without watching you do it. Post a screen grab (JPG or PNG) of your PWS before and after you force the keyframes. Maybe that will reveal something.

The scary thing is I thought I did that just a few months ago, but it's been nearly a year and a half. Hmmm... This is happening when you "force" the keyframes on these body parts? first guess... make sure the "Compensate Mode" button (near top of A:M ) is not on. Aside from being used to make constraints have an offset, it can be used with the keyframe button to reset bones to default positions.

Under "User Properties" you should see all the poses that your character has. Both slider poses and ON/OFF poses. some may be hidden in folders there. If they aren't there, then they won't be anywhere. If we ascertain that they do exist, then selecting the shortcut to model in the action should bring them up in the poses window. Toggle ALT-4 to turn the window off and back on again. Alternatively, you can also control them where they appear under "User Properties" in the properties window.

In the properties window for the model, is there anything under "User Properties"?

If you can show a picture of what you're aiming for...

I'm confused because you say "whenever i try to use the constraint thing" and then you describe it "shifts before" you used the constraint as if that were the result of using the constraint, but it can't be if it happened before. Describe more clearly what is happening.

If you had done this... ...you would have found that very effect. And it even has a PRJ posted. You gotta be WAY more inquisitive than just looking at the things people directly point to. There's just too much out there and we'll never have time to directly point to all of it.

So far I haven't found an easy way to do this. It would be great if you could delete the lines connecting a polygon model and just leave a cloud of CPS and then you could stitch a new spline along the old CPS. But CPs can't exist without any splines connecting them so that idea is a non-starter. Sometimes I have drawn a long new spline off to the side of the model and then one-by-one dragged and attached (LMB+) its CPs to the CPS on the original model. This gets a new spline in place but deleting the original polygon lines is tricky.

Every water situation has a different solution. here's one http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...st&p=279830 follow that thread from the top and there are several other takes on water also.