robcat2075

Pretty good looking dust. I have one idea... It looks like the dust is coming from an area under the body of the buffalo like it's growing from the ground. How about if the dust emitter was on the back or bottom of their hooves? You could animate the emitter to be off when the feet were in the air and back on when they strike the ground.

Hey, that's a charming character, dying to be animated.

BTW, I've found it useful to save a copy of every installer I download. So, for example, whe TSM2 stopped working in v13o I could still go back to v13n if I needed to use it. Of course, you have to rename it to include a version number before you save it.

Yes, however from V13 on files are saved in a new format, so don't resave over your original files if you want to reopen them in pre V13 versions The interface hasn't changed much at all. I recall there was some change in the PWS timeline functionality around V9 but I doubt that would be a showstopper for you. Stability is dramatically better now. Hugely better. Many fundamental concepts are just as they were. Some specific keypresses may be different. Ans if a feature didn't exist yet in 2002 then a current tut on it won't do much fo ryou. If money is no object, I'd prefer a CD. but $50 for the 1-year online verison is pretty cheap.

If you select the bone that controls your rotor and hit "r" you get the rotate manipulator which allows you to rotate a bone on one axis at time. You don't need a constraint at all just to rotate something on one axis.

import the second bottle in to your objects folder. then in the chor, set "Shortcut to" in the properties for the bottle to your new choice for the model

A peaked CP will do this even if it is a continuous spline. Sometimes a copy/pastemirror will do this. A model converted from a polygon mesh may do it. I'm presuming this is happening at a spline intersection? Detach both spline ends from the intersection and attach them in space then attach that connection back to the model.

It's not clear what you are trying to do. You'll need to explain more.

It's called "Compute all CP weights". It aint' great but neither is computer inbetweening. If you want great animation, you have to adjust a whole lot of keyframes yourself. If you want great CPweighting, you have to adjust a lot of weights yourself. In the polygon world they have "Weight maps", but those don't paint themselves either.

I think if bone falloffs had an onscreen adjustment GUI (instead of typing in numbers into a box) they'd be more accessible. but even some defaults would at least get your character to where he can walk around and turn his head and scratch his butt. It would be quick gratification. "Compute All CP weights " seems to recognize which bones and CPS are visible so I can sort of imagine creating a few mega groups that isolate CPS by their function. Say "regular bones" and "fan bones" and do the COmpute in a separate pass for each and tha t would eliminate a lot of slop that a one pass compute would have. But still, not a finely done job. And Faces are still a complex mess.

I like that you have some definite poses in mind and the blocking gives a clear idea of your performance. Too much of the "W" pose though. What you have staked out is very ambitious, it will be tough to get all the body mechanics going right in just the seven days remaining to do it. But worth a try.

I don't know why it's not there. They sell a 1 year license to v15 for $50 whether you own a current version or not so there isn't really an "upgrade price" anymore. your old projects should load fine in it. the last update to V13 was v13t which you can download and use if you are already using v13. that's all i recall of my answer.

I can imagine a program that would look at specially named groups you had created and look at the location of the CPs in them and then weight them semi-correctly, but it would presume a substantial similarity in function and appearance to an "ideal". And the specially named groups would be so elaborate that you might as well just weight the CPs instead. I think well done bone fall-offs might be the best quick and dirty CP weighting compromise. I agree. If you took the time to put all the CPs in the right place to make your character you can take the time to weight them.

I'd keep the music sheet out of frame until he gets to "torn up a huge section". Then lift it up to reveal a big hole torn out of the middle. 34- slap to forehead seems too soft. It's probably slowing in. The fingers are probably taking too long to finish their overlap also. I see some head squetch on the impact, but I dont' think that's the right motion to convey impact. 138-160 when the head drops in despair, some anticipation and/or overlap onthe way down would help give that weight. in general- too many jaw motions per word, I think.

You can group select a whole bunch of keyframes in the timeline (it's onthe right side of the Project Workspace, ALT-1 to make it appear) and stretch them out to make them happen over more time.

Here's a general thing: Don't pose the eyes in the default, straight-out-of-the-head position. It makes for very dead expressions so as a rule just never, never do it. There are exceedingly few situations where head and eyes pointed in the exact same direction are the best solution. Here are nine shots of Scarecrow with nothing posed except the the head and eyeaimer bones. (You'll have to look at it full size to see clearly) He's looking in the same direction in each one and yet each one suggests a different nuance of thought about what he is looking at. And all of them are more alive looking than the one in the center which has both head and eyes in their default position. Eyes that stay locked in the center look zombie-ish, offset eyes indicate a thinking, alive person.

You can animate the camera to new positions and angles just like any other bone. Move it and a keyframe will be made.

How many keyframes are you talking about? Possibly you could copy-pastemirror each keyframe back onto itself. Tedious and error prone, but possible. other idea... you could scale the model bone *(-1) on whatever the horizontal axis is and use that as a model to match and reanimate a new unscaled instance of the character to. or... you could write a small program to go through the animation file and multiply all the horizontal co-ord it finds by -1. also tedious.

There are a whole matrix of possibilities, which also depend on how you have the Key Bone/KeyBranch/Key model filters set. Here are the essential basics... KeyFrameOptionsMP4.mov

Have you done all the tuts in "TAoA:M"? It will answer a lot of quesitons you will have. #6 "The Door is Stuck" show you how to do it. first you have to be in a relationship, action or choreography window, not the modeling window. rightclick onthe bone, select new>constraint>type of constraint you want then, when the cursor changes to an eyedropper* pick the null or bone you want to constrain to. typically you will make two constraints... translate and rotate to lock one bone to another. * and usually you will pick the "offset" button at this point so the first bone keeps it's relative position

Looks promising! Can't tell if he's got an innie or an outtie

I think JohnArtbox has done quite a bit of R&D into this. you may find help in one of these topics... edit: this may be the one http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...7&hl=ZBrush

Yes that's it. try restarting A:M after you select it. If it doesn't improve things... it doesn't improve things. But easy to try. Easy to go back to Open GL if it doesn't. and what happened when you tried a much smaller image? Do you have the latest drivers installed for your vidie card? You get them from your card manufacturer's site.

Paste Mirror depends on very accurate symmetry of the bones and having the key filters set exactly right.

If you have a complex shadow situation I doubt animating the color of the sprite over time will do. I don't suppose a material effector will affect a sprite after it has been born, will it?