robcat2075

I like the montage with sound. That could be very trippy.

Send the head in to www.hash.com/reports with an explanation of the problem and pics to illustrate it. Does the problem persist if you remove all the decals from the model? I recall having a similar problem where a part of a decal would show up on patches I had hidden to prevent them from getting stamped by the decal. Good looking character!

Lot of great models there!

It's a levitating bowling ball returner.

The second body part needs a keyframe at the time it is supposed to start staying in place and another keyframe at the time it stops staying in place (aka the time it starts moving) One keyframe can only put a bone in place for one frame. You can copy that keyframe and paste it to a later time so the second one is exactly the same.

maybe either. try a really small targa, just to see what happens. Maybe there's something non-standard/weird/corrupted about the image you are using. Try resaving it from a different paint program. Try importing an image from the A:M disk into a blank project, just to see what happens. Try dragging an image into A:M from a directory window. The weird thing is that you've been using the program for a while, but this problem just started recently. Something changed, we just don't know what.

that suggests the image may be too big

Hard to say. You were able to use A:M before and now you can't... Since A:M hasn't changed what else changed on your PC? If Help>Reset all doesn't help and uninstalling A:M and reinstalling doesn't help then I'd start hinking of something bigger like reinstalling the OS. But maybe someone knows more about exception 019.

a cycle on a character on a path constraint will always adjust its rate so that it's feet don't slip (presuming the stride distance is set correctly). So , for example if you have a "run" that only has to cover 10 feet in one minute, it will go thru the run action very slowly. Use ease on the path constraint to reduce the time that the character spends covering the distance it is supposed to run. you can change a character's speed in mid path by keyframing ease values. you might set 0% ease at 00:00 and 50% ease at 06:00 and 100% ease at 08:00. The character will travel the frist half od the path in 6 seconds and the last half in 2 seconds.

Dropdown menu? when i right-click onthe "shortcut to" i dont' see ease. I haven't used ease on this prject; one could, but the defaults worked ok here. Actions that are "cycles" ( "has stride length = ON) wont' have an ease property in the chor timeline.

mirror will only act on non "left/right" labeled bones (like spine bones) if they are exactly centered in the model. CHeck the properties window for each bone for that info.

I haven't tested this out completely , but I think a plausible tactic is to open the second action up in its own action window and copy a whole body keyframe from its start. Then go back to your chor and paste that onto the character at the point where you want your new chor animation to end and the second action to start. There are many details to be gotten right that i haven't covered. Here's a prj that show use of an action (shaggy stands up), then chor animation (he turns around), then another action (he climbs on box). This is just rough animation to show the premise. Action2Chor2Action.zip Look at the timeline in the Project Workspace to see what is going on.

That's quite effective. I hope you charged a good price for that! My only tweak would be to slightly darken the reflecting glass on the building so it would be better distinguished from the sky background. Did you ever figure out why Newton wouldn't work? Can you show any tests of it not working so we can see better how it fell short?

the latter part of this discussion of "the door is stuck" shows how to add new animation after an action. shaggyanddoormp4b.mov Welcome to A:M!

Those are wonderful looking characters! They need a short to be in.

rotate the image in your paint program?

is the Alpha buffer on? Turn it off.

That looks quite promising! The hair looks better arranged in the turn around than in the walk clip. Is the grooming different?

Hey... instead of using a force to change their behavior after they hit the ball, how about using a force to give them their initial sideways push and limit the force's size so that once the particles have fallen as low as the ball, the force doesn't reach them anymore.

I think John's die on contact/second emitter idea is the most promising. Currently the particles falling off the ball still have the sideways velocity they were assigned in the original emitter, which looks odd. A second emitter would permit you to customize the behaviour of these second stage particles better.

Can you explain more about how what you want differs from what you got so far?

That's a great looking Yoda! I actually studied for a quarter under a guy who animated some Yoda in the Episodes 2 and 3, although he only mentioned it in passing. Charles Alleneck. Look for his name in ILM movies. I like the fact that you avoided a lot of arbitrary arm waving. That would have been very un-yoda like. Dhar has identified the big issue, sometimes called "isolated movement". In real life it's just about impossible to move one part of the body and not affect the ones connected to it (and the ones connected to those, and the ones connected to those...) just moving a hand or head will cause the spine to slightly shift, to maintain balance and/or in reaction to the force of moving that body part. I'd also suggest staging this from a 3/4 view rather than head on. As if he's talking to someone off to the side of the frame. It will be easier to do small hand gestures and small spine movements and make them look good.

Welcome to A:M! -do all the exercises in the booklet so you have a basic framework to understand the program. -the forum is a good place to ask specific questions. -think small for your project

I think a big part of it is that small-scale, local advertisers don't have the budgets to support animation. Even if an ad is seen only locally it wil still be viewed with and compared with national ads and that suggests a certain minimum level of production value that has to be met.

The tail does help make him more dog-like. Would a shorter torso help him? Although I recall the lion in "Madagascar" having very blockish fingers and paws, so it can work.