robcat2075

"Intensity" in the properties for the light.

I don't know how the model was exported to OBJ, although there is an OBJ export plugin for maya. I just know I got the model in OBJ.

An OBJ derived from a well-made "Sub-D" model can have promise for importing to A:M. Typically, a lot of thinning out of unnecessary splines is needed and some resplining to substitute 5-pointers where 5-edge intersections were happening. I've done it once; it was a lot of work; but it was less work than merely using the imported OBJ as a reference and remodeling from scratch.

import a targa sequence, apply as rotoscope

A "swatch" woudl be some simple, mostly flat geometry with a decal on it. If you do get some long flowing hair to work well (like not pass thru the shoulders and all that) that will be good to see. I recall an article about "The Incredibles" saying that Violet having long hair was something they considered abandoning because it was so difficult to manage.

The only way I can think of transferring a pose is to extract it from one .mdl file and paste it into another .mdl with a text editor. Haven't tried it and it would probably lend itself to poses on bones only.

Basically start extrding and looping and extruding and looping. If your bow was one of those fancy bows wiht lots of curls the dup wizard would probably do it. but I dont think you need that. there's a plugin out there that will extrude anything along a spline. make one spline thatdoes the path of the ribbon, then extrude something flat along it.

There's a zillion things that make "realistic". Tell us more about what specific details disappoint you in these.

It does seem a bit bleak.

You did a search for posts by you? You've only made 250. i fyou knew about when you posted them you could narrow the search results down.

This seems to come up quite a bit in animation discussions fps magazine founder Emru Townsend made this comment about black stereotypes in cartoons I guess if you are making a cartoon about something as specific as black tribal people in Africa you'd want to have something significant to say about them rather than just use them as foils for worn out gags. Maybe you're doing a traditional African Folk tale. I remember Charles Schulz explaining why he didn't make much use of his "Franklin" character. He decided that he didn't really know enough about the experience of a black 10-year old boy to do it properly. Good looking meshes on your characters, though!

Charming character!

After you add the action to a model in your chor, its properties window will have an "ease" setting. Ease from 0% to 100% will make an action go forward. 100% to 0% will make it go backwards. That properties window also has a "repeat" setting.

Good point. Thanks for reminding me. I bought The Setup Machine [Anzovin Studios] a few years back. Time to dig it out again. You had the setup machine and weren't using it? Doh! If it's the original TSM, that only worked with up to V10.5 I think. I know it wont' work with V13+. However TSM2 will work with 13 and later.

I'm guessing all the bonename2 stuff happened when some bone heirarchy got dragged into or onto something else inadvertently. I agree with Nancy that a startover would be in order. There used to be a fine plugin for A:M called "the Setup Machine". After you put in the basic bones and weighted your CPs to them it would go thru and and add all the extra bones and do all the relationships and hide everything that you never wanted to see and give you back your character ready to animate. And it could do all sorts of multi-legged, multi-winged, multi-headed characters if you needed it to. Unfortunately it's discontinued.

That looks good, although I think you may have used more splines than you will need running from front to back.

The most likely solution is to render it once each way then do a dissolve from one to the other in an editing or compositing program.

Check on the site for your card's manufacturer (AMD? NVidia?) see if they have a later driver than the one you have installed. Or may be they have an older one you can revert to. No guarantees, but I'd try it.

What happens if you turn on "Show bias handles"? But, i'm guessing a graphics driver problem. Is this Vista or XP?

Constraints last until you turn them off. If yours is only lasting one frame, you'll need to tell us a whole lot more cause I can't imagine what you did.

If you make it less than 23 megs you'll get more lookers.

Most models made in polygon programs will not be laid out well for use in A:M. Models made of triangular polys will be very poor. Quad-only models might be usable with extensive manual editing and thinning out, but most polygon models were made with poor layout to begin with.

select the five points. hit the period key twice. then hit the button with the five sided icon on it.

make a 2 cp spline. attach each CP to a separate bone. constrain 1 bone to your gun constrain the other to your target. the spline can be set to "render as line" to make it visible, but I'm not sure a single line can glow, try it. A thin cylinder with a ring at each end would work as well.

hmmm... now I dont' know if an expression can do this or not but I think the algorithm would be something like this: 1-from the previous frame to the current frame you find the distance the center point of the wheel has moved horizontally. this is a pythagorean theorem calculation using x and z coordinates. 2-that distance divided by the circumference of the wheel gives you the portion of a complete rotation the wheel will turn if it is aligned exactly inthe direction of movement. 3-some formula probably involving a sine function would scale that rotation portion from 0 (the case where the wheel has skidded sideways, causing no rotation at all) to 1 (the case where the wheel is aligned exactly with the direction of movement) based on a comparison of the orientation of the wheel with the actual direction it moved. 4-add the resulting rotation value to the wheel's previous rotation value. repeat for each new frame. Of course this would only work on level ground; bumps, hills, potholes would be beyond this simple formula. I suspect this is all doable in A:M expressions but I dont' know enough about the exact syntax of A:M expressions. Some interested expression writer may want to try it.