robcat2075

Fröhliche Christmas to you too, Gerald!

I have no idea, really, but my first guess is not, since the Dup wizard is an included plugin that gets recompiled with A:M and is not an "external" third party plugin.

Thanks, Jason and many thanks to Steffen for this new release. I've been alpha-testing v19g for several weeks now and it does fix a lot of pesky problems. However, I have noticed a problem around complicated "Undo" operations. I don't know exactly what circumstance triggers it but most of the freezes I've had have come after an Undo after some sort of copy task, like the Dupe wizard. I suggest everyone enable the automatic backup feature in A:M. Do that and you need never lose more than 5 minutes of work. It's on a Tab in Options: Aside from checking Auto Backup, i recommend you also enable "Use global backup directory" and choose an easy to find location on your fastest drive. Set the "Interval" to 5 minutes. After you make these settings, force a Project Save before you quit A:M to make it remember these new preferences. Every x minutes A:M will capture the entire hierarchy of your project across multiple drives or folders and backup all relevant files. If you have a crash you could open up the PRJ in the backup folder and work on that, but then you wouldn't be working in your regular project folder anymore. I usually just pluck out the files that I need to recover from the backup (for me, it's always a PRJ) and drop those into the relevant spot in my regular work folder, then resume A:M-ing A:M saves each of these backups in a folder with your PRJ name and adds a unique number to distinguish it from previous backups of the same-named PRJ. It retains up to the number you have in "Count" and deletes older ones. However, when you save your current PRJ under a new name (such as with an incremented version number like i do) A:M starts over and ignores older backups under previous PRJ names. They will pile up... you need to go into the backup dir and clean it out occasionally. Why do I save increment numbered versions if A:M is making automatic backups? Because I know I may need to backtrack on my work, not just 20 minutes, but maybe days to recover from some strategy mistake I've made even if A:M never crashes at all. A:M Automatic Backup. Turn it on. Use it. You will never need to lose important work again. Example backup result...

Sorry about the exam, Jason! We appreciate your efforts for the forum!

You probably have noticed that Z-buffered Kleig light soft shadows (most of what we use) are not rendering soft. Shadow cast on Ground Plane... However, it turns out that models can shadow themselves correctly. So... Use the Grid wizard to add a flat plane to your model and give it a bone that is independent from everything else in your model. In the Chor, constrain that bone to the Ground, then set the Ground to OFF. You can scale that bone to scale the plane to be as large as you need. Shadow cast on plane that is part of model... Of course this won't work when you have more than one model in a chor. For that, take your project to V18 and render there.

Charming!

Either roll back to v19e or install v18p Copy the master0.lic file from your regular AM folder to the alternate AM folder to enable it. v19g is coming and fixes that problem

It's really not Christmas for me until Grandma gets run over by a reindeer.

You can find explanations for the ones that were originally developed Steffen Gross on this page... http://www.sgross.com/plugins/index.html If you have questions about others or other questions, ask some more!

This post has a link to a Microsoft bulletin explaining what to do. I don't remember what it is. I just remember that i tried the registry modification version of it and and it worked.

Today, December 16, is the day to be getting in your "Planes Trains Automobiles" image contest entry but if you're running late on your entry due to computer problems, holiday stress, carburetor trouble, termite attack, egg nog or any other mysterious phenomenon... send me a PM and I will gladly hold the entry bag open for you!

The rotate handle is part of the camera bone. It only shows the Z rotation of the bone. Is there a big reason you can't render the large frame and then just crop for the portion you need? If there is nothing in the rest of the frame it won't add much render time.

X Y and Z are all separate values so, yes, it is possible to change just one. But I'm not sure i understand your question.

It is possible to use the "Render Animation Preview" button to render a portion of the screen to a file. You could set up your overly-tall camera frame for the 2-point perspective you want, zoom in on that camera view, and then use Render Animation Preview to drag a bounding box around just the portion you need. I believe you can make the render format and output location choices for this partial capture by setting them in Options>rendering and choosing "This Dialog"

Hi Bobby! I believe the way you are doing it is the only way in A:M. You might try a camera rotoscope to blackout the portion of the frame you don't need to reduce the rendering time spent on that part of the frame.

Further dev on helmet hair with displacement map and "Westin" specular shader (lower right). The image map is Photoshop "noise" with a horizontal blur.

Hey! It's the astronomer! Welcome back! Yes I think Windows is your surer bet. Note the "Planes Trains Automobiles" Image contest coming up soon. I bet you have something like that already to dust off and submit!

Yeah, there is a wireframe needed. I'm sure we can problem solve the rendering.

Helmet hair, with displacement map

I've been using hypercam 2... only because it is free. i have to recompress it in Quicktime after I record.

At this point, i'd have to see you do it to know what is different. Sounds like a topic for.... Live Answer Time, Saturdays noon CST!

Hold on... i just tried a pose slider in v19e and it worked fine. clip4400AmbientColorByPoseSlider.mp4

I'm in 19g (I'm an alpha tester) which should not look any different than 19e. However, I recall there was a bug in v19e regarding pose sliders. I would have to see what you are doing to see if that is what you are encountering. Try version 18 as an experiment. You can run it with your current license. Copy the master0.lic file from your v19 folder to your v18 folder.

Edward, here is a more specific answer to your question of controlling Ambient Color with a Bone rotation. It's actually done with Smartskin which is a kind of Pose. Clip4399AmbientColor_controlled_by_bone.mp4

I haven't rewatched this yet but the video in this post shows how to change material parameters in a pose.. If that doesn't help, ask here again.