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The word "properly" is a relative term here. The proper Z rotation for the thumb's geometry bones differs a little from model to model, depending on how the thumb is modeled. Until you get a feel for how the thumb bones should be rotated in different models, you just have to experiment. One tip though, make sure all the thumb geometry bones in a thumb have the exact same Z rotation. That may not be your problem, but it is worth repeating.

Great workflow! One thing I remember when A:M Composite first came out is that in order to adjust light colors, the light has to be something other than pure white or pure black. Very light gray will do. Not sure if that still applies though...

Here is a quick and dirty way to do it. It probably isn't as elegant as you would like, but it gives one possible idea to try. Basically, I assigned a bone to the heel/spring geometry and created a MultiD relationship that scales the bone along the Z axis when the foot control null translates close to the ground. Here is a tutorial on MultiD relationships: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=29813 Another thing you could do is make a walk cycle Action and position/scale the Spring bone manually in the Action. Then just apply the action in the chor whenever the character walks. heel_spring.mov Heel_Spring.zip

With those render times, I sure hope you are rendering with Light Buffers.

you can render with an alpha channel, but I don't think it will speed up your render any. In the camera properties (under the container in the PWS), go to Output Options > Buffers and turn Alpha to ON. Make sure you render to an image format that supports alpha channels, like TGA. Even for AO, a render time of 40 minutes for that model sounds really excessive. What resolution are you rendering to? How many passes? Usually, 5-9 passes will be plenty for this kind of animation.

Rendering with AO will always look better IMO, but for any kind of animation, it will take forever. One idea that will render faster and will look pretty good is to render a single frame with AO. Then apply that render to your model as a Decal. Change the Decal Type to "Diffuse" and adjust the percentage to suit you. Diffuse tpe decals will not show up in real time display, but they will show up in a quick preview render.

If your Global Ambiance is already at 100%, I don't think you can adjust it any higher ... actually, I've never tried to set it higher than 100%. You can add a sun light (turn shadows off on it) set to a low intensity to lighten it up. You'll need to futz with it to get the light intensity right.

Welcome back!

It looks really nice so far David.

Ahhhhh, there she is.

That's great Ken. You took a very long scene and made it fun to watch

Another biggie is if a cloth group starts off intersecting a deflector group, or if it somehow gets stuck in a deflector group during movement.

If you put a little more detail into that, it will look like a real ship! ... just kidding. You are a sick man Stian, just ... sick.

That giraffe looks awful lonely ... Or is her honey cramped up somewhere below deck?

Thanks Xtaz

LOL that was funny. You do some great charactertures.

Hey that's a rather nice article

Another way to get render-as-lines to work is to add an extra Control Point to one of the splines making up any valid patch. Or detach all the splines so nothing makes a valid patch You just need to get rid of any valid patches, then render-as-lines will work. I've never tried render-as-lines with fog ...

That's a very clever idea Mark. I like how the trees all point up even when they are on the side of a hill.

None of the three computers listed will work *well* with AM because none of them have descrete graphics cards. A real graphics card, even if it is a cheap one, helps immensely. Also, if you plan on rendering with all four of those cores, in addition to installing a much-needed graphics card, I would recommend replacing the cheap 300 watt power supply in those computers with (at minimum) a better quality 450 watt psu.

That looks much better to me kat

Dude, you are really improving. Way to go! I think you are ready for an animated Werewolf and Firefly episode

I think that was added in v14. The only way I can think of to do it in v13 is to create a new Layer in the Chor for each image sequence/movie. Then adjust the "Frame" property for each layer so the movies play in sequential order. Change the camera to "Orthogonal", point it at the layers and render.

I think it was made in 2009. Can't remember exactly. I'm not sure there are any production details available on the web. My mom said it was available at Wal Mart for a while but not any more. What did you want to know about it?

$500 would be pushing it. A:M will run on a $500 machine, but if you want A:M to run *well*, you should invest in something more in the $1K range or above. I'm sure there are hundreds of people with cheap computers who will say AM runs just fine for them, but in my experience, the #2 cause of A:M related problems is trying to use a cheap machine with not enough resources.