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Hey nice piece! Your camera work is getting better too. Like Robcat said, the tree branch should drop a lot faster when he lets go of it.

I've never tried the "Group" constraint either, but here is the description: "With the Group Constraint, it is possible to attach a Group from one model in a Choreography to a Bone from a different model. The constraint needs to be created from the bone of interest. Then, using the Target property, you can select the named group from another model which is to be constrained to this bone. " Another possibility might be Custom Cloth Groups. Custom Cloth Groups are covered in the Cloth Tutorial here: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=29731 Page 8, "Custom Cloth Groups"

You keep voting for the wrong party It hasn't been fixed because it isn't broken. It works just fine. Think of it this way. You can't "convert" a rotation driver if there is nothing to convert. So you must create rotation channel first. On frame 0, enter some value for either the x,y, or z rotation on an instance of a model in an Action or Chor (a value of 0 works). Now right-click on "Rotate" and choose "Convert Driver To".

The old Spring System was complicated and even less intuitive than SimCoth IMO. I can't think of anything at the moment where a dynamic constraint, SimCLoth or Newton couldn't do better.

Yep. I think this is how the whole bdsm movement got started.

yeah ... King Kong ... sure I think you just looked around your room for some ideas and well, it looks like you found one! Don't worry, your secret is safe with us.

Thanks!

100% A:M

Piper Penguin was honored as "One of the Worst Movies Ever Made" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7CwHveHeig...t=1&index=1 It takes a lot of dedication and hard work to get an honor like that. Not just any movie can get that kind of recognition, it has to be *special*. I feel so proud ...

That reminds me of a joke. A man walks into a barber shop and the barber says, "So Charlie, how's work?" Charlie: "Not so good" Barber: "What's wrong?" Charlie: "Every day it's the same old thing. Day in and day out ... endless monotony. I might as well be a robot ... or a monkey!" Barber: "Gee, that's too bad. How long have you been working there?" Charlie: "I start tomorrow..."

This is falling outside the scope of LiteFace, so you should probably ask questions like this in the general rigging forum. A relationship defined in this manner is like a fancy smartskin, and just like a smartskin, you don't have to do anything to activate it. It is always on. Plop the model in a Chor or Action and try it. It should just work without you doing anything extra.

Hi Gerry, Congratulations on deciding to build a face rig from scratch! Everyone should do that sooner or later. That is called a Multidimensional Relationship (or MultiD Relationship) This is really just for convenience, to make animating the face a little faster. You can just animate each side separately and it would work almost as well - some would argue it works better! But here is how to create a simple example: Make a new model. Make a Null Make two more nulls that are children of the parent null. Move the Parent Null to x:0, Y:20cm Move one child null to x:20cm, y:0 - and the other child null to x:-20cm, y:0. Now select the parent null. In the Properties panel, right-click on the "X" property under the Translate property. (translate > x) Choose "New Relationship" from the context menu. A new Relationship window will open. All the "Transform" properties, Except the translate > x property, should turn pink in the properties panel. The translate > X property will be red. (unless you have changed your color scheme). In the properties panel, enter "20" for translate > x. Both children will move with the parent. Select the left-most child. (the one that was originally at -20x) and set its translate>x property to -40. Select the Parent null once again. This time, enter "-20cm" for the parent' translate>x property. Select the left-most child again and enter "40cm" for its translate>x property. Now a relationship is defined for the Parent null while it is between x:-20cm and x:20cm. If the parent null goes farther than that in either direction, the relationship breaks. You can test it by simply dragging the parent null around in the relationship window. The child nulls will move symmetrically as long as the parent null stays within x:-20cm to x:20cm. If you want to know more about MultiD Relationships, here is a tutorial: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=29813

Nice cloud Spleen! I agree though, slow the the particles waaaaaay down.

When I try to view it, Quicktime opens, but no movie is displayed. What codec did you use?

I don't know either, but I am definitely going to consider adding Crocs to the next space car I create. That was pretty dang funny Matt.

I think you may need to apply an environment map on the central object, using the HDRI image for the environment map. The environment map will fake reflections on the object. Then you can get rid of the dome and render just the object with an alpha channel.

I don't know what this means either. As far as I know, there is no "alpha channel transparency" setting. Just check "Alpha Buffer" and *if you are rendering to a format (such as TGA) that supports alpha channels*, the alpha, or transparency, channel will be created.

First, let me address this: "I don't want to wait 16 passes at over an hour a piece to see that I will likely have to change something anyway." This is not an efficient use of your time. For the first few test renders, only render 1 or 2 passes and only large enough to see what's going on. Once you think you have everything like you want it, render a half-size version with only 4 or 5 passes. If that looks good, you can be pretty sure your final render is going to look good. To get render times down. Robcat's suggestion to use Z-Buffered shadows would help. You can render only the hair with an alpha channel, then render a separate shadow pass at only 1 pass (set the wall to "shadow only") - then blur the shadows in Photoshop and composite all the passes together. You can render foreground/middle/background elements separately and composite them in Photoshop. You can turn off "Cast Shadows" for all models where shadows are not really needed or seen. You can delete all your lights except one shadow casting light and a couple of non-shadow casting lights, then use IBL to help light the scene. You can render 30% smaller than the size you need, then scale it up in Photoshop.

That looks like it worked very well. Is she some kind of molecule?

As long as I don't have an alpha channel, my tests agree with yours. The decals don't cover the whole model, so if this statement were true, the displaced area with the black would appear to be lower than the un-decaled edges. But they are all the same, which would lead me to the conclusion that when an alpha channel is present, black is interpreted as "Has no effect whatsoever".

The magic color for Displacement maps with Alpha channels appears to be black (0,0,0). I used a TGA image for these tests. 128,128,128 background with a hard-edged alpha channel 128,128,128 background with blurred alpha channel Black background with hard-edged alpha channel Black background with blurred alpha channel

Sorry for hijacking your thread Jason .... I did the displacement tests too. All renders are 3-Pass. Displacement is set to 10,000%. My middle gray in all tests is (128,128,128). I used an 8bit/channel TGA decal with and without an alpha channel, a 16bit/channel PNG decal with and without an alpha channel, and a 32bit/channel exr decal with and without an alpha channel. I'm not sure if "alpha channel" would be the correct term for the PNG and EXR images. In BOTH cases (in Photoshop CS3 anyway) , if you want transparency, you have to delete part of the image (so the default checkered background is visible) because you cannot save a proper alpha channel. But in A:M, the transparent areas work just like an alpha channel would. In every case, there was no displacement in the neutral area when there was no alpha channel. But where an alpha channel was present, the neutral color WAS displaced. 8bits tga decal 8bits tga decal with alpha channel 16bits png decal 16bits png decal with alpha channel 32bits exr decal 32bits exr decal with alpha

Yes, that usually works in these types of situations.

For this particular issue, make sure the camera's Output Options > Buffers > Alpha is OFF. You set this property in the camera i the container, not in an instance of (shortcut to) that camera. I don't believe the Blur Post effect blurs the Alpha Channel, so turning off the Alpha buffer may fix this issue too.

It sounds like you are trying to open the files through the Library panel. Opening the files that came with the program through he Library panel requires that you copy the files from the CD (or download them from the Hash website) to your computer. When you install the CD version of the program, it asks you if you want to copy all that extra data to your hard drive. I think the default location where it copies the files is to a folder in the install directory. If you are on a PC, the is probably c:\Program Files\Hash Inc\*version number*\... If you are installing the subscription version of A:M, then you have not downloaded the extra files yet. I think you can download the extra files from (not totally sure): ftp://ftp.hash.com/pub/misc/Data.zip ftp://ftp.hash.com/pub/misc/LittleData.zip ftp://ftp.hash.com/pub/misc/props.zip