thumperness

I was making my archery bow and had some materials applied. When I opened my project today, the materials were still in the PWS but non of them are showing up on the bow?!?!?!? I made a new project just to see if they worked there and they did. Not really sure what got changed to where non of the materials are visible on my model. Thoughts?

Um...I have some issues now.. I was playing around and chose the 'render as lines' just to see what happens. Now, even though I have it turned off, it still seems to be trying to render w/ lines. Also, even though I have materials on/in my model, they are not showing up in the render?!?!? It just appears as if it's untextured. What do you need to see in order to be able to help me? OK. I think I got the render as lines cleared up by going into the .prj text file. I made a new project and modeled a vase and am able to put the oak material on it. I just can not figure out why the Bow is not accepting materials. It's driving me nuts.

Isn't this bit the arrow rest? That's what made me take it for a lefty bow. I could be wrong, it's been a few years. On the bows that I owned, there was also a little wire thing attached just above the flat 'shelf' on which the arrow actually rested. I'm guessing to eliminate drag or alot of scrapping along the bow.

I thought about this. I just have not had time to try it out yet. Would this be the best as far as render times are concerned?

Thanx Rodney. Guess I need an arrow next too...

Thanx all. The kind words really make me want to keep going. Not being much of a sketch artist, I'm trying to picture in my mind what the machine looks like that's loading and firing these bows. Gerry. It's funny you should mention that. It's been a long time since I have actually used one. So when I used the rotoscope and looked at the handle after I modeled it, it just felt backwards. So I must have inadvertantly made it left handed. I may just leave it that way for it's querkyness. (Why can't the machine that's firing it be a lefty?) Or I guess I could just mirror it and make it right/correct. Now for the age old question of the string. I'm thinking a long tube with a tiny diameter. Do you think I could get away with a 2 point circle and then extrude it? Maybe 4. Guess I still need to add the arrow rest. Where do I find the patch count for this bow? Does it look like it's high? The bones do not seem like they'll be much of an issue. LOL We'll see.

I am slowly learning this software and have nearly finished my 1st independent model of an archery bow. Ultimately it will be loaded and fired by some kind of mechanical device at musical instruments. (Think Animusic) I have not began study of materials yet. I need to figure out how to make the grain smaller on the handle. This is by no means the final materials of the bow. As far as my 1st model goes....thoughts? Suggestions?

OK. I'm actually quite happy with my 1st attempt here. See Attached Thoughts? I'm also having issues putting a wood material on it. Can't seem to get the grain to show up. I may post about that on a different thread though.

I have to assume the direction of your blue lines are intentional. Some of them seem counter-intuitive to me, so help me understand. Counting from the bottom, the 3rd and 4th lines seem to be going against the direction of the bend in the handle. (As do lines further up) What's the theory here?

Post away Roger. I have been asking about beveling and it looks like you did alot of beveling on these. Was that just out of habit or why use it here? It seems that this handle is mainly curvey, though some of the curves are pretty tight. Why bevel vs. use the bias handles? This isn't a critique, I just wanna learn when to use what.

OK. Made it a zip file now. I thought if we embedded the project it would include everything?

So I have mastered modeling a vase (pronounced Voz) and wanted to move on to something a little more complicated. This is also somewhat of a test for me to see if I have embedded everything into my project so it can all be downloaded by you guys. There should be 2 rotoscopes and 1 spline in this project. The handle of the bow should be approx. 15cm tall/high. The question is: What would be my best approach to modeling at least the handle of this thing? I'm not necessarily looking for someone to just do it for me, but I'd like some instruction as to how to approach this thing. I'm guessing there should be some extrusion involved, but I do not have a top view of this handle, if it would help me anyway. I feel lucky having found the pictures I did. Beginnings of a project I was originally looking at complex compound bows that have holes all over their bodies. I may need to wait just a little but before tackling one of those. I'd love to figure out how to animate the offset wheels and keep the string on the wheels etc...

Thanx man, I'll give that a try next time I'm at that point

I guess I should be more specific... I can use the drop down menu at the top of the save as window to move to a limited number of options of where to save the model. But the frame on the left that has things like desktop, applications, etc. is not grayed out but it does nothing when you click on anything in the left navigation frame.

On my iMac, I have opened the model 'Kid.mdl' from the extras DVD and I want to save it to my hard drive so I can give him some speech pose sliders. When I right click on kid in the objects section of the PWS, I get the option to 'Save As..' I choose that and the window opens for choosing where to save it. It does not let me select ANY different location to save on my computer. Am I missing a step?

I appreciate the responses. and will digest them as time goes on. Here's my 1st 'issue' I have run into as far as modeling goes....see attached Beveled Cube Shaded Wireframe and Beveled Cube Rendered

I can quickly get overwhelmed by wanting to know how to do everything in A:M. So I have finally decided to study modeling. I am by no means an artist, but that is no reason not to know how everything works as far as splinemanship et al. This focus will also include creating phonems(sp) for speech. I have some models, from the extras DVD, with which I really want to do some lip. sinc. I guess I'll start with making my set of primatives, how to make holes in things, etc...So you are gonna see alot of examples and questions of how to do it better. I'm going back to Jeff Canton's tutorials and then moving on to whatever else I can find. I want to make friends with this so I can fix what I don't like and can create the mechanical stuff I have in my head.

Most anything that cycles or happens more than a couple times. I'm thinking about a bunch of contraptions that will load an arrow into an archery bow, draw, and fire multiple times during an animation. Each time I want it to load and fire, I'll just drop the action onto it so all I have to do then is change it's target and trajectory. Or maybe think Gladus Knight(sp) and the Pips. Animate 1 Pip in an action, then drop the action on the others and they will all fall into sinc. (Assuming flocking won't do the job) Your milage may vary... If there are better ways of doing what I have descibed, I'm very open to suggestions.

So, are our animations only going to take place in the rooms as Thom focuses in to peek in each room, or is there stuff also going on outside the building in the yard?

You have v17?

Nice looking car Rodger. Dents can happen anywhere. But it seems to me that they would be more prevelent(sp) nearer the opening edge of the door. Like it hit a light pole or another car. 2nd thought for any and all modelers. I have seen several examples of 'creases' in a model do to bad splineage or improper hooks, etc... Could these also be used for dents like these? Just a random thought. Rodger, I appreciate the fact that you say you are not a character modeler. As I learn how to model, I find myself wanting to lean in that direction too.

I keep seeing mention of stuff not being beveled or being beveled as if beveling were a good thing. I'm assuming that it is desired to have bevels in your models of things like buildings or boxes. I did a little searching but have not been able to find good instruction on the whys or hows. I remember seeing a tutorial somewhere that even talked about doing the bevel(s) first before the rest of the model.

V16b for me

I have finished my flower and I'm now working on getting the bones installed. I'll get it posted once it's finished. I'm learning alot about how to get around in the interface, dealing with groups, parent child relationships, etc.. All good stuff.

I was wondering what happened to Steve S. So he's no longer with Hash? What exactly is he doing? If anyone knows...