[RE: David Rogers AM 2006]

One thing I don't understand about it - the book says you need QuickTime 7 (for videos on the CD) but my CD dosen't have any videos on it (unlike his 2002 book). None that I can find, anyway.

I got it a couple of days ago and after reading about some of the new features in Yeti I sent in for the upgrade. The new features for group projects looks very exciting and are really what tipped the scales for me to get that new subscription CD. I look forward to the day when I'm good enough that I can work with others and make some money with this thing.

[A question about transparency]

I don't see how that's possible. If a green object is 60% transparent, then anything behind it should be 40% green. Right?

 

In the real world, yes. And normally you'd want it to work that way in a computer program. But, A:M is a computer program. So... a "Object color lock .....on/off" feature on the properties list would be useful; at least for me.

[A question about transparency]

Thanks everyone. At Ken's suggestion I tried using specularity but that didn't do anything with flat layers.

 

I think the best way to do it is to put the face in front of the helmet. Using Choreography as a multi-plane camera has a lot of exciting possibilities and I'm looking forward to working with this. All you've got to do is scan things in to photoshop, use rotoscope to make a grid that's the same shape, bone it up and shazam! you're good to go. But, you know, it would be nice to be able to prevent the color of a front layer from affecting layers that are behind it.

[A question about transparency]

I want the helmet to have transparency so that everything behind the helmet shows through. Otherwise it won't be much of a space helmet. What I want to do is make a cartoon with that South Park like flat, construction paper look. So I'm exploring the multi-plane possiblities of Choreography Mode with it's layering feature.

[A question about transparency]

Is it possible to have an object that is behind a transparent object not be affected by the color of the transparent object?

 

I have a head and a space helmet:

 

[attachmentid=16725]

 

The green helmet is 50% transparent. The helmet and the face are simply flat grids. What I want to do is place the face behind the helmet so it looks like it's inside of it but I don't want the helmet's color to affect the color of the face. I want the original skin color to remain. As it is it looks like this:

 

[attachmentid=16726]

 

Does anyone know how to prevent a transparency's color from affecting a model that's behind it? There must be a simple way to do that. (I know I can put the face in front of the helmet but I really want to find out how to do this.)

[About Hair and Grass]

Thanks for the tutorial, Seven! I'm new to Animation:Master and its multiplane camera is a feature that's full of potential. I know you can import animation as a layer. I was thinking of using a Quicktime movie as a layer on a model of a TV. Do you know anything about that? Can Animation:Master import Quicktime as an animation layer?