Mike Hart
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Posts posted by Mike Hart
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All the old projects should open in V15.
Excellent to hear, I shall proceed then.
Thanks man
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I'm an oldie-newbie. I was an AM user up to v.13 and I'm wanting to dust off some of my old v.11-13 projects with v.15.
Are there any issues/procedures I should become aware of ta do dis ting, right?
I searched the archive but found no clear answer.
MAC G4 Quicksilver, Leopard
Thanks,
Mike Hart
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I've bought some Eggprop tutorials, in the past, and they were very high quality and had excellent information.
One of the things that many video tutorials have is bad sound quality.
While this has not been the case with any of the Eggprop videos, in my experience, I wish the sample movie had a sound track as this is often the key difference between video tutorials.
Many of the tutorials cover the same material, but, if you can't understand or have to struggle to understand what the teacher is saying, it's not as good as one that is easily understood.
Again, all the Eggprop tutorials I've purchased, have been well worth the price and have been well produced.
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Your observation that the image of God looks, exactly, like Zeus is very interesting.
Mike Hart
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Why..., if he were my crawdaddy, I'd...,
What would you do Daddy?
Why..., if he were my crawdaddy, I'd...,
What would you do Daddy?
I'd cover my crawdad in Cajun sauce and
eat 'im, til' the cows came home.
(sung ala Mothers of Invention)
seriously..., I enjoyed it. It brought a smile and a chuckle. Along with the animation/film refinements you mentioned, some additional sound fx (clanging pot lid, flames, etc.) would be good.
Mike Hart
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If you go into the Model/Action folder in the Choreography, and then select the Action, you should see a "crop-range" variable. I mistakenly called it "play-range", earlier. When I used frame 15, as the beginning and 14 as the ending frames, the right and left feet placement are, indeed, inversed but, my euphoria was short-lived because AM doesn't cycle forward from 15 through 30 and then past 0 to 14. Instead, it just cycles backward from 15 to 14.
I guess that, even if it did cycle forward from 15-30 it would stop at that point anyway because frame 30 is the end of the Action and it thinks I just told it to ignore the first 15 frames.
Oh well it was an unwarranted thought and I stand behind my original disclaimer.
Mike Hart
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Have you tried playing with the play range values in the Action Shortcut Properties, in the Chor. Action? You might be able to get the Action to Cycle between (for example) frame 15 to frame14, instead of from frame 0 to frame 29 (assuming a 30 frame cycle). I've never actually tried that so, no guarantee.
Or, you could simply create a new inversed Action by copy/pasting keyframes from the middle frames of the 1st Action to the first and last frames of the second and the end frames from the 1st Action to the middle frames of the second. I'm over-simplifing but, hopefully, you know what I'm saying.
Good luck,
Mike Hart
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Have you tried "Translate Limits"? It won't be exactly what you're describing but, it might get you the same result.
BTW - I'd like to have a constraint like you describe, too. It could tell a bone not to move within a certain range of influence of a target bone or object, helping to prevent pass-through.
Mike Hart
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Just hide the parts of the mesh that you don't want to receive decals and then flatten the parts that you want to decal. If you do get some distortion, you can always use the UV editor to tweak the exact placement of the decal to minimize it (distortion).
Right-click the decal's stamp to get to the UV editior.
Mike Hart
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The first advise is if you are in shaded mode while you are modeling, especially copy, paste, insert or delete CPs, then this will slow down each of those operations because in order to render a shaded view of the model, A:M needs to recompute the patches and their normals. And the more patches you have in your model, the longer it takes to compute all this.
Also, make sure there are no Pose or Chor or Action windows (containing the model) open while doing copy/cut/paste/insert operations.
Mike Hart
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In the PWS Objects level, highlight the model, in the Properties Panel go to User Properties and delete the pose (via right-click) from there and ALSO from the User Poperties level, in the PWS.
If you don't see the Properties Panel, go to the View menu and select it for viewing.
Mike Hart
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Make detailed preliminary drawings, from all angles (front, back, side) and then use them as rotoscopes to aid you while modeling. Do a series of drawings for the head and face and even go so far as drawing the mesh.
As Bruce said, the free models on the disk are references for well-modeled models. One thing to note is the best models, of this sort, have a minimal amount of geometry.
Another tip: If you're new to modeling; take one part at a time. In general, heads/faces and hands are the most difficult things to model, so start with the things, like the tail and body first. Then do the arms and legs and save the head and hands for last, after you've begun to hone your modeling skills.
Regardless, do the drawings first. Ten-to-one that your friend did drawings of his squirrel, before he began modeling it. Make that twenty-to-one.
Mike Hart
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What John suggests is probably it but, if not; check to see if the "weathering" option is turned on. I think it's a right-click thing but, it may also be in the model propeties panel.
Mike Hart
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You must assign a starting keyframe AND and an ending keyframe for each movement.
Until you tell it otherwise, the software assumes (correctly) that frame 0 is the starting point for all movements. You must set a keyframe at frame 10 (or whatever), if that is where you want a particular movement to begin.
There is a phenomenon called "drift" where a bone will slowly move from it's desired placement. You can fix that by copy/pasting indentical keyframes on adjacent frames.
Mike Hart
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You can apply your decals from a side view and the stamp(s) will be simultaneously applied to both sides, as long as both sides are visible, valid patches and the geometry is lined up in the z-axis.
For more control over the placement, flatten the mesh first, in a Pose or Action, before applying the decal. That way the left and right sides will be exact mirrors and the seam will be perfect.
You can get even further control by tweaking the CPs in the UV editor.
It's, usually, a good idea to apply textures only after the model has been copy/flip/attached because the decals won't stick on the middle splinage and you'll end up redoing all your hard work.
Mike Hart
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I see what you mean now. Yep, it happens in World or local space but, it you use the handles to rotate the manipulator, instead of the manipulator properties, it works as it should.
Mike Hart
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Might you be in "World Space" mode?
Mike Hart
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You're welcome,... thanks.
I'm glad it worked out for ya,
Mike
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I prefer using a pose slider for eye blinks but, I reckon there are situations that a repeating Action would be better. Repeating Actions can be mechanical looking, which might be grood for a robot but, not neccessarily, for other characters.
IMHO - You have much more control with a slider and that's important because "the eyes have it". Eyes are the single most expressive thing a character has and therefore the single-most critical thing to animate, in a character.
I try to reduce keyframes by, creating the blink pose with a complete cycle (open/shut/open). The open position keyframes would be on 0 & 100% and the shut keyframe would be at 50%, for instance.
That way I can produce a blink by pulling the slider to the opposite side of it's current position (on either side of 50%) to produce the blink and then position it to whatever open position I want to maintain. It's now ready to repeat whenever I'm ready and it will produce a blink, as long as I pull the slider past 50% to an open position.
Although, I still must set a starting keyframe and an ending keyframe, for each blink, the middle keyframe is eliminated, because the "shut" position is contained within the pose and I can time a blink, precisely, by keyframing at 50%, if I need to.
Mike Hart
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Thanks for those tips. Sterling.
I've been monkeying around with the DCs, some more, and I think I see what I was missing. V11's Dynamic Constraints are much more flexible and controllable than v.10.5's which worked great, for my purposes.
Anyway, I've ended up leaving the "Stiffness Is Rod" turned on (there's something Freudien there but, I don't want to put my finger on it)
and then adjusting the "rodness" of the chain with the "Angle Limit" setting at the bottom of the DC's properties panel.In other words: The only thing I changed on the DCs, default settings was reducing the "Angle Limit" from 180 to about 30. That gave the nice graceful, bouncy, "anemone" type effect for my character's hair fronds, that I was after.
After reducing the Angle Limit, the stiffness setting of the dynamic chains becomes much more responsive and predictable.
Hope that's helpful,
Mike Hart
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I'm having similar problems with a v.10.5 model, using dynamics, ported into v. 11. It doesn't appear that your model was created in v.10.5 but, maybe we can help each other figure something out, regardless.
Did you use "Simulate Spring Systems" (right-click and select from pop-up menu)?
Whenever I simulate spring systems (v.11), the dynamic chains, in my model, look good, as they gracefully succumb to gravity for about 10 frames and then they just freeze as the model walks along. Instead of bouncing in opposition to the model as it bobs and bounces, the chains just settle (or sag) to a point and then become rigid like a cooled thread pulled from a blob of molten glass.
The dynamic constraints on my "end-of-chain" bones vary from 90 - 65%, in v.10.5 but, when I import the model into v.11, the stiffness settings all revert to 50% (I presume by default). I've tried various stiffness settings (5% - 95%) but, none of them have worked as well as they did in v.10.5. I've also played with the other controls but, the chains just sag and freeze when simulated.
Mike Hart
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Hello,
I'm totally confused by all the details of this thread so, please excuse me for asking simple questions which, may have already been asked and answered.
Have you tried installing without selecting the 'copy files to disk' option? (You can always copy the files, seperately.)
I think the files, copied from the CD, are read-only. Have you changed their properties to read-write before trying a save?
Mike Hart
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Ken's right about creating the constraints in a "pose" relationship, if you want the relationship to port with the model and have the target attached to the model.
However, it sort of depends on the specific intent but, I prefer to create (define) eye-targeteting constraints within a choreography because that's where characters interact each other and other objects with their eyes.
In-other-words; in a chor., your character's eyes could aim at a squirrel in a tree or another character's eyes or other object, outside of itself, while moving around the scene. If you define the eye-aiming to targets that are contained within the model, via a pose, it makes it more difficult to maintain a character's gaze on a spot or object in the scene because the eye target will move along with it's model and cause the characters eyes to move off it's obect of interest.
Mike Hart
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I've only had limited success attempting to mirror smartskins. You might try increasing the "tolerance" setting in the Tools/Options/Modeling panel.
Mike Hart
WARNING! DONT LOSE YOUR SEVEN YEAR OLD CD!!!!
in New Users
Posted
I relate to the frustrations of both camps, in this thread. I'm glad Rodney let it ride.
As I read, I was thinking of sayings like, "said the the spider to the fly" & "thrown to the wolves" but..., it has such a happy ending. Hopefully, it's "happily ever after". The hard-part is just beginning; it can be done, though never finished.
Secondly, I was called "Troll", when I was in the 6th grade by a guy, not so much of a bully, but just a jerk-of-a-guy in my class. He had an inflated opinion of himself and I was able to ignore him for most of the year but one day, he underestimated me and, said it once too often. He never called me "Troll" again (I whupped his ___ and then glued his prized pen to his desk). Clearly, his expectations of me were not jibing with reality and he simply needed some "gained-perspective". Just like this fellow's unrealistic expectation of support for 7year old software and a sympathetic ear to his complaint in this forum. The forum gave it to him (perspective) and he responded well and now we're all friendly. That's very cool.
Perspectfully yours,
Mikey