smbaker

Hello Niels, It turned out to be simpler than I thought -- what I had to do was to manipulate the bones using an action, and then right-click and select "export" and "export as MDL". That appears to have created a new model with everything positioned the way that I wanted it to be. Scott

Hello, I'm looking for a way to adjust a model via it's bone hierarchy, and then apply those changes back to the original model. In case that doesn't make sense, here's what I'm trying to do. I'm exporting models (via amxtex) for use in a role playing game. One particular model needs to be of a dead body. The body doesn't need to be animated, so I don't need to export an animation, but I do need to move the limbs around to suit the position I want. I also want to add some other static scenary objects to the model before exporting. Thanks, Scott

Thanks! that seems to have worked. Next question -- when I designed the model, I didn't adjust the size and position before I added the bones. I've been creating all of my models to a specific scale, and centering them about the origin. But, I got excited adding the bones and forgot to set the model up where it's supposed to be. So what I'd like to do is scale/move my model. However, whenever I do this in modeling mode, the model scales and translates, but the bones do not (i.e. when I go back into bones mode, all of the bones are in the wrong spots) Is there a way to scale/translate my model and it's bone structure? or am I stuck with the model where it is?

Hi, I'm working on adding some bones to one of my models (a scorpion, screenshot is attached). This is my first attempt at doing skeletal animation. As you can probably see from the picture, I was doing fine until I started to work on the legs. When I went to do one of the legs, I added four bones to it, then clicked auto-assign, and my bones were assigned to various unwanted locations (chunks of the two adjacent legs and part of the torso was connected to one set of leg bones). A few questions - 1) Is there a way to un-assign the bones? I've tried moving them around and clicking auto-assign again, but it still leaves them connected. 2) How do I get the bones to assign only where I want them? Should I hide all but the leg I'm working on? 3) Should I be adding more bones inside the torso? I purposely only put one "backbone" in there since I want the scorpion to have a rigid torso that can't bend. Any hints and tips are appreciated, as I'm very new to this.

Hello Rob, Here is one of my wireframes. The three patches that I didn't want were the two ends and the one in the center. This wireframe is after I have applied my "fix" by adding the fifth vertex to the patches that I wanted to go away (that's why there's an extra spline bisecting the top of the figure) I suspect that where I went wrong was that ends and the center should have each been a single spline.

Some background -- Basically, what I'm working on is a 3D game using directX. The models are created via A:M and exported with amxtex. For example, one of my meshes is a "wall", which is a relatively simple rectangular solid. However, various unwanted patches get created (sometimes inside the wall, or at the junction where one wall starts and another ends). Intermittently as the player is moving these unwanted patches will show up, usually when the camera is positioned near-perpendicular to the normal of the unwanted patch. I'm going to try your idea with the transparency. If it still causes a problem, then I should be able detect the transparent patches inside my game engine and just not render them. Scott Hello Rodney, is there a quick way to do this, or is the only way to delete the original (seperate) splines and put a single spline in their place?

Yes, that's what I meant -- getting rid of unwanted patches.

Hello, Any time there are four points that are comprised of two splines, a face is created. Some of these faces I don't want. Now, I know that I can get rid of them by adding a fifth vertex, but this creates a good deal of complication as the fifth vertex breaks the adjacent face (which I want to keep), which I have to deal with by adding more vertices, and creating more polys than I wanted to. so, to make a long story short, is there any way to make a face go away? For example, select it with the face selection tool, and then _do something_ to disable it ? Thanks!

Actually, I figured out how to do it (it really helps to actually read the reference manual every now and then!). The "shortcut" to the camera in the choreography does not have a type setting, but if you actually go to the camera object itself (listed under objects), then you can edit the camera and toggle the type between perspective and orthographic.

Hello, I'm trying to do an orthographic projection in choreography mode, but I can't figure out how to configure the camera. I don't see any options on the camera settings to do this. Can it be done? What I trying to do is to create some flat textures to apply to my models. For example, I created a riveted wall model, then I'm going to shoot it in choreography mode to generate a rivet-wall texture that I can apply to my other models. So far, using the default camera options I'm getting some stretching of my model toward the outer edges, and I'm hoping an ortho projection would correct this. Thanks!

Hello, I've been using Master for a while, but there's one thing that I still find tedious, and that's texturing my models, which probably means that I'm somehow doing it the wrong way. Here's an example -- I'm creating a piece of lumber, a 2x6 board 8 feet long. I want to texture all six sides of it with a wood texture. For simplicity's sake, I want to apply the same wood texture to each side. There are several ways that I know to do this. One is to select the whole model, and then drag&drop a texture onto it. This "stretches" the texture to fit the model. The 8 ft long side of the 2x6 gets a long skinny version that's all stretched out, and the narrow end of the 2x6 gets a texture that's all squished up. That isn't what I wanted. The second way is to apply the texture as a decal. There are three methods: planar, cylindrical, and spherical. I don't think cylindrical or spherical are what I want because I end up with this weird swirly-looking texture on the ends. Now, a planar application -- this does what I want. I stretch the decal out so it's the length of the board, and then I apply it in turn to each of the six faces of the 2x6. The problem is, it's a bit labor-intensive. I have to re-zoom each of the six views to the same zoom-level (is there any way to zoom all six views at once?), and then I have to go through each view and apply the decal for each of them. What I wish I had was a "planar" application that would apply the decal to all faces of a model. Is there anyway to do what I'm looking for? A second unrelated question -- if I apply a decal that has "black" pixels in it (RGB = 0,0,0), then they get rendered as transparent. Is there anyway to turn the transparency off? Thanks!