Gerry

After reading some of the above comments I went and watched it again, and stepped through frame by frame for some of it. I think all these points about penetration are really nonissues when it comes to animation, in fact you can cheat an awful lot in animation in general since the eye perceives it totally differently than still images. Most of the penetration in the coming-through-the-door scene, even viewed slowly, reads like the fur just being crushed. And even stepping through, most of it reads just fine. It really is a terrific piece of work!

As stated above, render time can be affected by a lot of variables. If you want to take some time to experiment, save different versions of your prj and remove various settings and see what's affecting the render time. You might have something turned on (like Ambient Occlusion or ray-traced shadows) that you don't need or turned on by mistake. And you don't need to render the whole movie each time. Render just a handful of frames and check the average frame render time.

Ya know I was trying to remember those key combos! I finally concluded that with Grab, Apple may have phased them out, but I was misremembering was all. But to capture just the window it's space bar, not shift.

Actually it looks like hecklenjeckle is on a Mac. To do a screen grab you need to use Grab, a utility that's in your Applications>Utilities folder. Double click Grab (and add it to your dock while you're at it!) and under Capture, click Screen. Follow the instructions in the popup window, and after a second the screen grab will appear in a window. Click Save, then open it in Photoshop and convert to a jpeg. You can browse to the jpeg and post that here. Your problem does sound like you've got some tool or pref checked that shouldn't be.

That's some very nice looking splining.

As long as you're correcting his english, it's spelled "paragraph"!

That's great!

I would think anyone interested in getting into A:M would spend maybe a couple of hours checking out the forums instead of just flaming the place on their first post. That's what's strange.

Whoa, I can't believe theSpleen has been using A:M for only 2 MONTHS! I am completely green with envy. I've been using this app for going on ten years and have only begun doing characters and character animation in the last two years, and not very successfully! The Spleen's progress is in itself is a great testimonial. I wonder if MajorDill and pjfife are even stopping back here anymore. But by making a snap judgement they are really losing out.

A:M uses patches instead of polygons so even though you can import .3ds files they won't be usable as articulated models that you can animate or otherwise manipulate.

You can also add a second (or third or fourth) camera to a choreography, say, one for a long shot and another for closeup and render frames from each for the relevant sequence. As robcat said you can keyframe your camera to move to the "closeup" shot but you have to be very mindful of the keyframes that are created and peak them, or the camera will do a long swoop before any dramatic camera moves. For me it's always been easier to just add cameras. Hitting "1" on the keypad will cycle through all the various camera views. And there's the NLE editor, which I haven't used yet but sounds pretty cool, for compositing your renders.

Hash is a small company and they spend all their time improving the program, so some of these details may get overlooked. As Rodney said, spend some time doing searches for user sites, testimonials and tutorials and other support resources to get a full picture. A:M users have been described as a cult on CG Talk! EDIT- Hey, those are some great links Rodney! I've never even seen some of those pages!

This is my first visit to this thread. It's all looking just great, David!

Rodney, you have more patience than me! But to clarify a couple of points: I think "lack of info on the site" meant on the Hash Inc. site and not the forums. I think this is a fair observation because we all have come to depend on the forums for info. I also suspect that "manual downloads" was referring to the manual. But jpfife is wrong about this one. He is just unfamiliar with the enormous quantity of support info available.

If you have questions, just ask!

No, you should definitely be able to have a vol slider. I'll look into it a bit more.

A:M is great for mechanical stuff.

Hi and welcome to the forums! If by 3Ds files you mean 3DS Max, you won't be able to import them as fully functioning models. A:M's patches aren't compatible with the polygons used by Max, Maya and other 3D apps. You'll need to use models that are created specifically for A:M. The only way A:M will import poly models is as "props", which can't be manipulated as a regular model is. I hope this helps!

Sorry, can't help with the vol control. I built an mp3 player as a class project awhile back and had to get a look at it. Unfortunately it's got everything but a volume control! Hey but I just thought of something. Are you pubbing these as .flv files? If you are you can put in a control bar with a vol control, can't you?

Nice start. Are those edges beveled?

Ernest, nice work once again. the volume was not a problem but the video was a bit dark. I may be able to help with a volume control. Give me a day or two and I'll let you know.

It looks like libraries go in the data folder. You may have to map the path from Tools/Options/Folders and select the libraries in the data folder. Start by looking in your Data folder to make sure all the library items are in there. If not I think you can just copy from the install disc. I'm not the expert on this, hope it helps!

Nice!

If I understand your question, you can select the constraint in the Project Work Space, and in the Properties panel you should see Enforcement. You can set that at any amount from 0 to 100% and when you do it should make a keyframe. Is that what you're asking?

Don't feel bad for the snail, he'll still have his cameo. I'm just cutting away a second sooner. We're launching a new business venture in Washington (DC) so there will be a lot of new law firms getting a holiday greeting from us for the first time and my boss is a little leery of emphasizing the snail too too much; ya know, first impressions etc. But she's 100% in favor of having the snail in there. And she really liked the idea of linking to the two past animations. So it's win-win. She lets me have a lot of fun with these so I can't complain. And even though I've got 3DS Max on my machine, she lets me work in A:M.