Gerry

Hey, the book came today and I flipped through it when I went home for lunch. It looks great! I'm looking forward to taking more time with it.

No this is looking pretty good to me. the proportions are much improved and the head looks fine, though I say this without looking at a photo of an actual deer for comparison. Nice work on the antlers. What does look odd for some reason is that in the 3/4 view the head looks like it's off to the side. I know the model's symmetrical from the back view up top. It looks odd but I can't say why.

It's a classic, dude!

Try this. I always come back to it when I need to brush up on doing a face. It's straightforward and clearly explained. http://www.hash.com/users/jsherwood/tutes/SkyLark.pdf

Yes, there are things to critique about this, but all the elements are so well integrated and create such a great effect that it becomes almost hypnotic. Even the similarity of the voices is a plus in some way I can't exactly explain. And the fact that it's all being done by one guy really puts it over the top in my estimation.

Yeah, a Boolean has to be part of the same model it cuts. It won't cut another model. If this doesn't work for you you may have to figure out another way of accomplishing the effect. A Boolean is just one way.

That's a good question. I did something similar last year, having footprints appear in snow. There are two things you could try. Either give the Boolean a flat nose and only push it through the outer skin without touching the circuitry, or make the circuitry a separate model. the Boolean won't cut through that.

Here's a wireframe that shows the boolean object. bulletpierce_wireh264.mov

Here's the .prj file. You'll see that the Boolean is a second object in the same model as the "plated surface" model. Assign a bone to the piercing object and in the bone properties turn Boolean Cutter to ON. Now when you move the Boolean cutter to intersect with the wall it will cut out a negative shape in the exact shape of the Boolean object. Here's some things to keep in mind: 1) It won't show in the chor window. You have to render to final quality. You can always just render a still from the middle of the sequence if you don't want to render the whole scene to check that it's working; 2) The "cut" surface of the wall will be the color of the Boolean object; 3) Both objects have to be completely closed models for this to work, i.e., they have to have top, front and sides and the mesh can't have any open holes or missing patches. 4) The Boolean object will be completely invisible if it's not intersecting another object. To create the animation I just stuck the projectile in at frame 5, left it there for a second or two, then slowly backed it out. Good luck with this and keep posting questions. Bullet_Pierce.zip

Just ordered it! thanks for the tip!

Here's a quickie test with a boolean cutter. I didn't mess with a displacement map but that would definitely enhance the effect. If this looks like it might be what you're trying to do I'll post the .prj EDIT: this .mov file appears to hang after the first couple of frames. If it doesn't play properly, try dragging the progress bar to see the effect. bulletpiercetest_h264.mov

thanks for the comments! It appears to me that he's "clomping" a bit much. I think the soles of the feet need to roll more. That's what I hope to correct by looking at a vid of myself. I think the foot slippage would be more obvious if the ground were actually visible.

Ya know I deliberately used a grid for the ground plane so the slipping would be easier to catch, then overlit the dang thing so the grid is washed out. I meant to re-render it but it had too many probs to re-render as is. I had posted a query on another thread about the stride length manipulator in v15 but I don't think anyone ever answered. The way it works seems to have changed but I can't be sure, it just doesn't work like I remember it working, or the way it should work according to the manual. so I've tried tinkering with the numbers in the properties window instead of dragging it in the action window. But as far as I can tell, the final test of the SLM *should* be that there's no slippage on the SLM itself. Is that correct as a general thing? Anyone?

And always bevel!

Maybe an animated displacement map combined with an animated boolean cutter. If you're not sure what I mean maybe I could set up a quick example tomorrow. I'm just guessing, I haven't worked with displacement maps much, but animating a boolean cutter is pretty easy.

Here's a walk test I did about two weeks ago and I was on the fence about posting it because it has problems, and I won't be getting back to this in the near future. But since it's done, and doesn't completely stink, I thought, why not? Hopefully I'll be able to pick it up again after the holidays. To my eye, problems are a lot of foot slippage, and he lumbers more than slinks. I thought about filming myself doing the kind of walk I envision for guidance, and I may do that when I get back to it. If anyone cares to comment that would be welcome. Croaker_walktest02_h264.mov

Head is looking good but I don't think the neck would flare out like that.

I don't know anything about Warhammer and I'm not gonna look at any pictures. I want to just enjoy watching this model take shape.

There's lots of new features and better stability since v13, and seriously, $49 a year is a steal. So if the CD is really gone, your options are $299 for a v15 CD or $49 for a year's subscription. Also there are updates during the year (that work for either version) that it pays to stay aware of.

Yeah, that's the serial number for your individual copy, that you would use when your first install it. And yes, if you need the CD to run it then it's definitely not the subscription version. Keep lookin, it's there somewhere!

HI- This is a great start, though the bed (and bedposts) look a little clunky. The knobs look large and out of proportion, and I'm wondering why the bed is on a solid platform instead of legs. The table looks great though!

this is looking really great!

That's some deep and intuitive digging on Steffen's part. I used to delve into the .prj text files when I was having some rendering probs a few versions back, and it's good to know you *can*, but not always a good idea if you don't know exactly what you're looking for.