Gerry

Yardie- That's all good advice. It's very helpful to see it all written down plainly and matter of factly. Thanks for that!

I've got a new problem with a transparency decal. We want to turn sections of the laptop transparent to see the drives inside. I created a transparency map and that part works fine. But when I want to make the decal "disappear", making the laptop opaque again, in the chor I set the percentage to 0% and the patches with the decal turn completely transparent. Any helpful suggestions are appreciated! In an effort to effect this, I tried changing the "type" to "other...", and then lost the "type" option altogether. I can reapply it I guess. but is there a way to get the "type"option back?

Thanks for responding guys. I don't know what it was, Luuk, you may be on to something about restarting. the first QT movie I brought in showed the frame option, but it didn't seem to have any effect. Thereafter, when I deleted the QT and brought in other formats (.avi, tga sequence) I couldn't seem to find the frame option. Well, it WAS late and I've been putting in 17-hour days on this project. Anyway I was wondering if it was because the movie was too compressed (h.264 codec), but in any case I did get some help from a local friend who also works in AM and he walked me through it. With his help I got the .tga sequence to work just fine. I came to a stopping point today and experimented with other compressions to see what works and a Sorenson3 version did just fine. We are creating a video tutorial on storage media for a patent case and at this point we're just creating a series of stills for a storyboard, which will later be turned into full animation with voice over. Here's one still.

I'm trying to decal a movie or image sequence onto a laptop screen and it's just misbehaving like crazy. I'm on v13q. I've done this before and though it took some trial and error I did get it to work. But that was a few years ago. I've tried a QT movie and I couldn't get it off the first frame. I'm trying a sequence of .tga files but I got an error message, though it seems to be behaving otherwise. Any help, or anyone pointing me to a help file or thread would be much appreciated! Gerry

Nice John, post your re-render when you can. Slowing it down a bit will help.

Strange but interesting, John. At the end it looks like some mutant creature trying to emerge from the fragments. Nice work!

Nice work John. It's inspiring to see these purely experimental projects.

I think the table texture is good, but as you darken all the other colors, it's looking a little orange. Keep the texture but adjust the colors to tone it back a bit.

Okay, that's just weird...interesting but weird.

Try something like this with the couch...

Couch!

Hey Ultimate shouting goofy guy - This is a terrific start! I was going to suggest a lamp but then I re-read your post. what case said about the window is definitely something you should look at. Here's a couple of things that caught my eye: That crackling texture in some of the floor tiles is really working, and i assume you're going to carry it through the whole floor. The rug is a little on the traditional side for the modern style of the rest of the room. Maybe something a little more modern, but that's strictly a judgement call. I'm not crazy about the frame on the painting, either a different texture or more detail in the moulding maybe, not sure what it needs. I really like the style of the table. something about the design of the couch makes it not as cozy or inviting-looking as it could be. Maybe it just needs more front-to-back depth, or more roundness in the cushions. So much for my maybe-a-little-of-this-or-that-maybe-not critique. Hope it helps! gerry

Tried to watch it but the connection kept timing out on me. I'll try again tomorrow.

Wow, really nice work!

Yeah, I was just moving things and setting keyframes to see how some movements looked rendered. This is all too slow. Oddly, in the chor, the antennae movements were much more pronounced even when I was scrubbing or stepping through frame by frame. In the render it's almost nonexistent. What do you think of the unsynchronized eyeblink? I think it adds to the character, but someone commented that it looked weird. I pointed out that this is an alien, so weird isn't a bad thing! I'm also taking a (nother!) step back on the rigging. I'm not as far along as I thought.

Here's another test of some of the facial pose sliders. I thought I had some dynamic constraints in the antennae but I guess they're either too stiff or the head motion is too leisurely to get some bounce in the secondary motion. I'm also still trying to make the last fixes in the rigging.

Yep, there's supposed to be some secondary movement in the antennae. If you look close you'll see it happens slightly, but they bounce up instead of down. You mean spring systems? The facial expressions are all pose sliders. and I've smoothed out the face a little after this render.

This is a great start, Heath! I like the way the eyes bob up and down as a secondary motion. Yeh, maybe it could have more weight, but I like the way you show the various tweaks from one run cycle to the next. Each one is definitely better.

I took a break from animating this to step back and get serious about learning something about rigging. I did Mike Fitzgerald's excellent cog joint tute and got it about 98% done. I'm still struggling over a few details (and Mike has been a great help), but I also finally created eyelids and put in some pose sliders for the face etc. here's a test of some facial movement. The rigging problems consist of not being able to bend the elbows and knees. I have a prj file I would be more than happy to post if anyone would like to look it over. I've also had a few ideas about fleshing out this animation. As I was rigging I decided that this is way too much work for the brief blackout sketch I had planned, so I'm toying with adding some dialog and a few other touches. Who knows, it could end up as a feature film!

Thanks Paul. I'm already working on another solution with the guy here who does post work in After Effects. Rather than my try to create shadows and bg gradients with the lighting, I'm deleting the ground plane altogether, rendering with an alpha channel, and he'll fake it all in post. The real problem is the loss of the laptop model. DJ, that's the problem. I do have about five versions of the .prj file (I save constantly), but when I open them they all ask for the laptop.mdl. When I found the bare bones laptop in the Hash library and brought it into the project, it stayed linked to the library. It never occurred to me that even after I did all that modifying that it was still linked to the library. So when I uninstalled the app and all related files, there went my laptop. I can redo it in an hour or so. But that model was already approved by my boss and shown to the client, so I can't just switch to another model. Let this be a lesson to me!

I am TOTALLY BUMMED! My beautiful laptop model is gone. I reinstalled A:M, after first uninstalling. However, the bare bones laptop model from the Hash library,that I extensively modified and made BEAUTIFUL, was apparently still linked to the library. So when I trashed the app and all the libraries, apparently the modified model went with it. It was real pretty too...

I have to create my *very first* alpha channel for this laptop project. I’m rendering out as a series of targas and I’ve noticed that they automatically generate an alpha channel when I open them in Photoshop, but by default the alpha is a blank screen, so I need to figure out how to silhouette just the main elements, However I think I’ve created a problem for myself before I’ve even left the gate. Can an alpha channel silhouette only one part of a model? I need to silo the infamous laptop computer and its cast shadow. But in order to solve another problem, I had deleted the default "ground" from the chor and included a ground plane as part of the laptop model. Now of course I need to silo just the laptop for the alpha channel so I think I've screwed myself. However I also don't see where you select elements to be separated out by the alpha, so I don't actually know what I'm doing. Any help will be appreciated. Gerry

Ha! That has got to be THE MOST OBSCURE trivia question I've ever heard! But now if it ever comes up I'll know the answer! I guess it would be plain silly of me to ask if you know where the name of the movie "Zardoz" comes from...

Hah! I had a similar experience with a hair material last fall. It misbehaved and misbehaved until I finally deleted it altogether. It was clear that the banding was perpendicular to the light but I never tested that until I'd run out of other ideas. Thanks Matt!

Hm, this is interesting. The banding seems to have been a problem with the default light. No matter where I moved it I got banding perpendicular to the light source. So I deleted the light and created a new light, same settings, and the banding has completely disappeared.