Gerry

Eric- I'd be glad to respond to your question as I'm just finishing up a fairly complex project, decal-wise, and I've learned a ton through trial and error. but I can't tell from your screen shot what you're showing. What's the decal? The large grey shape? The dotted triangle? If you can show me something that more clearly show the problem I'll try to help you out. Gerry

I've got a very rough first render of this movie and it appears the QT movies I used for decals are not playing. I'm posting a link here to a quick and dirty render (4mb) to see if someone has a suggestion. There are two places where movies should be playing: on the nine reels of the game screen as it flies by (too fast but I'm going to fix that) and the horses coming out of the gate. The horses are existing art, a series of four stills that I have to work with. I created a series of cross-fades to "fake" the implied action and the QT movie itself plays fine. The reel movies also play fine by themselves but as decals they do not seem to be playing. The second problem I need to solve is how to keep the movies on the first frame, and then have them start at a specified frame in the main movie, i.e., when they fly by the camera. Suggestions appreciated! Test movie

Yeah I tried again today and I can only render in final mode. I haven't tried Default though, I figured that meant wireframe. I'm not sure how I have prefs set. I may send in an AM Report on Monday.

With a little trial and error I've been able to render just fine in final mode, but I haven't gone back to try wireframe render. I'll try that today and see how it goes.

Nope, but I've got another one. When I tried to do a wireframe test render I got this message: Failed InitBoundRender Info And it wouldn't render. I'm on a PC, Windows 2000Pro, not sure of the video card as I'm doing this at work. I'm a Mac guy at home. It's 7:30 and I'm going home, but if anyone knows what this might mean that would be a big help.

Thanks Nancy, in fact I just got a reply from Hash outlining what you described and it works just fine. thanks for your comment. HASH ROCKS!!

Hi Ken- Here's a zip file with a quickie project (one four-patch object and a decal img) with the same problem, the image goes onto each patch separately. Hopefully it will look the same to you as it does to me. decaling problem file

I'll open a new project and see if I can duplicate the problem. If I can I'll post it for you to look at. Thanks Ken!

Yeah Ken, I'm working with another (still) image to decal across several patches, and it apparently wants to apply the entire image to each patch. There also doesn't seem to be a way to rescale the image before applying like in earlier versions. This is the brand new version, with the little red headed magician holding the Thom doll on the cd. Just got it yesterday and I'm on a hellacious deadline with a live project.

Here's a link to the image. It appears the animated decal is being applied to each patch, with some being stretched horizontally and one being applied correctly. Screen shot of offending movie

I'm attempting to apply a small QT movie as a decal. It will be on a curved shape and will create an illusion of spinning with a series of blurred frames. but when I apply it, either directly in the model window or in an action window after flattening, it applies exactly the same way, with a few stretched/repeated images. I'm attempting to attach an image to show the way the movie looks, and the way it applies. Can someone telll me what I could be doing wrong? Thanks! P.S. The attach image may not be working. Don't know why, I browse for the image but there's no way to upload apparently. You'd think I'd know how to work this by now.

Yeah, really nice. Great sense of detail while keeping the shapes simple.

Thanks John! That is a huge help!

Noah- these are really masterful but I have one comment and one question. Comment: In the second one, the foot against the wall doesn't seem to have the necessary weight to it. It seems like either the ball of the foot should be pressed harder (flatter) against the wall, or there should be a hint of tendon showing in the ankle joint, or both. Picky picky! Question: Are these completely rigged, or are you just modeling them in the final pose? i.e., do you rig her and then put her in the pose, or are you modeling her in the pose? Great work!

Robert - these are all looking gorgeous, the atmospherics in these scenes is awesome! The fishy you posted up above, I would suggest making the pupils of his eyes bigger. I think it might help the character design. also I can only assume you'll be doing something richer with his texturing. This is all looking great.

This all looks great and I love the look you're going for, but I for one would vote for a cleaner, more legible title on the poster design. It should be at LEAST as readable as the other copy. As it is, the fussiness only makes it hard to read (especially against the stylized "sun" on the horizon) and robs it of impact.

Bill, the first thing that comes to mind is whether the purse/pucker expression will be used for more than a moment, if not I don't mind the slight creasing. It even appears to go with the facial lines of the character. Second, can you do an effective purse/pucker that's not so extreme? One last comment, maybe you could make the small mouth the default (it seems to go better with the character designs) and have the option for the big mouth when called for. this is looking good, it's fun to watch develop.

Hi Rodney- Happy birthday!

Bill-this is just awesome for you to put this work in. thanks so much and happy new year!

Thanks for your comments Bill. So you've just got hemispheres that you rotate and the intersecting geometry is concealed by the marshmallow body, is that it? I'm going to keep working on my approach and if I arrive at a workable solution I'll post it. Thanks for your help!

Hi Bill - yup it helps a lot, but I should have been more specific. What I was wondering about was the opening and closing of the eyelids. Is is a pose slider? How do you get the lids to move in the same curve as the surface of the eyeball?

Looking good so far, and some fun attitude coming through. I would definitely say some teeth/lips/mouth detail, and some detail in the shoes. Also maybe fuller in the waist, and a longer baggy t-shirt.

Yes. I'm planning for eyelids that work exactly like Bill Gaylord is doing with his Marshmallow Safety guys. Here's how I've modeled the eyelids, they'll close from top and bottom. I don't know if this is the ideal way to model for what I want, but I've asked Bill to post a wireframe of his.

Hi Bill- this is looking great! I like what you've done with the eyes. I'm working on a character posted in WIP with very similar eyelid structure. Could you post a wireframe of the eyes? Thanks, good luck with this. I'm looking forward to more.

I've thinned out the mesh around the mouth. Still working on re-doing the eyes with a less dense sphere.