arkaos

Dhar, my character is one I made. I ended up saving the chor to a new file, deleted all shortcuts except for that character. Then I fixed the bad keyframes and exported his chor action to an *.act file. In my original chor, I deleted the old chor action and dropped the *.act on him, and I haven't had the problem since. Not an elegant fix, but it will let me move forward with this project. Thanks, everyone. I think I'm set now.

Thanx Bendy, but that's the first thing I did. All is good there (or so it would seem). Did u check out the project file? The answer must lie somewhere in there.

I am experiencing unexpected results from my fire emitter. It appears as if their is a force in the "Z" direction, when in fact their is none defined in the chor. Below are views of what is happening. As you can see, the flames don't just float up, the also float towards the +z direction as well. I include my project file. Can anybody explain to me what is going on and how to fix it? I can't figure it out. I am using v12.0s for Windows with this one. In the project, Chor1 has a force in it, a cyclinder shape, but it shouldn't be affecting anything on the troll. Chor2 is a copy of chor1, without the force in it. Problems occur in both chors. Screenshots are from chor with NO force objects. Fireball.zip

Hi all, I created an animated gif of a test piece I was doing while experienting with material animation. Here is a free vga-sized gif. Just right-click and "save target as..." Electric Ball Screen shots

I actually moved the camera to center the green guy for this test shot. The previous picture shows the actual camera angle for both characters (and the whole scene, really). Just you wait, the green guy has a few tricks up his sleeve(?)! Dhar, as far as the Star Trek theme (made it myself with Voyetra Record Producer), that's kinda of the theme of the whole spoof I am doing. Thanks for the support, guys. This is my first real movie-like animation featuring sound, lip-sync, particle effects and such. I have learned a lot from doing this, but I have learned even more from the members of the hash community, so please keep comments and critiques coming. Hopefully, with my busy work schedule, I can finish in time for the contest, but it's looking pretty grim at the moment. A few more late nights are in store for me, I think.

I just started doing that with the darktrees myself lately. As for sweeper, it's pretty handy. I've used it to sweep elements of a bridge model (deck, beams, barrier rail) and it work splendidly for that purpose.

Wow, very cool. Thanks a lot for sharing the models fred. Concepts like this always take animation to very interesting places.

Well, here's an update: I saved the project to a new file and removed everything from the chor that wasn't the character in question or any props he interacts with. I re-reset the arm keyframes and left all of the settings in the project and software as they were before. I shaded rendered a movie, then final rendered one. And no problems occured, but something still goes funky in my original project file. I looked at the original project file. Almost 8 Mb (it's got a lot of objects and a ton of audio clips and lip-sync actions along with the before mentioned decals and materials and such) so I can't really post it here for anyone to look at. My best solution as of yet: I must found out how to import the good version of the chor action from the test project into my original file so I can complete this project before I die of old age (I'm 35, btw. Yes, I'm being sarcastic. ) Does anyone know how to do that without screwing up the original (screwed-up) file? I have already animated other characters in this project, so I don't really want to scrap it and start over.

I like the model. I sure could use it for keyframing practice. Let's see what this puppy can do. Post an animation to feed the addicts out here

When I modelled this character, I had a particular look I wanted to give him concerning his eyes. Though I achieved the model I wanted, I realized that his eyes were too small to convey the thoughts and emotions necessary in selling an animation to an audience--especially at the resolutions I would have to use if I want my movie to finish final render within my mortal human lifespan. So I must now adapt to achieving believable animation with this guy relying more on the use of body language. I am pretty new to this, so critiques, reviews, thumbs-ups, thumbs-downs, advice, praise, or general two-cents-worth are welcome. Here is part of the opening sequence for the Space Captain in my movie: 1st runthrough And next, a look into the disturbed eyes of Alien Dude: It's Not Easy Being Green Refer to pic from previous post for setup.

Very artistic! Refreshing and creative. I thought something I swallowed in college came back to haunt me for a minute, there Are those flat models, or do they have depth in the model file? I dig the whole Adam and Eve thing ya got going? Keep us posted.

Now THAT'S an interesting idea I've never thought of. It looks like you created a simulated lighting effect by animating the material properties. But yeah, darktrees render slow as molasses, but they look sharp. I used a darktree once to texture a simple character. I rendered a 12 sec. animation at low res and it took several hours. When I got ditched the material and decalled instead, it cut the render time by a factor of about 4 or 5. Thanks for sharing your idea. I'm sure it'll come in handy. Looks really neat.

It should open in v11.1. I haven't tried it yet, so don't quote me on it. It's pretty big, even zipped. I don't know the exact size but I'll see when I get home in a coupla hours. I am using a home-made terrain, my Space Hot Rod, my Alien Dude, my Space Captain, Kee-Kat, decals up the wazoo, a few materials, a coupla tree models a wooden barrel, a cart, a totem pole, a cartoon raygun, a winebottle, a rotoscope...pretty big project file. I'll try and post it tonight. Hmmmm. Interesting theory. Can't hurt to try it. I'll be durned if I know how any of my poses could affect my arms, but I don't have any better ideas. Thanx, I'll take a closer look tonight. I had at one time used the clench fist pose, but abandoned it because that pre-made pose looks terrible. Who clences their fist like that, anyhow? Plus his fingers get busy during the sequence, so I decided to "show fingers" and manipulate them by hand (get it ?).

Okay cool! So I'm dumb. I am writing a book I eventually want to animate (hence the reason I bought this program). I guess that would fall under "steampunk" as well. See, and old dog CAN learn new tricks

Hey, I checked out your draconian post...and I LOVED it. Way better than MY Draconian-type-character (my current avatar). All of my early stuff stinks and was very poor excuse for modelling and animating. But we all start off that way. Heck my first attempt at animating my lizard man, he looked stiff and jerky, like a taxidermied fish outta water. "Modelling takes Talent" line you always run into on the Hash website is a bunch of doggy-doo. "Modelling takes Practice" is how it should read. I'm no Picasso, but each model I create is usually better than the previous. Don't give up! Make for yourself short challenges and see them through. I almost gave up a while back, but golly-gee-whiz I am GLAD I didn't. Have faith in yourself and, though practice and trial/error you will become a great animator/modeller if you see it through. Anyways, a lot of MY stuff still stinks, but I don't care. I have fun, anyway. Bottom line, I got faith in ya and we're behind ya all the way!

Pixar, since you have nothing to comment on, could you help ME solve a riddle concerning MY mini-movie. I have a thread here explaining the details: My Thread Thanx a bunch and can't wait to see wut yer cookin' up.

No Luckbat, just one Chor.

No. I rendered in "final" mode immediately after rendering in "shaded" mode without touching anything else. This problem occured each time. Each time I did the exact same thing. Any guesses? By the way, I am using v12.0q not v12.0p...oops!

Sounds cool! What's a "steampunk"?

Last night I did a final render of my project and when I played the movie I noticed that one of my characters limbs (left arm) was moved about 5 cm to the right from where it was supposed to be in every frame. Before I composed the final render I rendered it out in shaded mode to make sure everything looked okay, and all was as they should be. I ended up having to move the arm back to it's correct position in every keyframe and also the fingers went all wonky. Thusly I had to re-position all 5 fingers in about 25 keyframes (125 fixes...took a while). I saved the project, then did a render in shaded mode. All was correct. Then I rendered in "final" mode with "shadows = ON" and "reflections = ON" (same settings as I used in previous "final" render) and the pesky arm was moved again. Thankfully the fingers didn't go crazy again. As to what the problem is, I am stumped. I have 3 characters in the scene and about 8 props. The error only affects one particular character. I am using one choreography action for the keyframes for that character. The character is rigged with the 2001 skeleton. I have never run into this problem before using this character, so...I'm stumped. I was wondering if anyone else has experienced anything like this before? I will post a project file later. (I'm at work now, so I can't.) It is a HUGE project file, so I wonder if I can even post it here? Oh, I am using version 12.0p, by the way and 2005 "Sorcerez" CD. System: 2.2 GHz AMD Athlon 64 3700+. 1.0 GB Ram, Ati Radeon PCI Express w/ 256 MB shared. Windows XP Media Center Edition, Service Pack 2. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Tim, I guess you can do it either way. As for which is the method taught in film school, I wouldn't know. I tend to complete the model before I do the preliminary animating. If you plan to use standard, reusable rigs, you could work out the core keyframes using a proxy model and replace the proxies with the finished models at a later time. I guess it all depends on how you want to approach it and if you are teaming with other people. In a team setting, the proxy approach is beneficial because the modellers don't have to be completely finished for animation to begin. Work in the way that is best for your feng shui, is my advice.

I think a little more heel-toe action would complete this walk cycle. Everything else looks very fluid. I like piggy's attidude strut

Odog, u dog. I must say, he's starting to look like Butthead! Keep at it and don't give up. This model is looking really nice. You will have an awesome Butthead when you are done. I can tell. The nice thing about modelling after a cartoon character is you don't have to make it look absolutely real. Use only the amount of detail you need to mimic the cartoon (unless you need some extra detail to make it more expressive, but that's a judgement call we all must make). Remember, if there is any places where it seems impossible to smooth it out either: 1) reduce the number of splines in that area and hook it in. Fewer splines = smoother model = less detail. It's a give and take situation. 2) there is always the 'porcelain' material cheat Killer job thus far, Odog.

Alpha on, all others off, Will

I tried it and found no difficulty rendering from the given setup. Which version of A:M are u running? 11, 11.1 or 12.0n? I am using version 12.0q.