Tom

Sorry you couldn't play the clip Robcat. It is a pretty cool the way the animators swap out the spirals in the clip; the spirals change from a light to dark outline as they pass that section of the screen...very effective. I am thinking about what Fuchur said regarding the technique. Yes, two layers on top of each other sounds like a good solution. Thanks !! Tom

Hello Hashers- I was watching the "Secret of Kells" and saw some cool smoke effects which have me stumped. They used celtic spirals for the rising smoke and the outer spiral lines changed from white to dark when they crossed some sort of masking line.(see animated clip). I'm sure there is a pretty simple explanation how they achieved this effect..but I can't figure it out. Can anyone explain this cool effect? Many thanks, Tom SmokeQuestion.swf

Thanks for posting the matcap download link!!! Tom

Thank you so much for the reply! I checked my diffuse menu (see attached) and it has everything listed except the matcap... Is there somewhere I can download it? Many thanks! Tom PS.I thought I attached the menu file but it didn't show up in the post.Hmmmmm Anyway, if there is a place to download the matcap, that would be great...

Thanks Nancy! Those are some cool images... Is matcap a shader for AM? or is it something that you created on your own? Thanks! Tom

This is an old clip but the results are so cool, thought the Hashers might enjoy it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT9qU_fJNuw Wish there was some sort of plug-in which would simulate some of these effects... Tom

How about a test to see how particles can be held inside containers...like the spiral smoke in this cut....?? Tom Smoke.mp4

Thank you for all the suggestions! When I changed the rendering to "uncompressed"...it did the trick. Many thanks as I never would have figured this out on my own... Best Tom

Hello Hashers- I have a copy of Version 18.0F SSE4 on a Windows 7 computer that did not have any animation previous animation software on it. It runs great. I also bought another copy of Version 18.0F SSE4 at Comic Con so I could bring my old computer (which already had an older copy of AM 17) up to the latest version. This machine performs well except that it won't render avi files when rendering.(?) while running V18. I know V18 has no problem with rendering avi files because the first machine renders them easily. My thinking is that maybe there is something that V17 has on the machine which is preventing the newer updated V18 from rendering avi.'s properly. Should I delete Version 17 from the computer? Or is there some specific file hidden somewhere which is preventing the newer version from rendering avi.'s properly? Many thanks for any insights! Tom

Did you assign a hair material to a model and did you switch to Grooming-Mode (next to modelingmode etc.)? Otherwise this mode is not available. That did the trick! Many thanks for the insight! Tom

Hello all- I am using Version 18.0 d SSE4 and I am trying to "groom" some hair. I go to View/Toolbars and select "Grooming" in the check box and the icon pops up on the side of my screen.. ...however when I close the Toolbars menu, the grooming icons disappear from the margin of the screen? Has anybody else have this happen.. Thanks for any help! Tom

Thanks Rodney.. The computer that didn't work so well graphically was bought "used" from a computer technician. It has an "Intel ® Q965/Q963 Express Chipset Family" with 256 Mb Ram... probably best to avoid with 64 bit installation. Thanks again !

While it might be good for a bug report (if you can consistently replicate the problem) it is possible Steffen could get the report and not be able to reproduce it if the problem is locally on your system (i.e. an out of date driver or somesuch). In a case like this it is appropriate to start a topic and explain the issue you are having and see if anyone can validate the problem. Once validated... it'll make a great report. My first thought is to examine the files in question but since I've been simulating the same project with the same images you are using... it doesn't seem to be related to the image itself. There has been reported a problem with OpenGL3 or... um... not sure. Set A:M to use OpenGL is what my memory recalls. At any rate, post a new topic and outline the issue. I'm confident that you'll be good to go in no time. There are a couple other things you can check. For instance, do you have the same problem with A:M in 32bit? Have you installed v18a? If not is that an option? I ask this because I don't know where you might be in your current production cycle. An upgrade in the middle of production is not something I would generally recommend to anyone unless it fixes a major problem or adds a new feature you cannot live without. BTW- I did change my copy of AM to a computer with a better graphics card and it solved the problem! Good call...thanks! Tom

Thanks to everyone for the feedback! Didn't mean to sidetrack the discussion into Open GL territory...because the original "forces" project is a fascinating one. I try to deconstruct these tutorials to the point where I could approximate the result others have gotten. I have a ways to go before I understand this one, but that is where the fun is... Thanks again! Tom

Just discovered that my computer doesn't support open GL3 (see screen shot) I do have another computer which has a better graphics card. Can I shift my copy of AM ( it is not a web version but a complete version) to the new computer using the same registration #? Thanks for any info! Tom

I took a screen shot showing the Open GL settings for my version of 18. Is there something that should be changed or checked that would help my problem? Thanks for any help, Tom

Thank you for the answers to the questions! I will definitely investigate those things further... BTW- I am using AM 18.0 SSE3 64 bit and it keeps crashing when I import maps. For the leaf tutorial I had to forget about using the leaf graphic that goes with the project. It also crashed on other projects when I imported graphics for rotoscoping. Has anyone else had this problem with 18.0 SSE3 64 bit?... and should I send this to Jason as a bug fix? Thanks! Tom

Thanks to everyone shedding light on this... I am going to reveal my level of ignorance here.. Did the person setting up this project add each leaf individually?... And then just let the Newton Physics create all the key frames for the leaves? Thanks! Tom

I didn't know we had a 3MB upload limit. If that is the case for you some setting is wrong some place. OK, Must have misread something.. Here is the file... Very cool effect...just not sure how they achieved it. Thanks for anyone who can deconstruct it.. Tom leaf.zip

Hello All- Was playing around with this cool old tutorial using "forces" and am having trouble deconstructing how it was achieved. I wanted to upload the zipped project file but it is over the 2Mb limit for the forum. It is 3Mb. What I could do was upload the movie. You can see from the wmv movie what the project looks like. I tried adding another leaf like object to the scene but the forces did not have any effect on the object that was added. The new leaf-like object was added as a dynamic object and told to respond to Newton Physics but it did not move. Can anyone explain how those leaves are made to respond to the force fields? Thanks for any help! Tom PS- If anyone wants the project file itself it still might be online somewhere. It is simply called "Leaf". I could also email it directly if anyone is interested. Leaves.wmv

Worked fine today with no crashes... musta been "user error.." Thanks for the help! Tom

I just tried dragging a jpg from the Images folder into a modeling window for a rotoscope and it worked OK. Perhaps you have some specific situation that can be duplicated?. Thanks for the feedback.. I'll try again in the morning and let you know... Tom

Windows 64 bit v. 18- Tried dragging a jpg into the modeling window to rotoscope some things and it kept crashing the software... so I'm back in v17 for now. Anyone else experience that in the 64 bit version? Tom

Thank you! Excellent explanation, Rob! Just glad to know I am not doing something wrong on this end. Tom

Hello All- Just thought I would upgrade to the 64bit version of AM and try using version 17.0g. Overall the speeds are great however I discovered when I try to render avi movies I get an error message, "AVI file create stream error". Also discovered that there are no options to render QuickTime movies in this version. Does anyone know if there is a fix for the avi rendering or if QuickTime rendering is planned for the future? Many thanks! Tom