Tom

Thanks for the feedback! John also added another good question... Is there a way to define depth in the walls of a model. For example, if there was a standing character, would the printer always print it as a complete solid? Or can you define that the walls of the figure have a certain thickness, and leave a hollow space in the inside? Does anyone know? Thanks again, Tom

Hello- I apologize if this has been answered before but I did a search for "3d printing" and ".STL" in the AM forums search and it came up blank...so here goes: When exporting an .STL file with AM17, does the mesh need to be continuous to be recognized by the printer?...or can there be multiple models intersecting each other, without there being one unified mesh? (see picture)... In this simplistic picture there is a sphere (figure A) with some of the points pulled out..and then there is a sphere (figure with a cylinder intersecting. Are both of these models "legal" to the 3D printer? Will both models "print out" accurately? Thanks for any insights... Tom

And just to clarify the "COIK" that was mentioned in the previous post... I had been playing around with "Cloth Sims" feature in AM and was really enjoying the beautiful ballets as the cloth is rendered frame by frame...while the simulation is running. So I mistakenly thought that "Newton Sims" would do the same "frame by frame" rendering... where the user could enjoy it. It wasn't until Rob posted that movie that I realized my error. Nothing like seeing a first-person hands-on account to make it "COIK". Thanks again to everyone who took the time to help! Tom

Rob- Thank you so much for the movie!!! My father had a saying called "COIK" (kinda like "coin" with a "k"). It stood for "Clear Only If Known". Which was his way of dealing with new technology. And this is a perfect example of that. Here is my mistake. During the "SimulateNewton" action I was expecting to see the cylinders drop in the Choreography window...however the simulation was so fast that nothing moved (!!!) and I didn't bother to check the little markers in the timeline window to verify whether anything had been rendered... ....and I neglected to scrub the little marker to test the animation. So by just trusting my eyes I was missing the whole thing. And I wouldn't have problem solved it without your and the other kind members on the list! Another hurdle solved with the Hash helpers. Many thanks! Tom

I unzipped the simple Newton project and tried it on both my machines (I have two Hash Web subscriptions) and the Newton simulate did not work on either one... Wow..I am puzzled. I did not change or modify the model or project at all. Only loaded it and right clicked in the Choreography window to try and simulate Newton. The machine calculated like it normally would for any simulation but the models did not fall from the sky like they should have (as shown by the movie). I realized that there are two possibilities available when you are trying to get the Newton to simulate. You can right click on a model (highlight that particular model) and then when you right click you get "NewtonPhysicsHelper" and when you simple right click in the Choreography without highlighting anything, ... you get "SimulateNewton". I actually tried both options and when I highlighted just the model... I got the same error message which showed up (see first post at top of thread). I know you have to check a settings in the "options" window when you want particles/hair to render. Is there some other place in the software that needs to be told to render Newton physics? Thanks for any insights anyone might have... Tom BTW - I am running Windows XP professional version and AM v17.a 32 bit.

Thank you so much! I was just going to ask someone to post a simple project because some of the old Newton projects seem to work and others don't. Thanks for your kindness. Tom

Hello- I was attempting the tutorial on Newton Physics... the one where you have 3 cylinders that are supposed to tumble on themselves. http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?act=A...st&id=19636 Each cylinder is set to be a dynamic object and the ground is static. Pretty basic stuff, but I get this error message when I right click on one of the cylinders in Choreography: I am using V17a and after receiving the error message I copied the "explode.hxt" from the V16 Hxt folder into the v17 Hxy folder ,thinking that might help...(because there was no "explode.hxt" in the v17 folder). Didn't help... Has anyone had similar issues...or any suggestions? Many thanks! Tom

OK...Thanks!

I haven't looked through all the models on the AM Misc Disk...but do you know of any pre-rigged face models that are already boned with Lite Face? It would be very helpful to study a model that is already rigged... Thanks for any info Tom

I did come across Shaun Freeman's video on the AM-pro series training video from Siggraph(?). I'll have to give that a second look! Thanks Tom

Hello- I was revisiting the Lite Face Rigging and I wondered if anyone has ever posted a tutorial video showing the best approach? The pdf file (which has a tutorial printed out) is very nice but I personally seem to have the information to sink in quicker when I see someone actually SHOW things in real time.... many thanks for any links of video face rigging tutorials. Tom

Thanks for all the suggestions! Hmmmmm.... I rechecked everything and the step was set to "1" and the FPS was set to 30. I rendered out individual frames with no problem so maybe that is the best approach...As long as it will work correctly with individual frames, I don't think I will sweat where the glitch was, whether my own human error or some weird software issue peculiar to my machine. Thanks again! Tom

Hello- I just purchased a web licenses for V. 17.a. I started a project and rendered a scene that was 130 frames long as an avi. When I loaded the avi into After Effects to do some tweaking... the length of the avi turned out to be only 64 frames long (?) I tried rendering a QuickTime movie but it also only rendered about half of what I had told the Render engine to do. I am a long time user of AM but can't figure out if I'm missing something simple. Any suggestions are welcome! Thanks! Tom

Thanks so much for all the suggestions and examples! I will definitely be playing with this more! Tom

Hello- In the properties panel you can turn on "Glow" for a group. It seems you can either turn "Glow" "ON" or "OFF". I tried searching the database but couldn't find an answer to the question, "What if you want a "Glow" to grow,... over time?...from nothing to a bright glow... Is there a way to do this without making two different renders...one with the glow "ON" and one with the glow "OFF" ...and then just cross dissolve the renders in another program like AfterFX? Thanks for any insights Tom

It sounds like he might be trying to achieve something like a super slow mo that is seen in action films..when people are fighting and everything slows way down.. That's just a guess.. although..how would you achieve the effect that I just described? Maybe...just make a regular speed action and then pad it out by quadrupling the action when it is dropped into choreography? Tom

It would be fun to see the final result if possible... Sounds like an interesting approach... Tom

Excellent! Do you know the name of the model that you used from the Extra Disk? It didn't look familiar to me.. thanks! Tom

Many Thanks! Your knowledge of AM is encyclopedic! Tom

Hello all- Trying to something VERY simple and thought I would ask the List... Just trying to create a cylinder shape that has a transparency map applied so that the cylinder object gradually fades out. ( please see attachment) At first I thought I would create a Material as an "Environment map" and chose the "cylinder" drop down menu; but I don't think you can define the bitmap that you chose to be a transparency map when applied. Then I thought of simply stamping the transparency map from all four directions (front,back,left,right) directly on the cylinder... but I'm guessing there must be a simpler way to apply a transparency map to a cylinder. If anyone knows, their help is appreciated... Thank you! Best, Tom

Many thanks for the quick reply!!! Tom

Hello- While reading the LiteFace tutorial I noticed a picture of a head model which is being used to illustrate the tutorial. Attached is the picture of the model. Is that face model available anywhere? I am having a little bit of trouble trying to understand where the placement of the bones are around the lip area.. Many thanks for any info... Tom

No, that's for problem solving and advice so you'll be able to do it yourself. Something you might try with the net you have is to delete one spline ring at each junction and reattach the leftover CPs to teh spline ring that remains. I'd start with a simple structure like that that just crosses 4 strands in a tic tac toe grid shape and drop test that first to see if it simulates at all. Then if that worked i'd do that to the whole net and see if that still simulated, then i'd try putting the ball through it. I see in your prj you had the ball as a deflector material, that will work fine as long as you animate the ball in an appropriate fashion. That test you did looks great! Your suggestions are excellent! I am aware that you help a lot of people on this forum (including myself) and will keep your offer in mind in the future. Thanks again! Tom

Thanks Rob! Good points about the strands not being attached! Hadn't even thought about that.. When you say consult at 25$ , do you mean you would produce finished animation for that fee? Thanks again, Tom

Very cool John! ------------------------------------------------- I was thinking of seeing if the AM dynamics could create something where there is a lot of net action (see attached clip). If it could, I can see a lot of cool camera angles and maybe even creating it in slow motion. Thanks for the feedback... Tom Swish_1.wmv