Tom

Very cool..thanks for everyone's help! Tom

I accidentally first posted this in the tutorial section ..so it is being re-posted here.. Hello- Does anyone know if Sprites can be effected by Forces? I haven't been able to get that to work... Question 2) Does anyone know if Sprites can be contained inside another shaped object once they are emitted? For example, once sprites are emitted, can they fill an invisible object so that as the sprties accumulate, a form takes shape? Here is a clip from the second Narnia movie that got me thinking about this effect. It appears there is a quick cut between the particles floating and the humanlike body that they become.. Thanks for any feedback.. Tom Particles.wmv

Thank you! I'll go back and see what the error is! Tom Thanks again! I got it to work!!! Your instructions were great and I could never have figured it out without you directions. Tom

Thank you! I'll go back and see what the error is! Tom

I was able to animate some of the various settings on the sprite like rate of emmision etc. but I was not able to figure out how to adjust the actual images being flipped by the program. Is it possible to show a screen shot of where on the "frames" properties you can adjust the speeds, going forward or backwards, or holding a particular image.. Thanks! Tom

Excellent information! Many thanks! Tom

Hello all- I have a sequence of 26 images that I am using as sprite particles. Two questions that I haven't been able to figure out yet: 1) Can you make each image being used as a sprite last longer that 1 frame? 2) Can you make the 26 images cycle over and over? At the moment, after frame 26, the animation just uses the last image and repeats it to the end... Thanks for any insights!! Tom

Many thanks for all the help!! Tom

Great animation! Good job! If you do think of a way to achieve this with a material...please let me know. In the meantime I will try the other techniques! thanks !! Tom

That sounds like a very good solution! I have a couple of different shapes that need to use this technique so I was wondering if there was a way to create one "material" that can be applied to each different shape without the need to re-animate a different transparency map or material effector for each individual shape? If I am able to apply one material, Is there a way to make the "reveal" or transparency of that material follow the curves and twists of an object? It seems I will be limited to successively revealing along only one axis.. Again, thanks for any insight! T.

Hello All- If you view the attached picture you will see that the goal is to create a rigging whereby a Pose Slider can cause a larger tube to cover up a slender hose over time. I tried rigging the larger tube with a simple parent child boning situation however, because of the curve in the line, when the first parent bone is scaled down, it causes all of the children to collapse vertically and so the larger tube does not adhere to the curve of the slender hose. I thought of constraining to a path but was hoping that it could all be done with a simple Pose slider. Any suggestions are appreciated!! Thanks! Tom

Very Coool!!! Tom

Many thanks to all the contributors and John's animated Kaleidsocope was awesome!!!!! This was supposed to be for a book cover design and since there was a short deadline I wound up modeling and rendering one of the 16 "petals" and then I recreated a kaleidoscopic mask by hand in Photoshop for the printers. Thanks again...the forum is an amazing resource. Tom

Hello- Does anyone know how to create a kaleidsocope image, through rendering (or otherwise) ? Something similar to the attached jpg? I was hoping there was some sort of AM render effect that might work, or something that would at least create part of a kaleidoscope section....... that could then be x flipped. I was looking at my After Effects filters and they have something which says it creates kaleidoscopes but is more a "Tiling" sort of thing that looks cheesy anyway. Thanks for any suggestions! Tom

Thank you so much for the links! I wasn't aware these were out there! Tom

Hello- I have recently been playing with the "Distortion Mode" in AM (cool feature!!) and while researching the AM TechRef Manual (page 209).. I discovered that you can add bones and poses to Distortion Boxes. The manual says you can also save Distortion Boxes and nest them but it doesn't seem to give instructions as to how to do these things. Has anyone added bones etc and saved Distortion Boxes? Many thanks for any info or links to tutorials! Tom

Is there a link to the Holmes "Foliage Tutorial"? Thanks! Tom

Hello- Does anyone know where to download the "pearl.mat" material? Thanks for any info! Tom

Hello- Does anyone know where to download the "pearl.mat" material? Thanks for any info! Tom

Adobe is now offering a FREE copy of Photoshop online (do a search)for download. There is some size limitation ragrding some of the saving issues...but it's a free copy. Tom

Thank you! That is great! Tom

Hello- While going through the AM 15 "textures" folder I noticed an atx file called "PenciSketch.atx". It sounded intriguing so I created a new material in the Project Workspace and tried to locate the atx file to load and test. I was unable to locate the "pencisketch.atx" file even though other files in the same texture folder like InkPen.atx, Watercolour.atx and Xray.atx are available through the Toonnation plug-in... Does anyone know how to locate the "PenciSketch.atx" file for loading? Many thanks! Tom

Many Thanks to Robert and John for some excellent solutions to my question!!! Tom

I tried looking for the Enable "Show more than drivers" function but could not find it. I tried right clicking on"Choreography" and looked in the Tools/Options/Choreography Menu ... Can you please be more specific about where to find it....Thanks!! Tom

I am aware that you can constrain a character or an object to a path and render that animated action over time. For example, create a walk cycle for a character and have him walk along a spline/path placed on the ground. The question is: Is there a way to have a cross section of a model follow a path in the choreography window and sort of build itself over time. Think of a model that magically grows and grows unto completion before ones eyes. An example of this might be a single spline/path that swirls around to look like a written version of the fluid Coca Cola logo. Could you have a cross section of a model follow that sweeping path and animate over time so that a model of that logo appears bit by bit? Think of a background that looks like an architects blueprint page.....and the models (or the architects designs) draw themselves into existence. This wouldn't be something that uses simple masks to wipe a part of the model away but more like the SWEEPER plug in where things are actually built using splines as guidelines? Sweeper does it in an instant but I'm thinking more of something that can be created /animated overtime. Thanks to any ideas as to how to achieve this? Tom