Tom

Hello all- Just downloaded a new font into my ProgramFiles/CommonFiles/Adobe/Font directory and the new font shows up in Photoshop but is not available for the Font Wizard in AM. Does anyone know where the fonts need to be stored for the AM Font Wizard to use them? Many Thanks! Tom

Hey John- That looks GREAT! Thanks for posting the files. It is appreciated! Tom

Yes- Fantastic...That really nailed it! Wow..If you could post the project it would be helpful to follow your description of the various steps you took. Thank you! Best, Tom

Many thanks for all the feedback and suggestions! I have downloaded the Bar And Sphere project and will study it. Thanks for what seems like a brilliant solution! Best, Tom

Hello All- Came across this fascinating little animation which I think was done in another program. I think the actual revolving of the bones/parts might be fairly simple or straightforward but I can't figure out how they get the skin to not crease as the parts fold in on themselves... Any ideas how not to crease the outer skin as the parts rotate? Thanks for any info! Tom CubeSpin.wmv

Nice work!! Tom

I studied Homeslice's tutorial and feel more comfortable with the AM particle hair. If your generous offer to share the method for creating the curly hair in the YouTube clip is still available, I would be interested in learning how to do that. Thanks for any help! Tom

That was a great tutorial which explained a lot!! Thank you!! Tom

Thank you!! I will definitely check out the tutorial! Best, Tom

To try and explore every possibility with hair I went back to experiment with AM's particle system for hair. I discovered that with most of my attempts the hair looked like yarn. I then noticed the render of the nice fur on the Hash orangutang (it was on the CD) and also this image from the the new Shrek movie. How are these hairs able to achieve the tapered, softer look? Is it a question of shaders or...? Thanks for any info. Tom

These are all good suggestions! I liked John's Dynamic Hair but I wanted to be able to more closely control the motion of the hair by having the hair be an actual object. I think applying a transparency map which tiles (or ties into into itself) will work best. I 'm not terribly happy with this first try but thought I would post it anyway. Thanks to everyone for the feedback. Tom

Hello - I know there is a "particle system /hair" that can simulate curls however for a variety of reasons I am attempting to create curly hair using a different method. If you look at the attached image you will see a "simple straight object" and then you will see a "twisted version" of that straight object. If I was just going to create hair using the straight model, I could easily assign a color to the object and then use a transparency map to simulate strands. I can't really apply a transparency map to the twisted version so I figure I will need to assign a Material to the twisted object. The only problem is my skills are weak at creating a material which will simulate strands while creating a transparency . Does anyone have suggestions regarding creating a material which can be applied to the twisted version of the object that will create strands and spaces between the strands to simulate hair? Attached is the strand object? Thanks for any suggestions! Tom HairStrand.mdl

Beautiful Job! The global lighting and modeling looks first rate... Are the clouds painted, rendered or photographs? Great work! Tom

Someone posted this modeling Tute the other day! http://treser.net/AnimationMaster/modelingacharacter.pdf Tom

Thanks for posting the project! Can't wait to play with it! Tom

That looks great!! I agree with Robcat....is there a Project file you can post? Best, Tom

That sounds like an interesting approach... Do you happen to have any animation showing how it looked in motion? Thanks! Tom

That is wonderful! Thanks! Tom BTW- Here is the hand drawn Smoke cycle from Brother Bear... SmokeCycle.wmv

You're right. Sprites have no real volume so they can't shade like real shapes. I think that effect is a bit more like a fluid simulation. Think of an aquarium filled with clear water and then pouring a half cup of milk into it. If you filmed that in super slow motion and turned it upside down you'd get something like that mushroom cloud effect. I think that's actually been done in some movies. Could A:M fluids do that? maybe. You'd have to learn a lot about what the various settings do. BTW, isn't it amazing that someone can DRAW that smoke? -someone did some cigarette smoke here recently -high viscosity slows particle motion -does baking particle make keyframes? If so, you could stretch them out to slow things down. Thank you for the reply! I was thinking there might be a way to get two tone sprite smoke. Use two separate emittors with two separate colored sprites and have one start a little before and behind the other one. I'll have to experiment but I agree that this is probably a fluid simulation situation if this previous idea doesn't work. Yeah-the 2D guys really could create effects. There is another great hand drawn cloud plume in Disney's "Brother Bear". It's the scene where the female shaman is giving the girl advice in the cave. It's a cycle but done so effectively you barely notice. BTW- I looked for the cigarette smoke on the forum but couldn't find it. Do you know a link? Many thanks! Tom

Hello- Playing with sprite smoke and wanted to ask two questions. 1) Is it possible to achieve an effect like the one in the still image from a 2D Disney cartoon whereby smoke is underlit to give a dramatic effect? Sprites don't seem to be affected by lights and if you colored the individual small graphic (which makes up the smoke ) to be underlit, then the underlit effect would be over the entire smoke cloud and not isolated as it would be in a dramatic setting... 2) I have been trying to get a very slow (almost hypnotic) effect with smoke rising using sprites. Can't seem to slow the smoke down enough to get that effect. I tried playing with the "initial velocity" and "gravity" settings with no luck. You could take a Hash smoke render and slow it down by time stretching it in After Effects but that is a cheat and it wouldn't look great. Attached is a slow smoke "boil" from a Dark tree animation. Unfortunately it's not 3D. but maybe it gives an idea of the desired effect. Thanks for any suggestions, Tom darktree_1.wmv

Great Tip! Thanks! Tom

Thanks for the detailed explanation..I couldn't have figured the process out without it! Tom

AFAIK, Sweeper makes one model, in the model window, where animation doesn't happen. At all. Sweeper wouldn't be the tool for that MMoP creates one keyframe per model. After that... you're up to your own wits. Did I mention you can Shift select a whole bunch of those cards to move them all at once? Thanks for the help! Tom

Thanks again for all the help! I was able to get it to work..cool! One thing that has intrigued me would be if "Sweeper" had a time function so that you could "grow" things over time.... it would be an amazing feature. I wrote to Emilio Le Roux about it but didn't hear back from him which is too bad because I think it could be an amazing feature. For example if "Sweeper" remembers all the parameters and cross sections and then lets you put in a time parameter, you could bring the model into Choreography and then a beautiful entwined plant or a sophisticated gearbox etc would appear out of thin air. I'm guessing there are ways to achieve this in other ways but a "time " feature would solve it in one snap. Getting back to the previous project with the MMOP plugin, I was able to assemble the cards along a path and then manually pull them out of the frame as was described previously. I'm guessing that manually pulling them is the fastest way to get them to react...since It seems the MMOP doesn't allow any pose sliding (?) Thanks again.. Tom

The MMoP plugin places the cards along the path, no path constraint is needed I got stuck on that one too, so I retraced it in the chor using the path tool. There must be a way though. Thanks again! I think the ability to sculpt a path in the modeling window would be high up there for a new features request... Tom