detbear

Hey Fuchur. Thanks for the reply. I think you are right along those lines. However, I'm looking at a specific part of the rigging process in the smartskin "Pose" Action. This may not even be possible or an option, But moving cps at each percentage of a heavy mesh can be daunting. But if you could import mdd motion from the rigged app and paste those cp frames in a smartskin pose....well.....the work would be done for you....Again...if that is possible. For instance....An mdd of an elbow bend could be used by copying 3 keys: 1 at 00% / 1 at 50% / and 1 at 100%. Then those keys could be pasted in the smartskin pose action at the same percentages.

I guess, effectively...with some effort, this would be a way to import the skin weights/morph targets of a rigg from another App and use the pose process in a smartskin to morph the joints for things like elbows, knees, fingers, etc. Especially if the imported OBJ character has a bunch of cps that would be hard to weight and/ or smartskin. Not to mention the facial morph transfer posibilities. William

Elm....This is a late post on this thread but I have 2 important questions concerning the mdd to pose process: 1.Do you import the mdd into a pose and copy it there....Or where do you access the copied mesh from...and where do you paste it... 2.I want to import a model from other software. I can import an obj from the other App, but it of course will not bring the rig. However, I can bring in .Mdd of the joints bent(elbow, knee, neck, shoulder, etc) If what you are saying is true, I should be able to smartskin/ pose these by some how pasting keys of the cps from the mdd file exported out of the other App into Hash. This character would of course need to be rigged in Hash prior to using the Mdds. What is the method used to get the mdd keyframes pasted into the percentages of each pose. My hope is to round about get the smartskin in the pose to morph to the morph shape I export from the other App. William

Welcome to the forum!!! It is best to use a sequence if you can like Xtaz suggested. (Right click on "Images" folder in the project workspace and choose import sequence) Choose new rotoscope and select the sequence. If you need to have audio, you can import it separately with a few easy steps. To make an image sequence I normally utilize Quicktime Pro. You can import your video into QT pro and export sequence. To get the audio, you can export "audio only" as a separate file. Just bring both files into Hash and into your project. Don't give up as this is a very friendly process with Hash. Cool thing about image sequences is that you can use them in your camera also if you ever want to blend CG with live video. Awesome for skies/backgrounds/ etc. Again...welcome.

Hey Will, You gotta keep that dream going man. Don't let the day job strike you down. Most of us are there in that boat. Pick a sequence, choose a few people here to help iron it out(If you don't pick me I understand). And make it fantabulous. Then stab it out from there. I would love to help you for Romen. I can certainly offer a similar deal as Robcat. (Again, if you don't select me, I understand) Just don't give up on your vision. It has great potential. Keep the team of people small and in good communication. Heck...develop the fight sequence you've been boarding out. That could be used for a cool teaser/ trailer. I would suggest that each animator be given short enough shot(s) so that they can re-do them to your liking/ artistic vision if need be. Plus shorter sequences allow for feature polish. Much of my film was sped up with poor polish or less than I originally hoped for. William D.

Took me about 4-5 years to develop my video. 28 minutes in all. I had to have some key people assist, although....I did most of the work myself. LOTs and LOTs of research and development. The rendering hours alone were extreme. 5 of the 28 minutes were live action puppetry, but the other 23 minutes are all CG. William

JBB, I love the Red Giant plugins. They've helped me a bunch in the past. Two thoughts on this issue: 1. I have had to go to some really crazy lengths in the past to get Hash to do certain things step by step. Even if it's 200 frames, that seems do-able with a little time. As long as the end result is awesome, it would be worth the effort....especially since there's no other way to get an obj sequence out of hash unless an Mdd sequence could be converted over somehow. At least...none that I can think of. 2. ****I have noticed that the obj export plugin has been "peaking" all the splines for some reason in V16. Because of this, the OBJ exports aren't smooth but rather rigid. Anyone know why that is happening?

Hey Will, Looks really promising man. I like it. I think the cloth is very close. Depending on how "perfect" you want it. If you follow your earlier storyboards, the fight scenes will present a much more complexed set of challenges. Unless he throws his drape off to take on the Hyenas and such. Looks both impressive and promising. William

Robert ---- Looks as if it was on Euler. I shifted it back to Quaternium in all categories. It still has the same problems. My guess is that the mis-directed keying damage is done and I'll have to start over to get rid of it....if in fact the "Euler" set interp was the issue. Fuchur ---- Where might I find the magic 'Global Space' settings? I've not had a direct encounter with that animal as of yet.

I'm animating a character. I rotate a bone using the "red" / X axis. But in the graph editor, it shows that I'm rotating the "Green" / Y axis. Anyone experienced this camelion/ rogue switch.

My favorite method(and I have many)..... is the following: 1.Flatten the model in an action or several actions. 2.Use a Generic, "all white" image to stamp all the parts. 3.Once my model is white due to the stamps and UV, I export the new decal image to either photoshop or 3dpaint. 4.Then I paint, clone, paste, or whatever else it takes to get the textures I need. The lines always seem to come into 3Dpainter or photoshop very clean.

Hey, Yes...you are partially correct. I was hoping to make my own set of hot keys that would convert shortcuts into whatever "freelancers may be use to." Most animation freelancers work in 3 or 4 Apps depending on what week or day it happens to be. If the navigation tools and a few other shortcuts are the same, it just makes it easier for them to step right in. Honestly, I like the way Hash navigation works better, but when you hire an animator for a week to animate, they have very little time to get up to speed. So this small transition help would be cool. Can you save a set of hotkeys?

In Hash pressing Shift + middle Mouse button will give you the "Turn tool" for rotating in the scene/ model/ action/ view, etc. HOW can you customize this to be Alt + Left Mouse button? I haven't learned that golden knowledge during my last 11 years of Hash use. Anyone know how? I Know how to change short cut keys via the "Customize/ Keyboard" window.....but I haven't figured out how to make the "Mouse buttons" work in combination there in order the re-customize the view interface ......(Turn, Move, zoom)

Hey all, Just noticed this thread. While Making "Adventures With Boomer", I had this happen a whole bunch....Mostly in the face which probably had more weighting on cps than other parts of the body. Sometimes it wouldn't show up until the render and I would have to do long renders over. The smooth spline curves would "peak" at random places. What I did find is that I would sometimes have to go to select the area of cps by drag selecting the area. Even frame by frame. Sometimes this would bring the smoothness back, but I never did figure the thing out. Seems like a bug. William

Moel, Welcome.... Thank you for asking. I used Hash to create a 1/2 hour children's video. I attracted some animaters who had been working professionally in other Apps. They were very impressed and pleased by the easy learning curve. (This was done in V.15) V.16 is even faster with the 64bit option. You can view the trailer of my video here: www.wybooproductions.com ALSO SOME INCREDIBLE NEW Improvements and features for those of us who blend Hash into a pipeline: 1.The .obj pluggin has undergone great improvements which allow for import and export with really good results. So if you love modeling in Hash with it's elegant spline modelling tools and want to export....You will find it very useful. The new improvements allow for importing UV maps also, which saves a bunch of time. 2. One of the brand new features that make rendering realistic lighting JET SPEED.....is the new Fake Ambient Occlussion Plugin.....This comes in a Free and Pro version. I have gotten the same and sometimes better results than using the regular AO in Hash. I literally did the same render in 1min. that actuallly was taking 1hour with normal AO. The above are just a few improvements...There are a bunch more. Most important, there are friendly users here on the forum that excell in helping with issues and "know how." Cheers, William

SUCCESS!!!! IF someone is having trouble importing a Max .obj with the UV map still on it, try what I did below....It worked in my case. After a multitude of attempts/ tests/ etc.......I began to examine the .mtl exporting out of MAX. HERE is what I found: You cannot have more than One texture on a model. Apparently, in order to get the maps to import into Hash, all of the materials in the 3DS Max Material editor for the model must be in one stamp. Erase all the other materials. For some reason, Animation Master will only import maps with objs if they contain only one material. In my case, I went back into the MAX model and erased all the other materials. They are ones that I can add/ create in hash anyway.

Well, I tried numerous things and one thing works well...getting the obj into Hash without the UV map The same files will open up in other Apps with the Mapping, but not in Hash. When I try importing an obj and mtl, AM crashes. Very frustrating.

I wonder if I do a second export......a .mtl export and then place that in the folder...will it pick it up and import it?

Hey Will!!! No....I am not getting the .mtl file in the export....Not sure what settings to use. I have the "export material" box checked and "Library" thingy checked....but still only exports the obj only.

Your example imports great with the use of the additional PNG/ texture file.... Trouble is, My exported obj out of Max doesn't have but 1 file(The OBJ file). There is no separate material file that is also exported. I guess I'm not exporting the texture out of max correctly. I have the "export texture files" box checked in the export options. NOT sure how to do it correctly out of Max I guess.

That's the trouble.....When I import the .obj model into AM, there is no Decal with it nor any image.

Hey, Robert......I have tried the v.16 obj plugin and it is AWESOME!!!! Works very well, and I am very thankful that it remains in development for Hash. I'm really impressed with the smoothness of the import...And this is a complexed model. The model that I am exporting is out of 3ds Max and has the Mapping on it(in Max)... BUT I don't see any evidence of any mapping on the model in A:M.... PixelPlucker.....That's awesome....I will check it out. ALSO.....Maybe I'm not doing something right exporting out of the other App. Thank you guys for helping me on this one.

According to the last post on the AM forum link below, it is possible...But I don't know how to do it. http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...l=obj+UV+import

Hey Everyone, I've worked with .obj export & import many times, but I have run into a new question: I have a very smooth obj imported model(Must have been created with Quads rather than triangles ...... Anyway, heres my problem: 1.I want to use the UV map that the model has in the other App. 2.I exported it as an obj 3.I imported it into Hash 4.The model mesh is awesome....but no texture/ UV map. 5.How do I know if the UV info is still there and How do I get the stamp onto the model in AM. BTW: I know some may be thinking that I should use a .3ds instead, but I can't get a .3ds to export from the other App. William

When you do get going with it(radiosity)....... you may experience some incredibly long render times. Especially when it comes to long animated sequences. The photon computations are heavy on renders. At least this is my experience with radiosity. Hopefully, I just haven't optimized the process and you will not have this problem. There are probably more people here with better techniques to avoid the render hit. If you do run into this, see if you can composite a still render of your backgrounds with the radiosity and then try to match the moving characters by rendering them with other lighting schemes that are not so heavy on the render side. Maybe there's some tricks to help with this that I'm unaware of. Cheers, William