detbear

Particle Illusion is a nifty plugin for AE. I have the stand alone version. But you need to be able to track the motion. Steffen has an "Export" listed for that purpose.(PI-Motion) Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to get the data for a bone or null to track using the "PI-Motion" export. Is there a thread to learn how this is done?? Does the PI-Motion export work???

Thanks guys. Those sound like promising methods. I ended up doing some things by hand since I didn't have much R&D time. I brought the pieces into the desired choreography and did a new simulation. In order to maintain the existing simulation that was in the choreography already, I turned that model off. When I ran the new sims, it was not effected. Once the others were done, I turned the model back on and it maintained it's original sim as well. Turned out great for what I'm doing.

Matt, I have a question about importing a choreography with newton physics into another chor. Once I do this all comes into the new choreography working as expected. HOWEVER, if I try to move the imported choeography to a desired location, the simulated objects jump back to 0,0,0 world space on frame 2. Is there a way to translate and rotate the simulation in the choreography??

I'm finding that my objects try to "right" themselves. Like a "weeble wobble". I'm not sure how to get an object to end up falling over when it hits the surface.

Thanks Matt. You're Awesome. I'll give it a try!

I've been trying to try a newton simulation, but it gives me an error saying that I need "at least one simulation object..." What do I need to do to get newton physics set up on a few models so that they fall to the ground???

Very Cool Marcos! Nice render.

RC... Hey Big Guy. I don't think I've ever switched to Vector. At times I went with XYZ only, but never Vector. Does that just give you two channels?

xhttps://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=47520 I'm still working slowly on one myself, but I would suggest that you check out the models that have popped up here and there as Rodney pointed out

Hey Guys... Thanks for your feedback on that. After I posted this, I asked about it at Roberts live Q&A. So I had found the answer I was looking for. Main thing I found was that you have to set a key on a bone in order to get the drop down option to "change driver" type to Euler.

Hey everyone. I need a bone to spin more than 360 degrees in an animation. I need it to be able to spin around and around many times. I recall having to switch the bone to Euler for this, but I can't seem to remember how or where to go in order to get that done. Do any of you know where to do this and how????

Stian had a project file up on the forum.....or at least a tutorial with the ecto- car from Ghostbusters. He had it set up with a "Dome" stamped. The trick is getting the settings on the HDRI IMAGE correct if I remember right. You must choose the light type choice. Sphere, Box, Coordinate.....I think there are 3 choices. Seems like I made two separate renders. Characters and background.

Adam. I have done massive research in this area and I recall that Faceshift was cool. Also you will run into a number of others like the Brekel face pro.... BUT LET ME HELP YOU and SAVE you much time: Currently there isn't much to choose from with A:M. Which is unfortunate because Hash has the best skinning and morphing system in the industry. Any face mo cap(Even Face Shift) is only going to be as good as the face rig on your model. The data from face shift ultimately has to be used on a really good rigg in order to get the desired results. A:M track needs to be improved for sure and I'm not sure that this will happen. Luuke....it's creator moved to other software with it.......but again....any Mocap you capture needs to have a very good face rig. The showcase samples they use to display were on very complexed riggs. I wish Luuke could give A:M track an update, but in his defense, it is not very easy. And expensive time wise to produce them. The gitter/ shaking exists in all mocap systems. This is why much time is spent in Mocap Clean up. I've had jobs in the the past where all I did was clean up Mo-cap for companies after they captured it.

Although your model appears to be a bit more detailed for beveled edges, this is a sample of how internal patches get into our models at times. Especially when building cubes, or other parallel shapes. They happen to all of us at times, and show up at render time as lines on the surface or other anomaly.

The select "Patch" tool is like a gold button.....makes selecting sections of a model quick. The "show back facing patches" is a great tool while you are working, but it masks the flipped "normals". So as Robcat said, sometimes you may need to temporarily turn the "show back facing patches" setting off. Then the wrong facing normals will be easier to find. That's very cool that you are experimenting with A:M and Unreal Engine. It would be awesome to see your progress as you move forward.

Yeah... That's about the size of it. It's a little time consuming to "flip" the backward normals. But if the model isn't dense in patches, it shouldn't be as difficult as some of the other Apps. It's just a part of the process. Your character appears to be fairly light in patch count, so that's a big help.

So lately in V18p, I've been crashing over and over when moving bones to different locations in the PWS bone tree. I click on a bone and drag it to the new location and A:M crashes. It doesn't happen everytime, so I haven't been able to solidly replicate it. But when I'm moving bones in the PWS it crashes. I have noticed that if I'm moving with the CTRL button to duplicate a bone it sometimes happens as well. Anyone else dealing with such an issue.

So I went through the process of running the "Rigging steps to see if there is any noticable flaw due to my placing the GEOM BONES in place prior to setting the rig poses to "not set".......So far, everything looks OK. So I think I will just go back and complete my "Weighting and Smart Skins."

Hey "Saucy Riggers"...... I made an early "Mistake" in steps on a rig. I imported the saucy rig into a model and moved the GEOM Bones into place. HOWEVER......I forgot to set all the "Rig Poses" to "Not set".......I had already moved the GEOM bones into place. So I went and set the poses to "not set" after the GEOM BONES were in place. DO YOU THINK THIS WILL MESS EVERYTHING UP when I go to the rig set up stage or am I OK. I know Mack sets all the poses to "not set" before moving the Geom Bones into place. I don't want to do it all over again if I don't have to, but I need this rig to work correctly.

The "J" key worked really well, so I did it via that method.

Hey Everyone. I want to create an "ON OFF" pose to hide/ unhide certain bones in a rig. When I create the pose, how do I hide the bone or bones. I can't remember how to hide the bone. Need someone to refresh my memory. Thanks so much.....

So I've been using A:M since 1999-2000 as many of you have. And just like all you others, I've watched the software experience great strides, successes, and growing pains. As for my own work using A:M, I've experienced uncountable "user errors"(I laugh at myself as I think of all the errors I've made), and struggled at times with bugs, glitches, long render times, my own mistakes, etc. BUT today I ran a short render and sat back marveling at how far A:M has come and improved. Now whether I've improved so much, who can say. BUT my hats off to the team for pushing ahead and implementing things that have helped us artists soo much. Thanks for putting time into things that may not have seemed feesable or worth it. But to artist like me, it have been extremely helpful to be able to use the new developments that the A:M team has pushed through. Thanks

I hear ya.... Unfortunately, I erased the original Saucy head bone and gave the name to my head bone. I thought everything was in the same place and heirarchy. But when the controls are turned on in the rigging stage of the Saucy process, the original bones must be needed. In the future, I will bring my head rig in after the Saucy Rig has been fully set up and then bring in my own head system. A translate to & orient like constraint could then be used to attach my head to the Saucy setups.

Guys, I replaced the Saucy head and neck bones with my own. I renamed them exactly and put whatever children of the old bones as children of the new bones. But when I finished the rigg process, the control bones didn't work. I figured if the naming conventions and child bones were there it would work. But it did not. The reason I was trying to use my existing head bones is because I already had a weighted jaw, lips and brow connected. I didn't want to have to do it all over.

I agree completely. The saucy rig is a great option and I'm beginning to put it into my new characters as they are created. 2 things I find could be improved: Once you get a model to "rigged" status(as saucy stages go)land you decide to go back in to tweek a smartskin, you find that the bone has been hidden. This makes it painful to find and work with the rotations. ALSO.....I would like to have one more "Spine bone" to control. With just two spine controls, it is not always clear where to properly place them prior to the rigging stage in order to have them in the right place. Overall, I find the Saucy Rig to be superior to the TSM2, because it is easier to set up. And it is much less daunting than the squetch rig. I normally add the things I like anyway.