[Rabbit, change where he's looking? change his finger positions]

Thank you; modeling is fairly easy for me, I fall down with trying to manipulate a model afterward. I know what I want to do, I just can't seem to do it. Which brings me to... I think I broke Rabbit; is it possible to download a fresh copy of it anywhere? I seem to have moved his eyes back in his head and he's freakin' me out here.

 

I still can't figure out if I'm crashing the software or what, it keeps doing unexpected things.

 

I still can't turn on the finger bones on Rabbit either, I can (with much floundering) FIND them, but I can't actually turn them on to manipulate them.

 

Elena

[Rabbit, change where he's looking? change his finger positions]

 

Thank you; I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing here, both with the program and the forum. The picture is a horse I modeled some time ago and just saved as the current version of hash. It's boned but not yet textured or rigged, if you'd like it.

[Rabbit, change where he's looking? change his finger positions]

So I'm fiddling with Lesson 3 in A:MTao and having finished the basic position assignment I started with the secondary ones. I managed to get him to squat down but I want him to look sad and depressed, with one arm across his knee and his head in his other hand. But I want his eyes not merely half closed but for him to be staring down at the floor in front of him - how do I get his eyes to track in some direction other than up, apparently at the camera?

 

I'd also like to open the spread of his fingers more, he's holding his chin, I'd like to manipulate the fingers, spread them a bit, maybe curl differently. How do I unhide and use these finger bones?

 

Thanks for the help

[Exercise 1: You're the Director]

Hey, if no one answered, here's how to move (Translate in AM speak) an object: Click on it. If that doesn't work, turn on the Choreography menu and select the object through that. You will see it highlight and its bounding box appear as well as the root bone showing. Now the object can be dragged with the mouse.

 

You can constrain that move to the X, Y or Z axis by holding down the 1, 2 or 3 key in the bar across the top of your keyboard while dragging the object. Remember that these keys aren't the same as the keypad - hitting those changes your viewpoint of the model area. If you let go of the number key the model continues to move but be careful. If your viewpoint isn't exactly straight on (controlled with the ninekey patterned numbers) you can make some very unintended moves.

 

It's been a long time since I played with Hash and I'm just getting back into it myself. Hope this helps.

 

 

The first and biggest issue I had was, nowhere in the first two lessons does anything in the instructions tell you how to move a model on an axis without scaling it. Once I made the Knight smaller I was hapy with his size but he was still standing on the floor and I could not get him "up" into Keekat's hand no matter how hard I tried. Every time I grabbed a control point and tried to move him he scaled larger or moved on the "Z" or "X" Axis. No matter what I did I could not figure out how to move the model on the "Y" Axis. Frankly this is something that really should be included in the lessons because I remember having the same problem with Lesson 2. Once I placed the three models on the stage area I could never get their feet to stand flat on the stage and it took forever for me to figure out how to move them.

 

The solution, for those who don't know, is to click on the model and go to properties. This allows you to adjust the characters position on all axis using the numerical values that appear. If anyone knows an easier way to move a model on the Y Axis without opening properties I'm all ears as it seems to be the one kind of motion that is all but impossible outside of the poperties window.

 

Anyway, that's lesson one.

 

Moving on. Now that I know how to move things on the Y Axis Lesson 2 should be a breeze.

[Exercise 1: You're the Director]

So, if I am going to try to earn the TaoA:M certificate... what am I supposed to do? Just announce that I'm going for it? With lesson 1 do I post each render? Just say I did it? I'm confused. I mean, yes, I went and did the exercise, I got a render; but it's nothing interesting or spectacular, just KeeKat posed in front of the camera and rendered. It's been a long time since I've used A:M and I just got a Mac so the interface is different for me.

 

 

Lesson 1: Interface and Workflow

Assignment: Complete Exercise 1: You're the Director

Task 1: Read TaoA:M Exericise 1 from the manual

Task 2: Watch the TaoA:M Exercise 1 video

Task 3: Complete Exercise 1 (Use the manual as your primary reference)

Task 4: Post your results to the A:M Forum

Task 5: Troubleshoot, share your experience, ask questions and discuss what you've learned from the lesson

Completion Time: 20 Minutes

 

The result of my render (unaltered as of this moment) is below.

Keekat is mighty small! We'll have to do something about that.

[Here comes the sun]

I like it! You might make the rays different lengths to avoid the flower image; you may also want to use a paler more intense disk for the sun (or put a face on it??) to make it look like light source. It does kinda look like a flower with the disk being tan like that, but it's a neat sun.

 

Elena

[Secret project underway]

"Who you callin' Cherry?!" That tomato has some serious attitude. Heh.

 

Elena

[Dark tree red X fix]

What version of Windows are you talking about? I've got Windows ME, Compaq dialect, and there is a My Computer>Properties possibility but nothing like Advanced and Environment Variables, and searching Environment, Variables or the two words together in the Help index gives me, predictably, nothing found.

 

Elena