RoyBU

I found my own solution to the disappeared camera outline: I just brought in another camera and put a constraint on it to translate it to the position of the original camera. Now the second camera follows the first one around and gives me the outline I need when working on my camera path, etc. Roy

OK, duh, that's simple enough. Thanks!

Well, I don't know where I'm going wrong but I just tried it in a new default project and it did not work. Here, in excessive detail, is what I did: 1. Open new project 2. Right-click on "objects" in PWS and choose "new/model" 3. Go into "add" mode using button in upper right of modeling window and create a vertical, 2-CP spline 4. Using the lathe, create a cylinder, then delete the bottom ring to get an 8-CP circle 5. Create a new chor 6. Drag "Model 1" (my circle) into the chor 7. Right-click "Shortcut to Camera 1" in PWS and choose "new constraint/path" Here's where things go wrong. I can't select my circle model either by picking it or selecting it from the list. As far as I can tell, AM refuses to recognize it as a path and will only recognize as paths splines created in the chor itself. Roy (version 12.0w) P.S. As another minor irritation, many versions ago my camera icon disappeared from my chor. (When I select the camera shortcut the yellow lines and boxes show up, but the outline of the camera and the purple sight lines are always invisible.) If I drag a new camera in, it appears correctly, but if I tell my original shortcut to switch to that new camera it is still invisible. This is annoying now that I am working with the camera on a path. Anyone know how I can get the icon to reappear?

I am trying to rotate my camera around a model. Per Rodney's suggestion in another topic I made a circular spline as a model to use for the camera path, then dropped it into my chor. However, when I tried to path constraint the camera to this circular spline, it wouldn't work. The eyedropper picker would not allow me to choose it and it does not appear in the dropdown target list. The only targets that do appear are two other paths I've already made (created as paths right in the chor). So I guess I'm missing a step: how do I get AM to use this model as my path?

Thanks for the thorough explanation. I can't claim to understand it all, but it makes more sense and is less of a mystery than before. And I tried the arm rotation example -- very interesting!

Thanks for the replies. Good to know it's not just me, I guess. You're right it isn't that difficult to work around but the absence of cut and paste in that situation surprised me. The suggestion of another master pose is a good one, thanks (similar to what C-grid was trying to tell me, I think). Thanks to all.

I have a couple questions about how the "rotation" transform works. 1. Under the "Transform" property for the typical object in a chor are the "translate", "scale" and "rotate" properties. If I click the little triangle next to each, I can get the X, Y and Z (or X and Y for scale) listed separately. If I then click on just one of the dimensions under translate or scale, the graph for just that dimension will show up in the timeline and I can add or manipulate its keyframes. HOWEVER, if I click on just one dimension for the "rotate" property, I get nothing. The only way I can manipulate a dimension for rotate is to click on "Rotate" and get all three dimensions in the timeline. Usually this is fine, but when all three dimensions are the same value at the same point in time, it can be difficult to select the one I want. Why can't I choose one to work with individually like I can with translate and scale? 2. In addition to the X, Y and Z dimensions for rotation there is a fourth (appears as a white line in my timeline) whose purpose escapes me. When I change X, Y or Z this white line moves and if I move the white line my object rotates, but what is it meant for? Thanks in advance.

Hmm, I didn't really mean to get into a discussion of how best to rig the wings, but . . . I use one pose slider for the up and down motion of the wings, since I couldn't think of any situation in which I would want one wing to move up or down by itself. I have two other pose sliders (one left and one right) which cause one edge of a wing to twist, or maybe ripple would be a better word, similar to the way stingrays swim by rippling the edges of their bodies. I DO want these twist or ripple sliders to be independent, hence my original question about how to copy keyframes created in the timeline for one slider to the timeline for the other.

Sorry, I did not explain sufficiently. The model is not of a person but a flat object that is (in a fantasy sort of way) flying. The "twist" properties have to do with curling either the left "wing" edge or the right "wing" edge up and down to better simulate bird flight. Much of the time the curling needs to happen simultaneously on both right and left edges of the wing, but not always (which is why I did not make them one pose). So that's a long way of saying that changing the pose is not a solution. Isn't it possible to copy multiple keyframes from one pose slider timeline to another in one pass?

I have a model with two user properties (pose sliders): "Twist left" and "Twist right". Sometimes I'd like the two properties two change exactly the same way for awhile. So in my chor I used keyframes in the timeline to define the "Twist left" property the way I wanted and then I selected all those keyframes with the mouse in the timeline. I right-clicked on the bounding box and chose "copy". Then I went to the timeline for the "Twist right" property and right-clicked on the timeline and chose "paste". Nothing happened. I tried the same thing but using the "Edit" button at the top of the screen and chose "copy keyframe" and then "paste keyframe". That pastes just the first keyframe, not the whole sequence. I've already gone ahead and done the keyframing manually, but it seems that this kind of copying from one user property to another must be possible and I'm just overlooking something simple (as usual). It sure would be handy. Using ver. 12.0w

Having just spent 15 minutes looking (unsuccessfully) for the plane loop tutorial in the 2002 manual, I just thought I'd point out that it is actually in the current technical reference: open Help/Help Topics from within AM, do a search on "loop" and look at the topic "About Aim Roll at Constraint Objects".

A possibly interesting update: Today I was working on a different version of this same project and after making a trivial change to the placement of a model in the chor, suddenly all the models went "blank" again. Fortunately, I happened to have two instances of AM running at the time and, having my wits about me more than usual, I closed down the "bad" instance of AM first, and THEN closed down the other, untainted version. Lo and behold, on starting AM again, everything was fine. This makes me think something gets corrupted and then that corruption is saved upon exiting AM to taint all further attempts until I reinstall from scratch. Since I exited a "good" version of AM after exiting the corrupted version, whatever it was got restored to its correct state. I think I'll keep two instances of AM running in the future, just as insurance.

I am ready to render a scene from my project and it will probably take several days. I thought I would use another computer in my house to do the render so I could keep working on other parts of the project. The two computers are connected by a wireless network. But what is the most efficient way to transfer the project to another computer to render? I tried consolidating the project onto the 2d computer, and all the relevant folders containing the project, images, models, etc. were created, but when I tried to open the project in the 2d computer, it still tried to find the images and models in exactly the same paths as they are stored on the 1st computer. Since consolidate project stores all the info in a directory structure starting with a folder called "C-" (representing the C: drive the project came from) I don't see how to make the directory structure on the 2d computer exactly match. So opening the project on the 2d computer just causes it to complain it can't find any of the data. There must be a way since I infer from this forum that people collaborate on projects. How is that done?

Well, just restarting A:M didn't do it, neither did restarting Windows. Not until I did a clean reinstall of A:M, including deleting the registry keys as described in the FAQ, did my decals come back. That also meant I lost a number of models I had imported for this project, and after I put those models back in the directories where my project expected to find them and tried to save the project A:M told me the project hadn't saved correctly. Indeed it hadn't! -- it seemed to be empty on trying to reopen it! Fortunately I had a fairly recent backup so I didn't lose lots of work. Thanks for all the help.

Help! I decided to just delete the decal that referenced the wmp image for that one model (the shield) and for some reason AM now refuses to show any decals for any of my models in the chor (in shaded view, of course). I don't think I did anything other than delete that one decal, but something has changed and it must be something in the program itself because (1) I can see my decals if I do any type of render (like shift-Q) and (2) even when I open other, completely unrelated projects the decals no longer show (unless I render). Instead of decals, I just get flat shading on all surfaces, the way things look before applying any decals. How can I get my decal view back?!