MattWBradbury

I can't tell you what is going on, but I would suggest that you model the eyes so that they can be animated over time. They could just be an elliptical patch basically, and you'd get infinite resolution. Same thing for the rings on your flying fish and Evil Dragon Turtle Monster (might also want to use the porcelin material on that model to make the curves smoother looking. Is the mouth on the Horrifying Desert Torrtus a decal? I thought that species just bobbed it's head up and down to talk.

Looking good so far. You might want to bring the forehead just over his eyes forward and push the eyes back a bit.

First thing I noticed in the image is that there isn't any visible indication that you used Multipass (The edges on the side of the lap top are aliased). What type of light are you using? Are you using Z-Buffered shadow? Is the material on the lap top? The banding appears to be perpendicular to the light source, so there could be a problem with the intensity of the light. What is the Intensity of your light? A choreography setup would be nice to see.

When you go to render, choose Shaded & Wireframe for the Render Type.

There's some changes I think would be useful. First, the face needs a little work. I suggest using Bruce Willis's face because this is a really actiony shot. Can't have Bruce without a gun, so that should be added too. Might as well put him in a known location like New York. Oh what the hey, change the dragon into an Apache helo. Better to have titles on scenes so that should be added as well. animated gif

You might want to reduce your Toon Line Bias just a little. You can read through the A:M Features Toon Rendering to see what some other options can get you. You might want to add some pupils to increase the character's emotions.

To add a decal, just right click on your model and go to New > Decal > WaterDisplacementMap.mov (or something along those lines). Double click on the decal in the model's menu, and position it onto your mesh and left click. Open up the decal menu and find where the images are stored and select the map. Once selected, you will be given an option to change the type of decal; you want Displacement.

Apply the WaterMap animation to a dense mesh as a decal and set the type of decal to Displacement.

I'll just give you the step by step, but in my own words and very concise. Make sure that your units are in Centimeters. 1. Create a new Project. Project > Close. Project > New. 2. Save the Project. Project > Save As. Name the project Water Map and find a folder to store it in. Save after every step. 3. Create a new Material. File > New > Material. Name the Material Water Material. <Right Click> > Rename. 4. Change Attribute to Perlin. <Right Click> > Change Type To > Combiner > Turbulence > Perlin. Expand Perlin so you can see the two new Attributes. 5. Change the first Attribute to Black. <Surface> > <Diffuse Color> > RGB (0, 0, 0,). 6. Change the second Attribute to White. <Surface> > <Diffuse Color> > RGB (255, 255, 255,). 7. Change the second Attribute to have Ambiance. <Surface> > Ambiance Inteisnity (100%). 8. Change Perlin Scale to 6500%. <Scale> > XYZ(6500%, 6500%, 6500%). 9. Change Perlin Octaves to 4. Octaves(4). 10. Create a new Model. File > New > Model. Name the Model Water Model. <Right Click> > Rename. 11. Create a plane in the Model. <Right Click> > Plug-ins > Wizards > Grid. Set Width and Step Width to 320, and set Height and Step Hieght to 240. Choose the XZ Orientation. 12. Drage the Water Material onto the Water Model. 13. Create a new Action. File > New > Action. This will automatically choose the Water Model for the action. Name this action Water Action. <Right Click> > Rename. 14. Expand the Water Action so you can see Water Model. Click the "Show More than drivers" button on Water Model. This will reveal the Water Material. 15. Change the transformations on Water Material over time. <Transform> > <Translate> > Y(0cm on 0:00; 20 on 5:00). 16. Create a new Choreography. File > New > Choreography. Name it Water Choreography. <Right Click> > Rename. Delete Objects KeyLight, FillLight, Rim, and Ground. 17. Rename Camera 1 Water Camera. <Right Click> > Rename. 18. Change Camera 1 to Othogonal. Type (Othogonal). 19. Drag Water Model onto Water Choreogrpahy. 20. Set the Transformations on Water Camera in Water Choreography. <Transform> > <Translate> > XYZ(0cm, 100cm, 0cm). <Transform> > <Rotate> > XYZ(90, 0, 0). 21. Set the Water Camera Focal Length to 62.5. Focal Length (62.5). 22. Drop Water Action onto Water Model in Water Choreography. 23. View out of Water Camera. Render out a five second animation in VGA. Once you've done that, post your results.

Please tell me you have V13 and you are going to render some awsometastic AO renders; if not, you can always use one of Yves's light rigs. The house looks fantastic. The only thing I can say is that the walls look too white. I agree on the arches, they look natural and flow well with the architecture.

Grid Wizard is a plug-in for A:M, and should be treated as a mod more than a feature. Make sure you have the most updated version of A:M. Report all errors to A:M Report.

Charlie, I applied all of your steps to v13 and the only thing that was different was that I had to increase the values for the y translations. You don't need a dense mesh anymore because pixel displacement works great, but something is messing up with the material displacement map. If the A:M team gets that up and running, you could just animate the material right on the model and have it run for as long as you like without having to make a texture or anything like that.

Here's an update. The water is no longer flowing like it's in a river. displacementtest2o.mov Something is wrong with the material displacement map. I'm rendering out the bumps with the mov file he provided and it looks very different.

Upload your project file and I'll take a look at it.

Okay, I think I know your problem. Get rid of any lights in the scene, and set the WaterMap model's ambiance intensity to 100% (not the ambiance intensity of the white part of the material).

Set the Ambiance Intensity for the white part of the material to 0%. That's not nessisary. Make sure that you haven't set any specular components to the water model as well. I rendered out a quick shot of the material with the new pixel displacement, and it looks a little strange. It looks more like boiling water more than ocean waves. displacementtest.mov I'll keep looking around for a possible solution.

Created the Motion Material. It seems to be moving very fast for ocean water, but that's just a simple change in the Y and Z translate values on second 5. materialtest.mov

First off, what version of A:M are you using? Also, this technique is to just simulate a body of water. It is not to simulate a wake created by a boat or other floating objects. What are the details on your material? I'll go through the tutorial to see what has been updated since 2001. ----- Okay, you're not supposed to set any displacement properties on your material when you first look at the material. That comes later.

I used ten lights for my array. You could probably use fewer and get acceptable results.

I see the exact problem you were having with your first image, so I did a quick test to see what I would need. Here's what I came up with: Here's the layout of the lights Since the lights are so large, and I was using multipass, the lights moved around a lot and created an even more accurate shadow for a tube light. The lights had very long falloff distances, and very low intensities. This created more diffuse shadows; I kept getting a very bright top and a dark bottom. For the glowing light, I selected all of the parts of the fixture model that would be touched by light, and I set it to a group with glow on it. I also set the glow value in the Choreography to 500% to get more glow. I think it turned out rather well. I could do a little more tweaking with the glow to get it less bright, but I will leave that up to you.

I love these kinds of environments. You should render out a still with Radiosity to really show off the room and how it would look in real life (or at least a lot closer to it). If you need any help with the settings PM me.

Did the top of the window come down in the render, or did the ceiling boarder edges go up? Either way, that microwave would be quite small. What about just a washable red paint for the walls instead of red tile? It would be less expensive, faster to apply, and would get you relatively the same effect as the tile would.

Needs people. I think cardboard cutouts would work well for a standing shot like this. Very nice construction. Is there an interior one room in so when it goes to night you'll be able to see inside the building?

I already deleted the project file, but you should fine as far as lighting position goes. Just make sure that all of the surfaces are pretty close to white.

I think that the Panama and Hungary names are too close together. There was no flyby animation, but when I made one I had to work really hard inorder to read them as I flew by, so much so I almost missed scotland. As far as lighting goes, set Global Ambiance to 50%, make sure that your camera has white for a background, and add lights in the middle of every area (any place where the main wall geometry could fit a block into). The lights should be bulbs. Set their Intensity to 80% with a falloff large enough to encompass the entire four wall section around it. Make sure that the lights don't cast shadows; I went through the scene and the shadows just made the animation look a little strange. By the way, you've got the Costa Rica model out of view. I made a little animation of your thing. Are you really considering doing an animation in that high of resolution? I think you can get away with a lot lower resolution. FlyBy.mov