phatso

Hmm. Does it start out with nurbs? And regarding the tri polygons, could one just go thru and delete lines until everything is quadded? But it would still be polygons, not splines? Dang. Or did you say tri patches? Is it really in patches? Or polygons?

Woo! That looks like a hot program. How well does it interface with A:M? When you get done, do you have a splined model you can rig and put pose sliders on, and all that?

Isn't there a moment like that on every model? Nice transmutation, a bit of work on the eye is needed. Raise the brow a bit, open the eye a bit. The 2D version looks a bit smug, the 3D version doesn't. I often run into the problem where, if the pupils are placed where they should be in a straight-on pose, they disappear in a side pose. I guess that's just a fact of life. In my "door's stuck" exercise I had the eye target placed way different than you'd think it should be, just so you could see the pupil at all. It seemed to work. This effort may come to nothing, and the next... but one of these days one of your clients is going to say "Hey, let's do a whole animated ad campaign!" I think A:M's natural environment is in advertising. The ad biz just doesn't know it yet.

xero - A:M won't run without an actual CD in the drive. This protects Hash from lost revenue due to unauthorized copies. It also protects users in that the write-protected program can't be corrupted, virussed (is that a real word?) or accidentally screwed up by the user. Clean your house, do the laundry, sort paperwork, write a letter to your mother, do the things you've been putting off. Once you get it in your hands you won't be able to pull yourself away from the screen long enough to do anything else.

There's another way to quickly delete off-grid keyframes without going thru the extra step of snapping to grid. Just draw a group rectangle around them and hit delete. Usually, the way off-grid keyframes happen for me is when I group a bunch and then stretch/shrink them. I usually don't bother to fix them but maybe I should. I wonder if they screw up render times or anything?

Spine sticks out too much at the top; she looks like she's got osteoporosis.

'Scuse me, I been a musician all my life, I thot he wanted to record a sound track. Duh.

Just one hint - don't get a mad hair and go out and buy one of those cheapies from Walmart. Strings way too high off the board, really hard to play, etc. Check out pawn shops, bands are breaking up all the time and it isn't unusual to find a really good ax for cheap. (And they'll usually deal on price.)

Cartoon scales needn't be realistic. Ever look closely at the proportions of some manga characters? People pick up very strong ideas of character from physical forms - in real life, much stronger than is justified. If the look of the arms and neck helps cue the viewer to the model's character (only Jirard would know at this point) then they are right.

There are many direct, tangible benefits of visiting A:M forums regularly. And then there are...other benefits...

Hmm. Confusing. Did you say V12.0? That would be the CD with Sorcerez, the witch, levitating Thom, and I bought my V12 in 2005. I just got V13 which has the yeti and the two discs. (And which never, ever hangs or crashes, by the way. ) So I'm a bit confused about which you've really got.

How did you screw up your disc? Physically, as in scratching it? If it just isn't working anymore, you may have the problem I had. Not everything about A:M loads from the disk every time. Your work, for example, stays on the computer. And those files can get corrupted. (Especially if you visit...um...sites which display...um...human anatomy. Of course, I don't know this from personal experience, I've just been told. And the problem I had has nothing to do with visiting those sites....) Anyway, you may want to try putting your work on a CD and then clearing out and reinstalling A:M. That helped when I had the problem. 'Course, now I've updated to V14, which is stable as a rock, so I can gloat.

Ah, but greg thought he defined a keyframe. The issue may be that keyframes are not global. The three buttons on the bottom toolbar let you choose whether you're keyframing a bone, a chain of bones, or the whole model. And even that doesn't keyframe everything if you have more than one model. Go to the workspace, find the line for the model, and use the triangle to break it open. You will find separate controls for translation and rotation in x,y and z axes. Click on the one that controls rotation in the axis you want (probably y) and in the timeline you will get a single, isolated spline that shows exactly how that property is behaving. If there isn't a control point that defines a keyframe where you want it, insert one. Then use bias handles (or right-click on the CP to access more options) and either peak the point, if you want rotation to start abruptly, or go to the bottom and select more options, then select zero slope, if you want rotation to start gradually as if controlled by inertia. You may also find you've inadvertantly put keyframes on this spline that you don't want. This would be a good time to get rid of them.

I wll try those things, thanks. Saving has always been a little confusing...

Did that. One other thing, if I'm trying to save a second or third render, it says something like "there already is a file by this name, you dummy, so pick another one." But it won't let me pick another one. The existing name goes blue, like it's ready to be erased or typed over, but it won't let me. Do I have to do it in the camera properties' options menu? (Which doesn't seem to work either.)

Okay, this is prolly stupid, but... How does one save a .mov file? I have no trouble saving AVI files, but of course they're huge. (Just finished Ex. 6, it's 18meg) But when I try to do a compressed .mov file it only saves the last image rendered - not an animation. So what exactly are the steps? You may be as condescending as you choose, and I'll deal with it, as long as I get the answer. BTW I've tried it both with V13 and V14.

On the other hand... for a beginning effort, that's darn good.

What Dhar said. A lot of new users (who, me?) get confused at first because they don't keep in mind that the different modes have specific uses, and you have to be in the right one for things to work. I find that it helps to remember that A:M was once four separate programs, back in the days when computers weren't powerful enough to handle the whole thing. Like practicing scales on the piano, this all becomes second nature in time.

We should probably ask Martin why he chose the term "patch," but here's my take. A patch is the surface defined by the 3, 4 or 5 control points around it, and the splines which join the CP's. In that sense it's like the polygons used by other programs, but Hash calls it by a different name because it has properties a polygon doesn't have. A polygon is always flat - that is, it's a 2-dimensional plane. You "fake" curved surfaces by breaking them up into enough polygons that each individual polygon is too small to see. Since organic objects are almost always curved, what this means is that organic modelling with polygons is a wrong-headed approach at the most fundamental level, like using a screwdriver to pound nails. Splines, on the other hand, can be curved - usually are - and this means the surfaces defined by intersecting splines can also be curved. A patch thus compares to a polygon as 3d compares to 2d or color compares to black-and-white. You don't have to define a surface using a gazillion polygons; you define the control points and splines, and the computer calculates the surface. When you have multiple neighboring patches, the computer also calculates the patch-to-patch transitions, which are (ideally) smooth, as opposed to the case with neighboring polygons, which - since polygons are planes - cannot but show up as a sharp crease. Wireframes made up of 4-point patches are smoothest; 3-point and 5-point patches can involve ambiguous math. Now, when you want to make inorganic, machine-based models, you can do it with patches. Simply peak the control points and make sure the splines that define a surface are in the same plane. In A:M, a polygon is simply a particular kind of patch, just as a 3d program can display a 2d image or a color monitor can display a black-and-white picture.

Woo! Member number 11,000! A milestone, there ought to be a band playing or something...

No no, Gaz, you do it like this: Hey, Largento! Yer just not animating the conveyor because you can't! There, that'll get 'im to do it.

Looking at those makes my hair stand up. Does that mean they pass the evil scientist test?

"Dead puppy"... I know a tax preparer who always inserted an obvious error, so when the IRS auditor came across it he'd yank it out and think he had done his job. And a comedy show... was it Laugh-In?... where they had one writer whose stuff was so shocking it never got on the air. (It's Karen Ann Quinlan's birthday. The got her some moss for her north side.) They kept him on the staff so the censors would yank his stuff and leave the rest. Hmm. Never thought of using Thom in a tutorial video. Have to give that some consideration.

Woo! Watch that video for two minutes, then try to walk a straight line.

How realistic is it that you could learn to animate with A:M? I'd say for anyone who can write, perform and record music and do video production, chances are 100 out of 100. Will the eventual enjoyment outweigh the initial frustration? Well, animation programs come in two flavors: "toys" that you can learn in minutes, because they're so limited that it only takes minutes to exhaust their capabilities, and "real" programs. "Real" animation is exquisitely complex, and complete mastery takes as much effort as, say, complete mastery of the piano. But in this respect A:M has an ace up its sleeve. While it is a "real" program that can do almost anything in the hands of an experienced animator, it also has shortcuts that permit a beginner to start doing basic animation in minutes. As you progress, the psychic rewards keep pace with the effort invested. This is one of the basic ways A:M differs from other "real" programs. Those others assume you have chosen animation as a profession, will be going to school to learn it, and expect to make your living at it. In other words, several years and five to six figures in cash before any payoff. A:M takes the position that you can teach yourself animation. The book which comes with the program has graduated exercises which I personally suggest you go through more than once. That may sound like a waste of time, but each time it's more fun. I just posted an exercise to this forum and I'm on my way there to see what people think of it. Your "bio" suggests that you are the kind of person who finds the creative act rewarding for its own sake. I was a musician long before I was an animator, and I can tell you the same kind of satisfaction you get there is available here.