Kelley

And so it was. I was surprised that the index only had two or three entries for Alpha Channel. A light treatment for something so central to Premier. One of the entries is 'Alpha Adjust Key'. Something that rang no bells, hence it couldn't be... But it was. Barely half a page. But the key tells Premier that an Alpha is present. Tomorrow morning I'll run another test. Thanks much!

I rendered out two [2 sec.] sequences. I turned off all objects and lights in Properties, and spec'd an Alpha for each. The first, the chopper rotors with much motion blur, and the second is the chopper body. Both sequences rendered out with a solid black background [which I assume is the Alpha Channel. However; I attempted to matt them together in Premier Pro and the top channel [rotors] just shows rotors with solid black. No chopper bawd under it. Is there another step that I'm missing? I recall from school [10 yrs. ago now] working with an early version of Premier and there was a way to choose a color and set it 'Transparent'. Is something like this necessary? Thanks

Ay! No problem. It is in the nature of discussion to wander a bit. Thanks for the tips. I riffled through my [several feet of] software CD's and happily, I found that I did order the A:M Extras CD. This coming week will be dedicated to working out some good particle/sprite/spriticule effects and whatever else I can gin up. Thanks again.

Back to those missle trails: Starting with the stuff that was right under my nose, I went to the A:M manual and did the "Eat My Dust" using Eddie. On the whole, not bad. The 'dust' looks not unlike the pic. in the manual. My first concern is, as he walks the dust clouds look a lot like light flashes. While a new color would help, [ I'll fuss with that tomorrow] I'd like to get the cloud to look denser, and more grainy. At the moment it's closer to fog. [as does the pic. in the manual]. Can anyone suggest the needed settings in Properties? Also, in the PWS, before the words "Dust1 Action Object" there is a question mark. Is that a good thing? Thanks all.

This guy is outstanding. Also, this is probably the best treatment of "arms as gun/weapon" since the early Transformer days. Great work!

Thanks for all the looking guys. I appreciate it. Thanks for the kind words, Rodney. I'll see what I can track down with these leads.

Now that I'm in the home stretch with tank treads, it's time to think ahead and decide how to blast the bejeezus outta them. I looked in A.R.M. and found these two tutorials...both of which end in a 'Page Not Found' It's the first of the two that I'd really to find. Can anyone direct me to another URL that will give me instruction on animating "flame/smoke trails" for a streaking anti-tank missle?

Aha! Thanks. I'll give it a shot!

When do I press the 'space' bar? At the beginning of the rendering?

Thanks serq2. I opened the file...and while I've never used a distortion field [in A:M I still need BOTH hands to find my butt, despite what it says under my avatar]...I'm assuming that the field flattens the circular treads? I did a test rendering [24 frame] and the treads stay circular. In any event, it's a clever solution to treads. I have resolved that my next tank will have a generous amount of side armor with tread only showing at ground level.

Outstanding! Thanks. I love simple solutions!

SOLVED IT! The bones [and pivot points] are all in the right-hand tread. Somehow the bone on several tread plates got rotated 180 on the Z-axis [running front to back]. That flipped the left-hand tread CP's over to the far right side of the tank. I suddenly noticed that the distance was approx. equal whether the tread plate was to the right or left of the bones. Why they flipped is still a question. Only the bones on Tread Plates 9 through 14 were a problem. [out of 24]. I was told, some while ago, that objects set to 0, 90, and 180 degrees sometimes flip to the reciprocal. I was advised that it is sometimes better to place an object at 179.9, than to put it at 180, which can default to 0. In my case, that's the difference between left and right, or, having the tread plate face up or down.

I opened the Channels in the Bones folder. The interpolations default, as far as I can see, is set to 'Spline' throughout. I changed several to Zero-Slope, but it doesn't seem to change the tread jumping. Also, I'm wondering if those gaps in the interpolation timeline should be there. Thanks for the help. This is 'terra incognita' to me.

I've searched through the manuals looking for info on how to access Alpha Channels, but nobody says much more than it can be done. When I get the tanks going, I want several attack-choppers to sweep in shooting. I want motion blur on the rotors, but not in the whole scene. I figured to turn off everything in the scene, leaving only the turning blades, run the anim., then turn off the rotors, run again, and composite in Premier. But where do I go to get Alpha Channel mode?

Thanks much! I had looked for this on A.R.M. and didn't find it. I printed it out and will duly soak my head in it tonight. Looks like there's a lot of stuff in there worth knowing. But in the meantime, I've got this tread that's almost there. except that the CP's are jumping around on one side and the bone, and other CP's aren't.

I think I started this thread saying something about, "pretty easy"..."just a few turning wheels and treads". The first tread [right hand] went well. moving each tread plate through 24 positions, and making an action of it. As I was about to do the same thing on the left-hand tread, I twigged to the idea of just selecting the bone and control points on the right tread, and then adding in the CP's for the left. One bone for both plates, both treads. And it almost worked. When I did a one cycle, 24 frame animation, I see that several of the left-hand plates leap to the far right side of the right-hand tread, starting at Frame 9. But even though both left and right are controlled by the same bone, the right-hand plates don't move. How can this be?

Great job. At first I thought the color rendering was one of your reference pics.

Yeah. Tell me about it.

Hi Ken. Good to hear from you again. Indeed, I could make a path and constrain each tread plate to it. The problem is, there are twenty four tread plates and twenty four positions each plate must move to. To get one full revolution for the tread as a whole, I've got 24x24 operations. I did this once in Carrara with a 30-plate tread. 900 operations is a lot. I wince at this possibility because I find the constraints in A:M to be very squirrely. I have six vehicles on the bridge. each has a Rim Light 'translated to', and put into a Light List. Every time I open the project to work on it, I can be sure that at least two of the 'translate to's have dissapeared, and two or more Light Lists will have to be re-established. To have to check the constraints on 24 plates per tread X 2 treads per vehicle X 6 vehicles, every time I'm ready to render a scene would put me over the edge. Hence I hoped I could make a twenty-four bone chain. I'll check out the other suggestions made here, [thank-you all] but my first fall-back solution was to delete all but one tread plate, and [in Bone's Mode] move it through its 24 positions, make an Action, then move the scrubber to Frame_2, add a tread plate and drop the action on it, repeat at Frame_3, and so on... By the by, I got the wrong pic. in my first posting. Here's the vehicles as of today.

I'm doing a pretty easy 'rolling stock' animation: just simple turning wheels and tank treads. About those treads...I've got a few ideas on how to go about it, but they draw on my old polygon days. I'm wondering that, if I install a bone in each tread plate, and make each bone the child of the one before it 'til I arrive at the last, will the 29 children smoothly follow the 1st parent?

Yes we did. More than once...and it still doesn't work. The problem has got to be me. But I still have no idea of where I'm going wrong. Thanks anyhow.

This may be obvious beyond belief, but...to make 'paste mirrored' work, need I be in Mirror Mode?

Aha! I'll start giving it a rest more often. Thanks.

If I'm working on an A:M project, and I need to leave the computer for, let's say, an hour or more; when I come back, whatever is on my desktop [wallpaper, icons, etc.] will be in the Modeling Window or the Choreography. If I try to go to a different section [e.g., leave Choreography and go to a Model Window] there is only a blank grey screen. I still have toolbars, but the only way to get back to any of the workspaces is to do a Save and close out...then re-launch A:M. Does this ever happen to anyone else?