Kelley

Very interesting. I'll look into this. Thanks.

I love A:M, but it seems to have a mind of its own...'squirrely' would not be too strong a term. Sometimes I get an image inside the yellow decal bounding box, sometimes not. [i switched Open GL for Direct3D] The first few applications of decal [2 or 3] work, but after that...nothing. Since that switch, the yellow boxes do not appear when items are to be sized. rotated or moved. Except in brief flashes. Then they disappear. On the day before yesterday, I got the fish to swim along its path. Last night [new fish] it would not. Lately, when I try to view animations in the Hash Films section of the website, all I get is a black box, though there is the Quicktime toolbar and sounds. I realize that there may not be a common thread to all of these, but is it possible that I simply need more than 512Mb RAM? I'm running an HP Pavilion 762n, 2.26Mhz Pentium 4, 80Gb HD, 512Mb RAM [& Windows XP] 32Mb DDR SDRAM and a Radeon 9600 video card...and while I used to keep Photoshop open while working in A:M, I now close everything down. Is A:M memory intensive? Any thoughts on what's happening? My list of 'untoward happenings' cited above is not by any means exhaustive, just what I can remember off the top of my head today. It just seems odd that things work well one day, and not the next.

In following up Rodney's leads, I discovered that the Tools>Options>Rendering Tab was the one that paid off big-time. It's there that you can enter Start and Stop distances which seem to override the other possible settings.[attachmentid=13185]

Thanks Rodney...I'll check these out. Actually, the overall effect is not unpleasing, it's just that there's too much of it. I need to cut back on the amount of fog. Thanks again. Ken: yes, it is an actual model. The problem is not 'seeing through', but the fact that it swims off into the background and disappears. While I'll check out the settings that Rodney suggested, I ran into difficulties with key frames [which refused to delete] so I deleted the camera and inserted a new one. The new one has no fog settings, and I can see forever. Thanks.

All the advice I've been getting is starting to bear fruit. The fish is attached to its own path, and an Action has been applied, and he swims and move his fins. But...it's this damned fog! I want some, but when he swims to the back of the circular loop, he disappears. I only have one camera, and I found the Fog settings. I punched in numbers repeatedly and nothing changed. Then I enabled IGNORE FOG. [ON] No change. Then I turned fog itself to OFF. No change. So...where's this fog coming from? [Thanks].[attachmentid=13144]

Thanks Ken. I blundered into the solution to my own problem. First, I deleted the fish, then pulled a new copy into the Choreography Window. I was having the devil's own time moving it about until I discovered that you have to be in 'Choreogrphy Mode'. Once I clicked on the Blue Megaphone, all problems ceased.

Thanks guys for the help. [tho' Muscle Mode is way beyond me at the moment.] It turns out that the path kinked because there were two points on top of each other. As a secondary problem, my fish seems to have attached itself to the wrong end of the path. I sought to solve this by rotating the fish to face in the other direction. Easier said than done. I can't get the colored circles to appear for the Rotational Tool, and when I punch in numbers on the Properties Window the fish tumbles in weird ways. There are already numbers [grayed out] in the Properties. I assume they describe the fish's current orientation. So if I see '20' on the Y-axis, and I enter '60', will the fish rotate to '80'? Or will the '60' override the '20'? Will the fish move back along the path? Or must I delete the path an remake a new one?[attachmentid=13122]

I'm building my first path, but one of the points developed a kink where I want it smooth. I found the path in the PWS Choreograhy list, I've got it selected with a yellow box...but how to display the CP that I need to fix?[attachmentid=13115]

Thanks for the responses. I guess the answer to the question is 'no, it can't be done'. I checked out the Steffan Gross plug-in site and here's what he had to say about it: " "With this plugin you can import a model several times in a choreographie . Of course, this does nothing other than the normal way , but if you want to import a model as example 100 times , doing this with the plugin is more simply and faster ...." It would appear that each still has to be located, rotated into position, dragged into the camera view, scaled, etc.

I'm trying to add a series of flat Shelf Corals to the scene. It would make life a lot easier if I could select one within the camera view, duplicate it, and adjust its position...rather than dragging down another from Objects>Choreography, then have to back 'way out [visually] to find it, rotate it, drag it into position, then scale.[attachmentid=12929]

Thanks for the come-back. After looking through manuals and assorted books, I finally opened a new project and navigated to Materials>Perlin. What now? I can't see any dialog box to enter settings. The Properties menu seems to rough up the surface and change colors. How did you get to the caustic pattern?

Thanks, Rob. However, I'm just getting my feet wet in A:M [no pun there] and that tutorial was 'way over my head. [no second pun, either] There's a lot of good information, to be sure, and I printed it out for future reference, but for the nonce, is there simply a way to bring shafts of fuzzy, diffuse light down through the 'water'? Perhaps a volumetric spotlight with a very narrow cone? My question about caustics was refering to light thrown on the ocean floor, since the camera will not be looking up. Could an animated gel [A blending into B] be used?

Having got my camera questions sorted out [Thanks again to all...] two other things I'd like to include in this first animation is [1] shafts of light coming down from above. I suspect it's a volumetric light solution, but could someone get me jump-started? In Carrara, we could install 'light cones'. [2] Does A:M support caustics for shimmers of light on the ocean floor? Thanks.[attachmentid=12862]

Gentlemen...thank you all.

As a test for my first animation in A:M, I want everything to happen around a group of rocks [underwater]. What's the easiest way to make the camera revolve around a center? In other programs, I could move the 'geometric center' of the object. In this case, do I need to move the 'camera bone'?[attachmentid=12848]

I just blundered into the 'Background Color' control on the camera tonight. [i'm also VERY new to A:M] I'm finding it a lifesaver because I want everything to happen in a pool of light [underwater] I struggled with lights, intensity, fall-offs, etc., trying to make the horizon line go away. Can you tell me where to access the color chip for the 'Ground Color'?

Here's another test. You were right about getting it centered on the X/Y axes.

I've animated tanks in Carrara, but this one is a first in A:M. I'm thinking that I should arrange one whole track [treads. drive wheels, armor. etc.] as a named group, animate a full cycle where each track-plate goes all the way around once, and save that Action to the Library. Then duplicate it, flip it on the Z-axis and drop the Action onto the new tread. Is there a better way? [in Carrara this was not difficult, but it was tedious. So before I launch in...] Secondly, in Carrara, there was a way to select groups of key-frame markers, and, [if I recall correctly, by holding down the Alt key] drag the markers out proportionally, thereby slowing the action, or compressing them on the timeline, speeding up the action. Is there a similar function in A:M?

Here's a test piece that shows more clearly [i hope!] what I'm talking about.

I find that if a texture is applied 'planar', it looks as it ought to. [unless stretched over a large area] But if textures are applied spherically, or cylindrically, [even if the bounding box area is reduced to fit] they want to look blurry, or smeared across the object. Has anyone else had this problem?

My thanks to you all for the response. I am attaching a quik-render of Sgt. Tubs. As you can see, it's not the geometry that's the problem. And it wasn't 'point/no point' on the vertices. As long as that's the case, I can live with whatever is going on. I'll re-try the page up/down again. The character himself was the brainchild of Vaughn Bode' [best known for "Cheech Wizard" in the late 60's]. Most of Bode's characters, and comics were one page affairs, but Tubs was a longer piece published in JUNKWAFFEL Comics. My copy of "The Set-Up Machne" just arrived. Being the new kid here, [as far as A:M] here comes the 'moment of truth'.

Thanks for the come-back. The 'page-up/page-down' didn't change anything. I tried it with all points selected, and not. However, [as per your suggestion] a quick render revealed that nothing in the geometry has changed. The hand that is being built doesn't not seem to share the angularity of the rest of the model. Maybe when I close down the PC for the night the problem will be resolved in the morning. We'll see. Thanks again.

I was getting ready to model the hands on this character. I needed some extra desk space to write a note and I slipped the keyboard in between the monitor and the computer tower. It was a snug fit and some keys got rattled. Suddenly the model was all angles. I am suspecting that this is just a matter of how the screen renders, and that I have not changed the geometry of the model. Anyone out there have a suggestion on restoring it? Thanks...