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Kelley

Craftsman/Mentor
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Everything posted by Kelley

  1. No wonder it looked so good! [LOL] Actually, I've found that it's best to archive old .prj's with salvagable Sprites and Particles. Copying and pasting works great, but writing the values down and re-entering them to make a second copy always gives a result that's different in some way. Maybe it starts from a different seed number, or some such. Last night, after scouring every A:M handbook in the library, I turned, at last, to The Art of Animation Master. [duh!] There, under "Wind, Rain, Fire" was an excellent tutorial using Streaks, Forces and Turbulence. Scott and I got it to work on a test section of The Sentinel. Then we tried to replicate it in the final-qual. section with less result. Tonight should see the resolution of it.
  2. The main problem is not to get snow to fall, it's 'why won't it fall in that Choreo.?' I can see the snow on the emitter. But thanks, Ken, for the Material recipe. I tried it and it falls more like rain for me. I'll log it. I did a second tester on snow. Now is where I need some help with Forces. I want the snow to flutter as it comes down. Robcat suggested adding Turbulence to Force. Is Force applied to the model, or, to the Choreography? I've treid both with several different values. Nothing seems to happen. RAIN_STREAKS__KEN_.zip SNOW_STREAKS__KELL__02.zip
  3. This is a Problem-and-a-half. The main question is How to use Forces, the 'half' is 'Why Has My @#%* Snow Emmitter Stalled?' Starting with the 'half', it's a straightforward Streaks Material dropped onto a single-patch plane. It's worked before. Now, no matter what value I enter on the Y-axis the snow doesn't want to fall. The main question is how to employ Forces. I got a Force into the Objects Folder and then to Choreography. In its Properties, it looks like any light. I set the height and cone. In the PWS, Force looks like a vehicle for adding Turbulence. I chose Cell Turb and punched in some trial values. Am I on the right track here? Seems too simple. LANDSCAPE.prj
  4. Just playing with some dramatic lighting. Rocks will be added later. Now back to footprints...
  5. You might not be getting exactly what you want, but what you've got is really good.
  6. An opening six seconds. The wheels still slide a bit, but I'm happy with the lighting. TWO_MOTORCYCLES_01.zip
  7. Thanks all, for the kind words. David: Good point. [Had I but thought of it.] I'll get it done.
  8. Thanks, Paul. I thought you'd get a kick out of seeing the refurbished town. WWII? Here's two more of the mechs. [1] The 1917 Whippet tank and [2] the 1910 Rolls-Royce Armored Car. I tend to see it as WWI writ large. [with surreal elements]
  9. This it one of the very first projects built in A:M. I made some serious mistakes which conspired to slow the modeling, and the renders. First of them was that as I built things in the Modeling Window, I applied the textures as I went along. If, like with a wood beam, I needed this object several times in several models, I would copy it and paste in place. All well and good, except for the fact that A:M loads another copy of the texture. As I duplicated the bits, I ended up with a phenominal number of textures in the Textures Folder [to say nothing of Groups]. Another less-than-desirable aspect of A:M is that if a project sits idle for a few months, A:M had difficulty finding its textures again. SO, as I resurrected this project, I striped off all the textures and re-applied them from scratch...with stamps. The project got re-built in about two days with about 20-25 textures and runs much better. My Sorcerer's Apprentice, Scott, animated the treads on the tanks, so all vehicles will be moving as Tubbs and Pepperbox walk down the street. I also posted it on my Blog, but this, the much-larger-version is better.
  10. I've posted a few Sentinel pieces on my Blog. http://kelleythennow.blogspot.com/
  11. The spitball rock on which the Sentinel spends his time [his life?] is pretty much devoid of life, but there are large, torpid, harmless beetles in the snow areas. They appear as rocks poking out of the snow until Beast wanders too close and they slowly start to shuffle away. Occasionally, one cannot move out of range fast enough and will rear up and make ritual threatening gestures, then sink back out of sight. BEETLE_TEST.zip
  12. Thanks Nancy. I'll take a fresh running start at it in the morning.
  13. Well, I'm close, but I'm not breaking out the cigars yet. I finally got it sorted out. Spent hours trying to find the Opacity dialog box a second time, until I realized that's not what I needed to animate. It was the Bump Percentage itself. After that, it went pretty smooth. But while my Choreo. looks like yours [only with 3 steps instead of 4] I can't get the bumped steps to show when rendered. Or in a screen snapshot. If you can sort out this last detail, I'm home free. I think. FOOTPRINTS.zip
  14. Thanks for the solution. Problem is, I haven't a clue as to how you got there. How did BUMP 1,2,3, & 4 get into a folder under GROUND PATCH in the Choreography? And again in an Actions folder? What, exactly, is a 'hold interpolation' and where do I choose it? I can set opacity when I apply the Bump to the Patch in the Choreo., but once the dialog box closes, I can't find it again. How is opacity changed? I hate to appear the dumb kid, but I'm completely confused.
  15. This is new territory for me. I've got the footprint decal imported four times. I'm hoping that's what you mean by "Each footprint needs to be in a different decal container" So far, I've only applied the footprint bump once, and tried to change the opacity over ten frames, or so, but it's not responding. FOOTPRINTS.zip
  16. Following the steps Nancy outlined, I applied a footprint bump to a patch in the Action window. then I advanced 10 frames, applied a second stamp, then 10 frames, etc...hoping to get sequential footsteps. But when I dropped the action on the patch in the Choreo., [and rendered a 00:01:15] all the footsteps appeared at once. Any thoughts? EDIT: Repeated the same directly onto the patch in the Choreo. Same result.
  17. Can decals be applied in the Choreography?
  18. I've got the flakes smaller and falling slower, But where do I access the 'Turbulence' controls? I know I've seen it in the past, but it eludes me now. And the patch that shields the camera...did you enable 'Collision' so a flake doesn't pass through?
  19. Wow! [much scratching of head.] Weird enough to definitely send a report. Thanks.
  20. The problem child is the third Choreography. last in the list. [KIBBLE CLOSE-UP] Here's the .tga, though it's not used in the problem child.
  21. When you say it's "definitely a bug", did you try it on your machine? If you did, and it still wouldn't, I'll happpily file a report. But it's a problem I've never seen with A:M...and it's such a simple animation. What could go wrong? I'm posting an animation in which I take the same models into a new Choreo. and it rendered just fine. DRONE_ARRIVAL.zip
  22. Last night I put together a short [18 sec.] Choreo of spheres/planets moving around each other. Simple in the extreme. But when I try to render it [at 400x225_final qual.] it does fine until it hits Frame 15 [3%] and stops. The Elapsed Time counter starts off at about 18 minutes remaining and counts down to about 16 until lock-up. Then it starts to increase in time remaining. Last night I was surprised to see that it was saying 4 hours to complete. I decided to ignore it and do something else. When I came back, it was still at 3%, but said 30+ hours to complete. When I hit the Abort button I get the Vista blue-spinning circle...forever. You can't access menus let alone shut down A:M. Only the Windows Task Manager will do that. I had two other Choreos in the document using the same simple planets. I deleted them. All same-same. I moved the project from my laptop to the HP. Same. [Frame 15/3%] So it's not one of my computers getting squirrely. It seems to be in the doc. Suggestions? PRJ_TEXTURES.zip
  23. Paul: Thanks for checking in. There will be more happening with Beast. As the Sentinel grouses about the general state of everything, Beast will make grunts and gags that lead Sentinel to suspect that Beast is smart enough to understand what's being said. But he's never sure. There definitely are CP weighting issues. I've yet to touch the subject, but will before final renders happen. Particle Systems: also a subject I've only flirted with. The emitter, at the moment, is a large single patch above Beast and rider and doesn't extend too deep on the Z-axis. Had to learn to Translate the emitter to the camera, and not let the camera get into the snow. [big particle/flakes land on the 'lens' and everything goes white]
  24. Some early results with the Sentinel riding Beast. The snowflakes are too big, and falling too fast. Not sure I want to go with a snow scene. Crits welcome. [sorry 'bout the file size!] _KIBBLE_XXI_SNOW_02.zip
  25. Thanks John. That's exactly what I'm looking for. Will: mHow's the 'TAR' project going?
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