Laconic

Hi! I'd like to make a material, if possible, that looks like regular square tile. Some type of material that has a grid structure with pattern that looks like standard bathroom tile and grout. I'd like to make a bathroom tile that catches light the way that real tile does. Can anyone point me to a tutorial on how to make a tile material, or point me to a repository of these, if they exist. Any help would be much appreciated. Tim

Hi! I couldn't get a render up but the ambience intensity is something that seems to be working. Thank you! T

Hi, I've gone through the "Combining CG Characters With Live Action Tutorial" here (http://www.hash.com/users/ed/tutorials/fpm/fpm.htm). I have built my shadow-catching models to scale (using a ruler on the real scene) and placed them correctly in reference to the camera. I have all the correct image properties on the shadow-catching objects and have turned Front Projection ON, but when I render them, I can see them as DARK distortions to the scene. I want the shadow, but not the CG objects darkening the areas in which they appear. I have tried bringing the "falloff" down as close to zero as possible, but the CG shadow-catching objects don't disappear into the scene. Is there a way to make my shadow-catching objects catch the shadows but not darken the scene when they are "Front Projected?" Any help would be appreciated. Tim

Thanks! Much appreciated, and I'll look forward to it. Tim

Hello! My current project has a number of separate "neon" lights that I would like to flash on and off. Each light will be on a similar on/off cycle, but they will not be flashing at the same time. I thought that creating an action that toggles the Ambient Intensity on and off would be a good idea, but I don't know if I can put this into an action that would then be able to be placed on different lights. Is there a way to achieve this effect? Any help would be appreciated. Tim

Hi! I'm taking a visual effects class where MAYA is used for examples. The teacher allows us to use any CG program we'd like and I like A:M MUCH more. For our projects, the instructor suggested that we make layered passes of any render (i.e. Specular Pass, Shadow Pass, Diffuse Pass) so that they can be adjusted separately in a program like After Effects without having to re-render the entire composite (Maya can do this). He says this is how the industry is moving. My question is: Can A:M render in separate passes, as described above? Specular pass, Diffuse pass, Shadow pass, Ambient pass, etc. Any help or links to tutorials would be appreciated. T

Okay! I'll look into hair and hopefully that will be a better solution. Thanks! T

Hi! I'm looking to create a field of grass with the "Flocking" technique in A:M. I have created a very simple "blade of grass" with two bones that will allow it to sway. I've followed the instructions on how to create a flock (using the "crowd" plug-in). My "population" setting is at "20," which is the default, but when I drop my blade of grass on the flcoking manipulator I create, only two (2) blades of grass show up. I'd like to populate my scene with more than 20 blades, so how can I populate the flock? It doesn't seem to make sense that the program isn't filling the scene with the default 20, and only populating with two. Any help would be much appreciated. Tim

Hi! I'd like to create an idyllic scene of a country field with a field of tall grass that has contains some grass elements that "undulate" in the wind. This doesn't have to be completely realistic, and it seems that I'd only want to render a few "individual" blades of grass for the foreground. Does anyone have an idea on what kind of technique I could use to create this tall grass? Would this be a "Hair"-type technique? a "Flocking"-technique? Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks, Tim

Thanks! I'll give these a try. Cheers! T

Hello! I'd like some advice on how to achieve these two lighting effects: 1) I'd like to create an effect that projects light as if it's being passed through a "bar" filter (or like the bars of a window). Example below, with the "light bars" across the subjects' eyes. PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINKS TO SEE THE IMAGES: 2) I'd like an effect of light showing though clouds or fog, so that you can see the rays. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks! T

Hello! I'd like some advice on how to achieve these two lighting effects: 1) I'd like to create an effect that projects light as if it's being passed through a "bar" filter (or like the bars of a window). Example below, with the "light bars" across the subjects' eyes: 2) I'd like an effect of light showing though clouds or fog, so that you can see the rays. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks! T

Thanks Again, Yves! T

Thank you, Yves! You're the Lighting Master! A few more questions: I've now set up the lighting sphere and successfully imported and applied the image to it.... 1) If I want the scene to be lit only by the projection map, should I turn off all the other lights? 2) When I DO turn off the other lights, the scene is very dark. Is there a way to illuminate the map itself, so that it's lighting everything? 3) Should shadows be ON or OFF in Options? 4) Finally, what if I want the lighting/reflective effects of the Projection map in my image, but don't want to see the environment sphere itself, in my final Rendering? Thanks so much!

Hello All, I'm running A:M v13.01 on a new MacBook with Intel processor. A:M seems to work fine, as it should. I'm experimenting with HDRI lighting, and was trying to follow the instructions to load an .hdr file into A:M from the HDRI Tutorial thread. It was suggested that the binary .hdr file (I got the "uffizi gallery" HDR file from the Debevec site at http://www.debevec.org/Probes/) should be imported. When I right click on the images directory in the Workspace and attempt Import>Image..., and then select the "uffizi_probe.hdr" file, it says "Unsuppported HDR Format." Any suggestions on what I'm doing wrong? Alternately, can I change the HDR into another format (using Photoshop) to allow A:M to import? Any help would be appreciated. Tim R.

Thanks! I'll play around with this. Much appreciated. T

Hello, I have a character face that should be flat, but the surface is actually has "ripples" and little intentations. I'd like to align the control vertices to one plane, to help flatten this out. In Maya, I can simply select the points, turn on the grid and then move the points, which aligns them on my chosen axis. Is there a way to do similar in A:M? Thanks, Tim

This may have been answered, but I can't find any information about it.... Is there a way to get a model created in A:M into Maya? Any help would be appreciated.

Cool! Thanks! T

Thanks! I'll give this a try (assuming I can just "open" or "import" the file)> Tim

Hi! There are animations which I'd like to do in which I'd rather buy a tree than have to model it. Is there a plug-in or way to import the more readily available formats like .max and .3ds? I'd like to know the options for this. Thanks, Tim R.

Thanks! I'll give these a try. Cheers!

Hello, I've been creating actions for the figure I've created, and I am now practicing stringing them together in a choreography. Two problems I'm having: 1) I'd like to move to a frame, say frame 00:01:00 and have all action start there. When I move the frame counter to 00:01:00 and drag an action onto my character, however, the action starts at 00:00:00 and not the place that I'd like it to. 2) I've added an action to a choregoraphy and it ends at 00:01:00 I want the next action to begin at 00:01:10 with a blend in the intermittent frames. Again, when I set the frame counter to 00:01:10, and the last action ended at 00:01:00, the program ignores the ten frames I created between actions and the new action starts at 00:01:01 instead of 00:01:10. I hope I'm clear. How can I fix these frame/action concerns? Thanks! Tim

Thanks! Much appreciated! Cheers!

Hello, I'm making my first forays into animating my character, and I have a question about compressing or stretching the frames for an action. Assuming that I keep the frame rate the same: Let's say that I've completed a complex action that takes 00:03:00 frames, but I'd like the entire action to take place in 00:02:00 frames. Is there a mechanism I can use, or what's the best way to make a whole action (consisting of a number of moves) be compressed (or stretched out) into a desired number of frames? Cheers!