iGeek

Cool that did it thanks. -Zev

I couldn't get the cylinder to work either. Here's a project I'm trying to do, just to get a grasp of how Newton Physics works. I'm having serious problems with it. I made it in 13.0 Beta 1. Here's the project file with the simulation calculated. What's wrong with how I set it up? -Zev newton_test.prj.zip

Yeah, but it was completely self-assigned. It wasn't really an assignment, per se, more me sucking up to my teacher. She seems to like me for some reason; I've been made a teacher's pet against my will. So now it's more of a personal project that I work on in my copious spare time, and that I'll bet getting credit for. So let me explain what you see: This is Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey as it applies to The Hobbit. Here are the steps in this image: 1. The call to adventure: the prospect of getting the dragon-guarded treasure intrigues Bilbo. There is a refusal to the call, but I didn't show it. 2. Helper: the hat is that of the wizard Gandalf, who helps Bilbo on his quest. 3. Test: Bilbo and Thorin's company encounter three huge trolls eating mutton in the forest. Here's one of them. It is a first test for bilbo. It's also the threshold to adventure, In my opinion. 4. Another test, I think: the Misty mountains. In them, Bilbo finds The Ring, seen at the mouth of the cave. When he escapes, he loses his brass buttons on the doorstep. 5. Helper: the lord of the eagles rescues Bilbo, Gandalf, and the dwarves from the wolves and goblins. 6. The final test (I think): Smaug the dragon. Though Bilbo doesn't kill him, facing the dragon is the bravest thing Bilbo does. 7. Return with the "elixer": Bilbo gets home to Bag End, Underhill, and his kettle is ever more musical yadda yadda yadda That's the basic idea. I have to give it a bit more thought. By the way, I figured out a fix for the mist: use a box instead of a cylinder. One more question: what exactly is Ambient Occlusion? Is it something I should worry about on this project? Thanks for the comments. -Zev

Here's a render. I've added a texture to the door so it doesn't stand out as much. The updated project is still available at the same link. -Zev

Update: I got the smoking chimney working. It turned out the smoke was there, it was just very very small. I messed with some scale settings and got it working. I wonder if the scale issue is causing the mist to behave weirdly? I also moved the eagle down to street level. I think it looks a lot better. -Zev

annnnd after months and months, I'm working on it again. I decided to do the troll after all. It wasn't as hard as I thought. I learned a lot along the way, and I realized how much I need to take an anatomical drawing class. render Changes: 1. Troll with mutton in his hand (From the chapter "roast mutton") 2. the One Ring is inside the mouth of the Mistiy Mountains tunnel 3. The Lord of the Eagles (might add a crown) is perched outside the mountain. I learned a lot about hair by using it to do his feathers. I retrospect I should have used decals. 4. slight modifications to the lighting and angles. Still unanswered: 1. that darn mist! I might go back and use johnl3d's example, now that the "dark smoke render" bug is fixed. 2. The chimney is still not smoking. I think I'll do the smoke as a separate model. 3. Is the Eagle's perch and position alright? Too busy? feedback = good I've posted the updated project here. It's 30MB and it decompresses to 94MB. -Zev PS This render took 51 minutes on a dual 2 gig G5 16 pass 1600x1200. I tried rendering in 12.0t but it kept crashing. I had to render in v13 alpha 9, and it worked like a charm. I haven't had any other issues recently with rendering the same project in v12.

Another option is using QuickTime Pro. It costs $29 from Apple, works on Mac and Windows, and has some really nice features for importing image sequences and exporting the results. But on to your question: Right-click on the Images folder in the Project Workspace. Choose New Image/Animation... from the popup menu. Navigate to your folder of images. Select either the folder or the first image, I forget which. Click OK. This might be inaccurate, I don't have A:M sitting in front of me at the moment. -Zev

As you may imagine from my avatar, I am something of a Cube geek. My fastest time for the regular Cube (3x3) is 26 seconds with a modified F2L/layers method, in cube-geekese. I tried to figure out how to rig a cube... in fact, a bunch of us tried, and there's a thread floating around somewhere with that topic. It would be really nice to just have pose sliders labeled "Front," "Right," etc. and have the cube move. The closest analogy for the feature I could think of at 3 in the morning is a layer mask in Photoshop: a image that you don't see, but it controls another image. Imagine geometry with bones that you didn't see, but it controlled whatever geometry happened to be inside it. It would be like a Cube within a cube. You'd build a bunch of interlocking rectangles that enclosed the actual Cube and give them pose sliders. Then, when you turned them, any points inside the affected area would move. This would solve the problem I see with all the examples here: there is still some scaling during the turning. I think building this functionality into a plugin or A:M itself would open up possibilities for a whole new class of movement and automation. It would be great for manipulating specific entities within a swarm or crowd, for example... or is there already a way to do that? Gotta read the manual... -Zev

Wow, what a concept, a contest with no strings attached! WEEEEIRD.... Anyway, count me in. I'm 17 and waited too long to update to Sorcerez. Now I'm thinking I shoulda waited. Please, count me in. Oh, and I promise I'll finish TAoA:M soon! Really! -Zev

Here's another update. I deleted the dust and started over, and it still has the same hole in it. Might I be better off painting it in later? Here's the look I'm going for: link. Any ideas? Also still working on that smoke... and I think instead of modeling a full troll, which I'm not looking forward to, I'll do a clump of trees with dark figures and a fire burning. -Zev the project is still up here. Edit: oops, forgot the image

I tried it, but I can't get the look I'm going for. That looks more like smoke over a volcano. I'm going for clouds forming a ring around the mountain. Also, anyone have any idea why the smoke for the chimney isn't showing in the choreography at all? -Zev

Anyone have any ideas on the "mist" around the mountain? I can't figure it out.... -Zev

I didn't have any guidance with the smoke. It's there because that mountain represents the Misty Mountains that Bilbo and the Dwarves travel through. But aside from the hole, what's wrong with the mist/steam/smoke that it has a hole in it? I've posted the updated file here. Anyone want to download it and check it out? Thanks. -Zev

Here's an update. I've fixed a few problems and have a few more. I like the grass a lot better. I'm getting better at mixing up materials using combiners, learning what the different options are, etc. I originally envisioned the image as a sort of cartoon image, but it seems to be drifting more towards a model/diorama. Because of that, I'm trying to make the mountain look, if not real, more realistic and less like a cartoon. What's a good way to do that? I'm not happy with what I have now. Also, what do y'all think about the green arrow? Now it seems out of place. Should I just get rid of it? I also changed the camera angle to give more focus to the scene. By the way, is the hat easily recognizable as Gandalf's? As always, I'd love to hear any questions/comments/crits. -Zev

I tried messing with roughness and got some results I like. Thanks. I'll keep messing with it. Anyone have any thoughts on the other questions? -Zev