Jeetman

In the properties window for your short cut to choreography, make sure the animation setting is set to "blend" and not replace. If I remember correctly, that lesson has you add a wave to the normal walk cycle. what you are bascally doing is blending the arm swing with the new "wave" action. I'm only assuming here so if I'm wrong I appologize but because in the wave, only the movements of the arm are keyed, no other keys are set. In other words no feet or leg movement keys are animated. If you have the default "replace" option set, it replaces the animation with the wave which (again I'm assuming here) wipes out the walk cycle and that's what causes the "glide" effect (hands out like an airplane). With the "blend" option set, it tells the program to add (or blend) the animation in with the current keys. Another thing that can cause the glide is if your ease isn't set correctly. I'm still kinda new so anyone els who posts, please correct me if I'm wrong about this but this is what I think may be your problem. Jeetman

Awesome suggestions!!! Thanks all Jeetman

I think by your tone you've since changed your mind (at least I hope so). Rules to remember: The timeline is my friend I too avoided the timeline but after seeing Jeff Lew's CD, you really can't make really good animations without it. The timeline allows you to completely control every part of your animation. I use to have what I'd think is a common problem for beginners of starting a forward animation (animating straight forward without worrying about overall scene timing) with say animating the the arms and hands (the door is stuck comes to mind) for about 60 frames. Then on say the 60th frame, I wanted to add a leg movement. Once I added any extra movement, my animation would not be doing what I wanted anymore. the legs were slowly moving at the same time my hand animation was playing out and it looked rediculious. This was so frustrating and I actually quit using AM for quite a few months until the desire to animate hit me again and that's when I learned what I was doing wrong. learning about the timeline features basically showed me what was happening and now I can do straight forward animating with no problem. Jeetman

I thought about this post yesterday. I was thinking like a still picture camera (duh). I know very little about cameras as you can see. All I was looking for was a simple fade. Thanks Noewjook. That was my work around. Just thought there'd be a feature built in the software to do this. Oh well the effect looks awesome. Fishman, the iris effect sounds pretty cool. I'll definitely experiment with that. How would you soften the the circumference of the iris? Seems to me that you'd have a solid edge. Thanks for the help everyone, Jeetman

Hi all, I'm looking at trying to do post editing completely in AM and create an animation showing that you can do post effects without having to spend big money for programs like after effects (I'm not a student so I'd have to pay about a grand for the professional version of after effects). My question is, can you control the shudder of the camera to create fade effects? I've got a work around that works very cool if not but I'd think you could. If so how? I'll tell you my work around after I get responses. Jeetman

Excellent!!! That makes so much sense now. I especially like the idea Thumperness posted from Arkaos! Thanks for the help . I'll post my animation as soon as I finish it. Jeetman

Hi everyone, I'm still relatively new to AM so please forgive me if these sound like a stupid questions. I've seen some incredible animated shorts posted at AM Films. I'm working on one myself ("The Door is Stuck" exercise). My question is, How do you create a final render with different camera angles? I was told it can't be done in AM but people are doing it some how. I'm hoping you can do this completely in AM and not have to buy another software package. Specifically, Is there a way to see camera changes in the previewed animation before rendering? If no, then why allow you to turn camera's on and off? Basically I want to make my "Door is Stuck" short, using more than one camera but 1) I can't play a preview that shows in the view the animation switching from camera to camera to see how it plays out. Is this possible? If I can't do this, does this mean I have to render each camera separately then combine them? If so, can this be done in AM and how? Last Question: If AM can't do this what reasonably priced software (freeware would work for me ) do you recommend I buy/download to be able to do this? Thanks, Jeetman