Jeetman

Thanks Al! Your modeling skills are incredible!!!!! George

Hey good job! The tree and face look great! I'd experiment more with the bark though. Maybe find a bark jpg and make a material bitmap? Here's an example of a quick bark material I made using the material plugin. Here's a pic Here's the project and model if interested. tree_bark.zip George

The final product came out great!!!!! I think you'll win. Good luck! George

WOW! That's a cool effect!!!! I know it's a quick test but when you do the final where it lines up perfectly, it's going to look great!!! Excellent work!!! George

That's looking good!!! Keep it up!!

Technically, you could export from Inventor into A:M but the results would be no better than any polygon conversions. You'd still be doing so much spline adjusting that it would not be worth it. Much better to just model in A:M. One point about the CAD programs mentioned here: The programs TNT mentioned cost thousands of dollars I believe (I know Pro-E is in the thousands at least). Inventor is about $2000.00 and is designed for mechanical applications and would in NO WAY compete with A:M with rendering, organic modeling or even hold a candle to A:M in animation. It was this reason that I added my post without worrying about competing with A:M. Why would ANYONE pay thousands for basically a mechanical engineering program if your goal is to created CG graphics, animations, and very detailed renders? It was off topic but I didn't think it would be that big a deal to respond to TNT's post. George

Excellent model! Great texturing!!! Not much more to say hehe Although the final render lighting is awesome too!! George

I'd add Solidworks and the one I used at my company was Autodesk's Inventor. Both these programs are parametrically driven also. I'm sure about Solidworks but I can tell you that Inventor has limited ability but can definitely be used for CNC, molding and engineering design. What's great is it's completely compatible with the Pro-E format Iges. It also can export to 3DS and DXF. Maybe not a giant but good 3D modeling programs for the price. George

Man Stian you are an incredible master of spline manipulation. This project is coming out awesome (as all your stuff does). I can't wait to see this thing textured and rendered. Is this for a client or just some thing to challenge yourself? If it's something you decided to do, what made you decide to model it? It's looking great!!!! George

Yeah but I think for something like my example, It'd be easier using a material.

If I understand you, you want to make the boolean cut out a different material? Once you create the modeled steel. Create a group for it and drag the steel material to the group. Then create a group for the cut out model that's assigned to the boolean bone and drag a material to that group. Render and done. Here's a quick example. booleen_example.mov Here's the project. Boolean_example.prj

It's interesting. There are mov files it asked me for: green screen test - alpha.mov green screen test -transparent c+a.mov bruce body shot.mov I had no link to them so I cancelled them. After the project opened, I had no problems. I had no slow downs at all in wire frame but a slight slow down in shaded mode. If you are projecting mov's on layers (which is what I think you are doing), I think that would slow things down a lot in the choreography but I wouldn't think it would effect the model mode. I'd try to remove the mov decals (only as a test) and see if it make a difference. If not, then I'm with Master Chief in thinking it may be your computer. George

Not to sound dumb here but what he's discribing (if I'm understanding anyway) sounds like the red bar isn't in line with the keys maybe? If you move the red bar to where it's not in line with the keys on the timeline, it defaults to the original key channel. If the model has no keys, it will default to the arms out pose of the model. I could be wrong here but that's my take. George

Glider, I take it this project is just for fun? Meaning, you aren't getting paid by someone for it?

After watching this a few times, I do see the horse pushing off but not upwards. It's pushing back to try to change it's center of gravity. The reason I think it looks mysterious is because of a second movement the horse makes. As the horse is pushing back with his front legs, he lunges slightly forward with his/her hind legs to try to get under the push from the front legs (much like a powerlifter does in a clean and jerk movement). The momentum the horse creates by pushing back with the front legs is then shifted instantly forward and up with a push from the hind legs. He/she didn't quite get under the push back and it caused him/her to fall forward. The movements are almost simultaneous which is why it is confusing. That's my take on it. George

LOL. That's pretty funny!!!! Looks good and I agree with Robert. You SHOULD post this on YouTube hehe. George

In the project work station (PWS) next to the model shortcut, you'll see a hand. Click on it to make a red "X" appear over it. If you have it selected while doing this, just select a clear spot in the chor or select another object in the PWS. Now it cannot not be selected in the chor. You can still select it in the PWS though.

If you don't plan on editing the clip (I.E. adding after effects, etc to a single or each clip) and all you're going to do is join them together, wouldn't it be faster to just animate one camera? Just a thought. George

This is excellent for flexing while bending, but is there an option to just bend without flexing. Realistic muscle movement is very hard to re-create in a model I've found because of the interactions between the muscles while bending or just in a static contraction. Just for fun, I wanted to see if I could model Bruce Lee's forearm muscle and make it go from relaxed to flexed with a pose slider. After looking at the complexity of muscles in his once well developed forearm, I realized it was way above my modeling and rigging abilites. George

A:M does not animate different cameras. If you add a camera, you basically animate from the 2 separate cameras. You have 2 options: 1. render your cameras separately and use them as separate clips that you'd edit together (in another program). 2. The easier way is to animate the one camera. Move the camera to where you need it to be. You can use the "hold" function to make it jump into place or animate the zoom.

This validates 2 things that we already know: 1, A:M has the potential for incredible professional quality productions and 2, How inadequate you feel when you see an incredible professional quality production done hehe. Elm and Michael, this is one of the best productions I've ever seen using A:M. It's literally awe inspiring, OUTSTANDING work! George

This looks great John!!! George

from what I can see, it looks really good. I agree with Joe about getting a closer look to check out the details a bit more. George

Looks Great Jerry!! I love the star effect in the beginning, the things coming out of the ground are in good time to the music and the present morphing is very smooth!! Excellent job! George

Katt, I love the characters and I admire your perseverance to this project. I do think the camera action is a little choppy but it's coming along great!!! Really good work!!! George