Roger

Hello I seem to have screwed something up.......I started working on the giraffe tutorial, since I thought that might be beneficial since I still have some problems with modelling. I wanted to change the units for the grid, so I could follow along properly, from cm to ft. However, after I did that, the grid disappeared even though I have "display grid" checked. I had changed the grid spacing from .16cm to 1foot, I wouldn't have thought that would have made it disappear. I probably did something wrong, what I want to know is is there anyway to get the default settings back? Roger

Hello, I'm getting to the point where I am finalizing the construction of this dragon model, and I have to attach a hand, where the hand has 12 pts at its beginning, and the stump of the wrist has 8, I believe. This has always been the most difficult part for me....I generally try to model parts separately, and then attach them later, as that has always been the way that has worked best for me in the past. However, due to AM being different from polygon modellers, it doesn't seem to make sense to do that anymore. When I am trying to join to parts with disparate numbers of points, the simple solution is to make sure that each end has the same number of points and then connect them up. However, when I start adding points to a piece of geometry that has fewer points, I always end up screwing up the underlying geometry to the point where I no longer have valid patches, and it turns into a nightmare trying to get back to having valid surfaces. Sometimes I can do it, sometimes I can't, and even when I can it doesn't seem to look quite right. So, when building a character, do you guys generally model the whole thing all in the same project, or split it up? I imagine I could do that, by grouping splines and then hiding the groups that I don't need, so I can concentrate on the particular piece I'm on. The biggest difficulty that I still seem to have with spline modelling is that sometimes my splines seem to do wierd things, and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason why. Like, when I am inserting additional splines to "patch up" (pun not intended) a hole that has opened up, sometimes they appear to loop back on themselves, other times I get these wierd "waves" or distortions. I don't often seem to have these neat, orderly grids that all of the really good modellers seem to have. I will post a picture of the wireframe of the foot I am working on right now, to illustrate what I am talking about. I got everything closed off fine this time, but it just looks odd in wireframe, and has a few artifacts in shaded mode. thanks Roger

OK.... after some fiddling around and help from the hair forum, I now have.... Chia cave! Its not *quite* what I wanted, but its close. I can always refine things later on. What do you think??[attachmentid=18260]

Thanks. Will do. Roger Huh....I didn't realize this was possible. I guess this is what I will have to do then. Probably not worth bringing to Martin's attention, but it would be nice if it was integrated. Roger

BTW if anyone is interested in the solution, I can post it, or PM me and I can send it to you. I felt that it is more clear than what is in the help file. Roger

I also posted this in the hair forum, but I think it might get more response here: Ok.... I was trying to follow the tutorial for creating grass that I found on the ARM...... but I don't seem to have gotten anywhere. I selected the area of my cave that I wanted to have grass....then I flipped the normals on that area. I created a particle system hair material, adjusted the parameters according to what was in the tutorial, did a test render....... and nothing but naked cave. What did I do wrong?? Roger

I suppose that is a possibility, I'll keep futzing with it. Just now I posted a rough draft of the main character, I just sort of faked things by putting them close enough together. Of course I wil have to change that in order to be able to animate him. Ok I have the copy flip attach issue sorted thanks to Eric2575..... thanks to everyone else that chipped in. Roger

I suppose that is a possibility, I'll keep futzing with it. Just now I posted a rough draft of the main character, I just sort of faked things by putting them close enough together. Of course I wil have to change that in order to be able to animate him.

OK Well, he's not exactly cute or endearing yet, I think the pupils are too tiny..... And I still have a few things to add. I think I will just give him paddle feet, or modify the hands and make feet out of those. I've made horns, I just didn't bother to put them on. I'll be putting some decals on him at some point, nothing too fancy just something to punch him up a bit. He'll still be clay shaded. One thing I am not entirely happy with is the snout....this one is true to my original sketches, I didn't want to have a beak or anything with teeth, like an alligator or t-rex. I guess I could give him like a little anteater mouth with a tounge that flops out and one or 2 teeth. I didn't pay a lot of attention to the mouth as I don't intend to have him lip sync anything, just maybe sniffle and snort. thoughts?[attachmentid=18253]

EXACTLY on the y axis? Jebus. OK, I'll try that. Also, is that a shift left-click or shift right click? I guess I'll try both and find out. Thanks for the prompt response. Roger Ok, I moved it onto the y axis. The first time after that I shift left clicked on one of the splines, then right clicked inside the bounding box of the group selection and hit CFA. It worked, only the wrong way. Instead of taking to body halves and joining them, it created another half body and joined it at the neck. So, it was mirrored the wrong way. Not sure what I did there. I tried again but now I get what I was getting before, mirrors correctly but doesn't attach. Do I need to move the pivot point at all?

OK sorry to be a pest.... I read the help file on this, I followed the directions but there must be something I'm missing because while I am getting the mirroed part that I want, it is not attaching. I am working in front view, its mirroring along the y-axis properly, but does not attach. I am grouping the left half of the body, then right click, choose CFA, and I get the mirrored part but it doesn't attach. Any ideas what I am doing wrong? Do I have to move the pivot? thanks in advance Roger

Martin and gang---- I am not sure how difficult this would be to implement, but it would be kind of nice if there were a way to bookmark different entries within the help system, so that you can go back to them quickly. I am not a full-time user of AM, and if I don't do something a bunch of times I find myself having to go back to the help index or pester people on the board to find something. It would be nice to be able to personalize the help file, in order to keep entries on things that stump you handy. Just something I would find useful. If there is already a way to do this I'd love to know how. Thanks Roger

Thanks......I'll give that a go. Should work fine. Appreciate the help. Roger

During the creation of this beast, I did something that I do with other 3d programs.....I split the thing into separate projects, so each body part ( mostly) has a separate project file. Its just easier for me to work this way. However, I have come to the point where I want to start bringing these parts into the same project file, but I cannot seem to find a way to save the model out as a .mdl file from within the project----although there seems to be an option to import them from the File menu. So, if someone could give me the Saving and Importing .mdl files for Dummies version, I will post a picture of my dragon as he exists so far. I am sure its something obvious that I am missing, but I checked all the menu choices and I can't seem to find it. I don't think Consolidate Project is quite what I am looking for. Thanks Roger

Camera Mapping is where you create a rough geometry the position the camera, and apply a decal through it. But if you are looking for a more clay-mation look, this would probably not work for you. I usually try for realism rather than the style you are trying to create, so I am not a good judge. Good luck, David Well, as far as look, I am sort of going for a "shrek" look, at least as far as vegetation and environments go, and clay characters, and probably clay and cloth props, where appropriate. I want it to have sort of a hybrid look, where you have that sort of "thrown-together" found object look that you get with stop motion films ( since you are appropriating lots of different things to make props) When I am closer to having a scene done, I will put up a still so what I am trying to describe makes more sense. Roger

By camera mapping do you mean where you take a flat plane, and then map a bitmap to it? That might work in some cases, but I don't think it will look quite right here......these environments I am creating are sort of a cross between claymation and stopmotion look.......not CG photoreal, but there will be some things that are supposed to look that way. I was thinking of having clay characters and some props, but then having photoreal trees, grass, and cloth ( I really like the look of the trees generated by the treez plugin). However, I am concerned that things might not look very "unified" if I go mixing styles like that. What do you think?

I think I am going to add some crags and escarpments and stuff behind the cave, maybe a sheer cliff face or something... Also some trees. Thanks for everyone that has made comments, they helped a lot. Let me know if there is anything else that you think would "punch it up". Roger Hmmmm Maybe something like this: [attachmentid=18204] Anyway, that's sort of what I picture it looking like.....some grass on top of the cave, maybe hobbit-hole looking, but not *too* much grass.

Ok, the first cave was bollocks so I re-did it, it looks a lot better now ( I think) but I think I am going to have to do something about textures, other than these darktree shaders, because this one still took like 8 minutes to render. The clay shader seems to render fastest, but I really like the igneous rock shader. hmmm ok I rendered a low res picture ( what is that, 320x200?) and it only took a minute but I think I am probably going to want to render higher than that for the finished film, and this one texture takes a really long time to render, so I may have to do something else when it comes time to render the whole film. Ok....I added a 2nd view also..... Do you guys think it looks better? If you need me to post a bigger picture, let me know. [attachmentid=18201][attachmentid=18203]

*slaps forehead* got it..........I don't know why I couldn't picture it before. Heck, I'm not sure why I didn't do it that way in the first place......that is essentially what I wanted anyhow. Thanks for jiggling some synapses. I will post a corrected cave tomorrow. Roger

I'm not sure how you mean.......I kinda just "glommed" them together..........I extruded the entrance, then made a separate "domed" bit and then shoved the 2 together.......the internal tunnel I don't believe is part of the larger structure. I will try messing with it some more tonight, though.

Yes, that was my impression also. It looks razor sharp right now. I think I will also make the cave more gray than black. Thanks for the critique. Roger

ok...... Here is the same cave w/ some textures thrown on it. Be honest, if you think there is something that would make it better, please say so. Thanks [attachmentid=18150]

Nerrazi, That is a good idea, but since this is a cartoon cave for a cartoon dragon I thought the mouse-hole look would be more appropriate. I have to reboot now, I'll throw some textures on, let me know what you think when I post the new pic.

Thanks......I'll throw some textures on it, and put another image up.

I honestly don't have the time to learn the ins and outs of the Hash materials system, I'm sure it would take me at least a week to come up with a clay shader. I am kind of in a rush to finish this project, I have given myself til the end of August to see what I can get done, if at that point its done, great. If not, I have a good start. I do have an extra machine for rendering, but again, that is not quite the point. Anyway, the point is not the shaders, the point is does it look ok now, or should I scratch it and start over? would you model it differently? I started with the entrance and then just started extruding it back and pulling points. I used to copies of the entrance hole to do the extrusions so that I could extrude a partial interior.