Caroline

Feel free to start a new topic for this! Actually it would be very hard to diagnose the 5 point patch problem from a jpeg, we would need the project file to be attached. It also looks like you may have a spline problem above the eye too. To get the wireframe in the jpeg, under Advanced render options, you can render "shaded + wireframe" instead of "final". To get the 5 point patch filled, you can hide everything else, and then use the lasso tool, making sure you only get the 5 points selected, then if the 5-point patch tool does not become available, use the period key twice. I have never had a failure using this method. Unless of course it is not a valid 5 pointer, for which we will need to see the project. There are 'rules' to using splines - the best tutorial is here: http://www.alienlogo.com/tincan/ - the Basic Splinemanship tutorials.

How about this: 1. Import the 32Patch_Sphere from your Primitives folder (downloaded in data.zip). 2. Click Project Menu > Embed All and click Yes - that's so you don't overwrite your 32Patch_Sphere - I always do. 3. Right Click Images > Import Image > and choose eye.jpg (the one here) 4. Drag the eye image onto the model and choose Decal. 5. Position and size the decal 6. Right click the decal and click Apply 7. Right click the decal and click Stop Positioning. Of course you can squash and stretch the sphere model before applying the decal to get the correct shape. Select the control points, and use the S key for Scaling

These are just the best tutorials for the human figure. http://www.colins-loft.net/tutorials.html An eye is one of them.

The giraffe picture has been tried and tested by thousands, so it must be something on your specific system, like, as Vern says, the video card drivers. You could also try Tools Menu > Options > Global Tab, and switch the realtime driver from/to Open GL/Direct 3D v8. If you are on Vista, there are some other suggestions throughout the forum about turning off Aero, etc, but I can't help you with that one.

Can't tell from this distance What sort of photo is it - is it a jpeg? bmp? tga? png? Did you try right clicking Images in the Project Workspace, and importing it that way? Is the image small enough to post here and let us check it out for you? Can you save the image to a different format and load that one? Welcome to the forum, anyway A rotoscope is just like a background reference picture. When you have a rotoscope behind your model, it is easier to draw the model on top of it. Normally you need a minimum of side and front views, and they can be quite difficult to coincide accurately. Have you been to http://www.hash.com/2007web/newuser.htm and downloaded The Art of Animation:Master? In that book you will find the best starter tutorials. Also make sure that you have downloaded the data to do the tutorials at ftp://ftp.hash.com/pub/misc/data.zip

The Art of Animation:Master, Exercise 12, Lip Poses.

You could check out the A:M Stills link at the top of the page, and search for the kind of model you want to make, like "car", or search for "stian" - his models are photo-realistic, and just amazing, like this battleship. Mechanical modelling with tutorials here: http://www3.sympatico.ca/rodger.reynolds/index.htm.

Obvious now you say so.

This is looking great - I love the colours - (shows ignorance of samurai) - what are the bits of something underneath his feet? The rest of the body is looking so smooth, that you might want to revisit his face later.

Yep, phatso, you sound like a grouch The word "manual" is not a very attractive one - it sounds like wading through a 500 page boring-as-heck book written by some illiterate geek in his spare time. However, we at Hash forums are very lucky that our "manual" is called "The Art of Animation:Master", and has 20 exercises to show you what A:M is capable of. I think we gave you the link in the other thread, but just in case, you can download the pdf from here: http://www.hash.com/2007web/reference.htm You should have all the characters needed in the data.zip file. If you post your work in the TaoA:M thread, we can cheer you all the way After all those exercises, you can look at plugins as you need them. Probably the first would be A:M Paint. If you are into MoCap there's the A:M Facial Motion Capture plugin. Both available from the Hash shop.

Welcome to A:M! The data can be downloaded at: ftp://ftp.hash.com/pub/misc/data.zip Information for new users can be found here: http://www.hash.com/2007web/newuser.htm

That would probably be good - move the keyframes so that there is a bigger distance between them. For rendering, render to a quicktime .mov, using Sorenson 3 compression (use the Set option in the advanced settings). Or, if that is not available to you, try mpeg. That will make a lower size, but it won't make rendering any faster. Unless you choose a smaller rendering size, like 320x240, but that will probably be too small. For speed, just for testing, set multipass off, and all other settings that you don't need off too.

I think the material should be attached to the model and animated. Instead of animating in the action, you can animate it in the choreography directly. Click the 'show more than drivers' icon, and you will get the material for the model showing, so that you can change the characteristics of the material over time.

And don't forget Holmes' tutorial. I spent a happy afternoon with this tutorial making all sorts of weird and wonderful creations. Thank you, Holmes.

If you have downloaded the extra data that comes with A:M, or if you have the A:M CD, then the Porcelain Material is in Data\Materials\Geometry. Extra data is at ftp://ftp.hash.com/pub/misc/data.zip

If you do The Art of Animation:Master exercise 16, you could probably get a cloud from the smoke emitter.

The Page Up / Page Down keys are good ones to remember when you start having a lot of detail in your choreographies. They cut down on the amount of computer resources needed to display the models.

And from that excellent shortcuts list posted today, Shift 6.

Decalling is quite easy, but surprisingly hard to explain. You could try Colin's Head texturing Jim Talbot's head decalling video tutorials Rusty's skin layering All of which are excellent, but I did not understand the simplicity until I saw Will Sutton's video tutorial on the A:M 2006 Siggraph disk As a checklist, paradymx's list is good. Maybe write those down, and tick them off as you understand them through the videos above.

From Holmes' tutorial: Control Point Weights were added to Animation Master as an easier way to add blended joint motion without having to create additional smartskin or an unwieldy number of intermediate bones in a model's rig. Tutorial located here: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=29734 Making your mesh move sensibly, like elbows joints bending is, I believe, achieved by control point weighting / smartskins / fan bones, or a combination of those. Other CP Weight links: http://www.hash.com/am2004/Modeling/CP%20Weights/ http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=29621 And there's a Tech Talk somewhere Fan bones: http://www.sonofpat.com/Tutorials.html http://www.computerarts.co.uk/tutorials/3d..._complex_joints Wink tutorial on smartskin: http://www.clipsandscripts.com/tutorials/c...a_smartskin.htm (I should add that even though I have studied all these tutes and more, I am still useless at it )

The way I do hooks is: 1, Click and hold the left mouse on the last control point before the hook, so that it drags about. 2. Drag the control point to where you want the hook. 3. While still holding the left mouse down, do a right click. 4. Then let go the left mouse. It will become second nature after a bit - I had to go and do it so that I could describe it. You may want to practice on a very simple mesh to start with

This is a screen print from v13

Show Back Facing Polys? Tools Menu > Options, Rendering Tab. Choose Shaded mode, and make sure Show Back Facing Polys is ON. If that is OFF, the patches that face away from you look transparent. It's a good way of finding flipped normals. To flip them the right way, select the Patch tool, click on the patch, and press the F key.

So you select the part that is going to cover the image. I notice that in step 6 in my post above, I did not spell out that you Save that Selection (Select Menu > Save Selection), before you save as the 32bit tga. I will edit the post to reflect that. Do you think that's what messed you up? When you import that tga into A:M, the part of the image that was not selected should look black in the PWS, but when you create a layer with it in the choreography, it will be transparent. My post above does it with layers - I do not recall how Victor did it, exactly. When you say you get stuck - what do you mean by stuck? Have you had PSE before? What's different about version 6.0? Have they allowed you to disable the horrible Organizer yet?

Hi, Photoman - welcome to the forum! How are your A:M skills? Basically compositing live action and animation is just like using Photoshop layers. You have the live action as a layer behind the animated person. So you have your animated model, and render it out with an alpha channel to .tga format. You then create a choreography with the live movie as a layer, and bring in the .tga sequence in front of that layer. Where the black alpha channel was rendered, that will be transparent, showing through to the live action. You should probably experiment with stills on one frame first, to get the hang of it. Mini tute here: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...st&p=266940 If all that sounds like blaa-blaa, then you might need to do a little more reading and experimenting This page http://www.alienlogo.com/tincan/ will introduce you to splines, and there is also an Alpha Channel tutorial.