Use of Distortion Boxes?? in "Distortion Mode"

[Tom]

Hello-

 

I have recently been playing with the "Distortion Mode" in AM (cool feature!!) and while researching the AM TechRef Manual (page 209).. I discovered that you can add bones and poses to Distortion Boxes. The manual says you can also save Distortion Boxes and nest them but it doesn't seem to give instructions as to how to do these things.

 

Has anyone added bones etc and saved Distortion Boxes?

 

Many thanks for any info or links to tutorials!

 

Tom

[Rodney]

Tom,

Your research sounds interesting. Please continue!

 

The following is from another post in the forum and may have some useful information for you:

 

Exercise 6: Custom Car in the manual (TaoA:M) has an introduction to Distortion Cages. Thats a good introduction to the process of deformation in Modeling. I suggest reviewing that first and then applying what you learn to animated distortion cages.

 

From there you can do much of the same modification in an Action which will provide the Animated Distortion Cages you are looking for.

 

Interestingly enough Holmes Bryant has created two tutorials on this very subject. Don't forget to look in the Tutorials forum or run a search in the forum for key words.

 

Thanks for the tutorials Holmes!

 

Modeling with Distortion Cages

 

Animated Distortion Cages

[Tom]

Tom,

Your research sounds interesting. Please continue!

 

The following is from another post in the forum and may have some useful information for you:

 

Exercise 6: Custom Car in the manual (TaoA:M) has an introduction to Distortion Cages. Thats a good introduction to the process of deformation in Modeling. I suggest reviewing that first and then applying what you learn to animated distortion cages.

 

From there you can do much of the same modification in an Action which will provide the Animated Distortion Cages you are looking for.

 

Interestingly enough Holmes Bryant has created two tutorials on this very subject. Don't forget to look in the Tutorials forum or run a search in the forum for key words.

 

Thanks for the tutorials Holmes!

 

Modeling with Distortion Cages

 

Animated Distortion Cages

 

 

Thank you so much for the links!

I wasn't aware these were out there!

 

Tom

[Rodney]

You're welcome Tom.

I was especially pleased to see Holmes tutorials on the subject of animated distortion as I'm a big fan of that feature. It goes without saying that his tutorial on modeling with distortion was a treat too. It fits so well with the exercise from 'The Art of Animation:Master' (Exercise 8: Custom Car).

 

As with most features... getting around to using them is quite another thing.

Thats one of the reasons I enjoy reading about what others are creating in A:M so much.

 

Please share the results you get with us!

[Rodney]

Some additional information that bridges the gap between using distortion when modeling and animating was posted by Heath Hash a couple years ago in the Feature Focus area of the forum.

 

Feature Focus - Distortion Boxes

 

In his feature Focus Heath also links to the main write up on Animated Distortion that was released when the feature was first released.

This should be similar to the write up that can be found in the Tech Reference.

 

Animated Distortion