boxes

[denmclain]

I just started with A:M. My goal is to just make simple boxes and color them. Actually, I want to create 3-D engines and eventually use A:M to render street rods. BTW, I am a master draftsman (figure drawing) and have been a traditional animation and graphic design instructor and a professional illustrator for over 40 years. I have the drawing skills. I just don't have the 3-D modeling skills. Thanks.

Dennis

[steve392]

This is a basic tut ,there are loads of tuts on modeling in the tutorials section These can be very helpfull.Welcome to AM tut

tutorial section

[robcat2075]

Welcome to A:M!

 

You've read the new user page, of course.

 

You definitely want to do the tutorials in "The Art of A:M".Those will show you the fundamentals of modeling and how that fits in to A:M.

 

Since you're a draftsman, once you see how the tools work, I think you'll have a good time with this.

 

 

Making a box? Draw out a square spline and extrude it and you'll get four sides. Spline? Extrude? That's what those tuts are about.

 

I fyou get stumped on a step ask inthe forum. There's even a subforum for all the TA0A:M exercises.

[Xtaz]

welcome on board Dennis....

...you chose a powerful modeling tool. With patience and dedication you will be able to model complex engines. Modeling with splines, as well as the figure drawing is also an art.

[Rodney]

I am a master draftsman (figure drawing) and have been a traditional animation and graphic design instructor and a professional illustrator for over 40 years.

 

Dennis,

I'm jealous already. (A lot of us are big fans of traditional animation around here)

I hope you can find time to be involved in the forum. There is a lot of learning around here to share.

 

As an illustrator I know you'll find A:M will compliment your skills very well.

[John Bigboote]

WELCOME!

Xtaz is too modest...he forgot to mention that he is a master auto modeller and has some great tutorials on his site you will want to learn from:

http://xtaz.com.br/index.php?option=com_co...3&Itemid=68

[Rodney]

Let's see if this uploads...

 

Not necessarily the BEST way to create a box but probably the fastest.

Short of dragging and dropping one that is already created into A:M that is.

 

The danger in doing things like this is that you can inadvertently create internal patches which is not a good thing.

 

As this is a silent tutorial...

For those who may wonder, the primary tool used in this mini-tutorial is the E key (for Extrude).

QuickestCube.mp4

[Rodney]

As I hinted at, dragging and dropping objects that have already been created would be the quickest way.

Here I've added the Box as a Library resource where it remains ready for dragging and dropping and for manipulation as necessary.

Drag_and_Change.mp4

[NancyGormezano]

Just in case others (xp pro, firefox, qt7) can't see your video (I may be the only one?) -

 

I saved it to my hard drive and changed the extension to avi - and was able to view it in windows media player.

 

When I tried to view it via the forum - I get the ? from embedded QT player. When I changed the extension on the saved file to .mov - qt only displayed a white screen.

 

I can view other mp4 movies in my QT ver 7 player (created from flip video camera).

 

There is something funny about the way the screen capture Camtasia? encodes these mp4 files

[robcat2075]

I saved it to my hard drive and changed the extension to avi - and was able to view it in windows media player.

 

Even that didn't work for me

I tried opening it in QT too, but no go there either.

 

Who knew making cube would be so complicated?

[johnl3d]

Opened here for me in qt version 7.6.5 windows machine win 7

[Xtaz]

Hi .. I did a quick tutorial showing how to model a generic beveled cube

....

 

Beveled Cube Video Tutorial

[steve392]

Thats a nice tut ,very handy thank's Marco

[Rodney]

It's odd the movies don't play.

I'm not aware of any codec Camtasia is using that would prevent viewing.

Obviously something is going on but it looks like its just MPEG 4 video.

[NancyGormezano]

weird - I could view Marcos' video just fine - both seem to be using h264 codec.

 

I don't know enough about codecs - but it is my understanding/misunderstanding that mp4 is really a streaming media type file? (for ipod, itunes etc) and mpeg4 whatever phase, part is a compressing codec, standard ? h264 is a compression codec - for mov's

 

from the wiki: for mpeg4:

 

MPEG-4 is still a developing standard and is divided into a number of parts. Companies promoting MPEG-4 compatibility do not always clearly state which "part" level compatibility they are referring to. The key parts to be aware of are MPEG-4 part 2 (including Advanced Simple Profile, used by codecs such as DivX, Xvid, Nero Digital and 3ivx and by Quicktime 6) and MPEG-4 part 10 (MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 or Advanced Video Coding, used by the x264 encoder, by Nero Digital AVC, by Quicktime 7, and by high-definition video media like Blu-ray Disc).

 

Most of the features included in MPEG-4 are left to individual developers to decide whether to implement them. This means that there are probably no complete implementations of the entire MPEG-4 set of standards. To deal with this, the standard includes the concept of "profiles" and "levels", allowing a specific set of capabilities to be defined in a manner appropriate for a subset of applications.

 

and from wiki about mp4:

 

MPEG-4 Part 14 or MP4 file format, formally ISO/IEC 14496-14:2003, is a multimedia container format standard specified as a part of MPEG-4. It is most commonly used to store digital video and digital audio streams, especially those defined by MPEG, but can also be used to store other data such as subtitles and still images. Like most modern container formats, MPEG-4 Part 14 allows streaming over the Internet. A separate hint track is used to include streaming information in the file. The official filename extension for MPEG-4 Part 14 files is .mp4, thus the container format is often referred to simply as MP4.

 

Some devices advertised as "MP4 players" are simply MP3 players that also play AMV video or some other video format, and do not play the MPEG-4 part 14 format.

 

 

So my conclusion, given the above is a firm, and decisive, and unequivicable "huh? I dunno". And don't try and convince me otherwise.

 

(probably camtasia mp4 ain't compatible with my qt player ver 7, but is compatible with windows media player, but my video camera mp4 is compatible with my qt player. Duh)

 

 

Nice video's by the way

[Rodney]

Outstanding Beveled Cube tutorials Marcos!

 

(I would have said that a long time ago but it took me about 10 tries to download)

[Xtaz]

Thanks Steve, Rodney ... I used Camtasia too.. then I choose save as AVI... then in Quicktime Pro I exported AVI to MOV ( H.264 )