Artists

nice square

quote:Originally posted by HazarD

can anyone see whats wrong with this picture ?

Yeh, your date is wrong [:)]

You are running Windows with an XP style skin :P :Shudder:

That is a pretty good one.

I still like the problem that Windows 98 had in it's Troubleshooting Guide. I had a problem years ago with a modem (turned out it was just dodgey), and couldn't connect to the internet full stop. I couldn't even dial in to my ISP as the comp just wouldn't get a signal. Ran the Troubleshooting Guide and went through it all. It didn't solve my problem -and at the end- it had a fantastic response

"We are unable to solve this problem. Please email the Microsoft Support Team and give them your details."

Stupid question, but did you scale it?

Nope [:)]

i drew a plane, typed 500 in length, hit the tab key, typed 500 in width, hit enter. it gave me that shape, i selected it to make sure, for like life of me i dont know why it came out like this.
A friend of mine from qantm was over at the time, and claimed my computer sucked, cos it couldnt draw squares!

But now you mention that - u can just scale it and it doesnt update. weird.

I've had that problem before with UV mapping, its a bug that I dont think you could do anything about, just restart max

Did Max crash last time you had the file open?

no, it saved and then i quit.

Max will do this to you sometimes. Best thing to do is to check your autobacks, go to your max install directory, find the autoback folder, and open the last autobak.max file that was saved. Hopefully you won't have lost too much. Another option is to open a new max file, and then merge in one by one your objects from the saved scene that won't open, when you get to the object that won't merge, that's your problem. Try these two first.

yeah but it won't save at all. i just made a cube for a test and tried to save it it worked but when i load it gives me that message

Ok, so the problem isn't just one file it's all files you're saving? Is it just recent files? Can you open any files at all?

try merging the file in

i can open files i download from 3d total and stuff. but nothing i save my self.

my suggestion is, run a virus scan, if thats ok re-install max, in all the years I've used it that has never happend to me. What version are you using?

yeah, i did a reinstall and it's working fine. I'm using Version 4.2 now just downloaded the upgrade. But yeah i think some files must of been missing during the first installation.

apply the texture to the diffuse slot of a material, assign the material to the object, hit that pretty little checkered box in the material editor, and make sure the view you're looking at it in isn't wireframe [:)]

hahaha, i feel like such a tool. Thanks JI simple and sweet, it's just i was trying the joan of arc tute and it didn't explain it to well

Just one more quetion, how do i disable the plane of the referance image so i can see it but not manipulate it.

>>Create a plane the same ratio as the ref image.
>>Press 'M' by default to bring up the material editor.
>>grab an empty material slot.
>>click on the little button next to diffuse.
>>pick bitmap.
>>navigate to the ref image.
>>make sure you tick the little checker maped box in the top right of the option panel in the material editor, this enables the texture to be viewed in the viewport.
>>I generally set the material to be 100% illuminated, that way its easily viewed no matter the angle and I also turn on backface culling so its invisble from behind.
>>go into properties and turn of grey when frozen.
>>freeze plane so you can't select it.

That should be everything.

Thanks for the help guys and sorry to be piling all the quetions. but i got just one more. Does max 4 have ring select u know the one where you can select one edge and hit a button to select all the edges in a ring. I want to select cross sections. hope you know what i mean.

The view port background it a powerful tool and that is what I use, so give both ideas a go and see what you like.

thats like asking what makes a good painting, theres so many genres and variables that are in place that all can acheive a good film. Ive done a few shorts myself and ive just started filming another (yeh im like that multimedia guy at school, cept i dont do slide shows :P )

Whats your idea? that would help a lot in discussing how to make a good short.

Oh and by the way it costs a lot unless you have access to school/UNI editing studio and cameras n stuff.

I will be doing a fully animated short, so there is no flim cost or anything. I can't tell you my idea for a number of reasons, mainly because I'm still working out how to show it, and this is why I'm asking the question. I'm looking for your opinions on this.

What do you all like to see in a flim? So I can try and work out the common link between all these opinions.

I have found a number of things that I do believe makes the difference between a good film and a bad flim which are found it all the films that have done really well. I'm just seeing what you all think and then I will make a large post about my findings when I get the time.

Doord, how long do you plan to make this short film? 30 secs, 2 mins, 10 mins? What genre will it be, comedy, action, adventure, horror (I'm yet to see a short animated period drama;))? Until we know at least a little more about it it will be hard to give specifics.

Generally though, work on a good solid script to start with, cause if there's no story behind it, no matter how short it is, it will just end up being eye candy. Other things that make good films, memorable, likeable characters, good direction, good shot selection, tight editing, eye catching visuals, originality etc.

Hope this helps.

I like the bizarre and weird, not to mention a bit of horror, Icant really tell you what makes a good film, but my guess is a good movie should be engrossing and atmospheric with attention to detail.

In my opinion it all boils down to either a good story line Eg: LOTR or a shit load of carnage Eg: LOTR or Blade 2 or even freddy vs jason. I also love like army movies, like tears of the sun and black hawk down.

so are you going for something like the pixar shorts doord?

It will be a dark comedy, and 5-7 min long. There is a flim fest I wish to enter it into and I think with that time limit it should fit into many more. Also I do have a little idea I wish to past on to poeple.

I will write up what I have worked out this weekend, also I found out more stuff today from asking the very question.

What I'm looking to work out is what I love in flim and put it into words so that I can make a flim that I'm more then happy with. I find talking to like minded poeple helps a lot.

A twist or an otherwise clever ending.
You want people to show your film to others just to see their reaction.

well im intrigued, might i suggest tropfest? http://www.tropfest.com/

unfortunatly that just happened so youd have to wait till next year, but its one of the most respected and well known short film festivals in the world.

I assume your doing a 3D animation right? or do you plan to use flash or something...
oh and about the black comedy thing, great! :D love my black comedys :P

EDIT: this years comedy section winner was a animated one man piece, interesting ;)

Yeah I think Tropfest would be the one I will be aiming for. I think I would be aim for tropfest 2007, I have a very hi mark I wish to hit with the film and I will not be starting the 3D side until the start of next year, which give me now until then to work out the story, do story broads and character concept/design, all per production stuff.

I?m in the process of writing a doc for what I'm aiming for with the film.

MoonUnit: what have your shorts been about, and what is the latest one about?

well ill run you through my short film short history ( ;) )
there was a assesment task in english to do a short, for fun there was a comp between the groups in the class and then the year level, my groups won it :) it was a basic comedy
after that we made another one for the heck of it, it was basicly the same deal
after that i was asked to make a bit of a propaganda film for this thing school was doing.
im going to be doing another little school film soon but now im working on my personal project, a black comedy about the end of the world. :D

Write it well and plan it out as carefully as you can before you begin development. Even with such a short film you can fall behind very quickly due to bad planning, especially if you have a deadline to enter it into a festival.

I worked with a small group on a somewhat over-ambitious Sci-Fi Kung Fu Action short during Film & TV in high school. It was supposed to be 5 - 10 minutes in length and should've taken about 3 months to complete. Due to poor planning and shit just going wrong it ended up taking about 5 months and went for about 13 minutes. We missed the competition dead-line due to overtime and had to cut the one scene that explained the story. No-one really understood it, but it looked cool so people liked it all the same.

It ended up okay though I guess. I'll put it up on my website when I get around to putting up my website :)

TheBigT: Thanks for the head up I have been making sure of this.

I have had this sent to me, very good rules to follow I think.

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Rules of spare time anim development [from Rustboy forums]:
Great topic.
Having made a few short films myself over the last several years, I've learned a few things about the mind tricks I need to play on myself to help me stay focused and finish what I'm working on.

1. Don't allow yourself to start anything new until you finish what's on your plate. (I call this my "No Dessert 'til You Finish Your Peas" rule). If a new idea flashes into your head while in the middle of a project (and that's when the good ones come!), allow yourself one day to do whatever you need to do to capture that new thing. In that day I'll usually write what there is to the story or situation, draw a few concept sketches, maybe start a 3d model if I know what I want, grab some reference JPEGs online, take some notes on the style. Then, I take all that and put it on a shelf, and I don't touch it til I finish this current idea.

2. Remember, this thing was a really cool idea long, long ago. If I've gotten this involved in it, then it's passed muster on several levels (story, characters, style, etc). It's worth finishing, even if I hate it right now and am totally insecure about how it'll turn out. You gotta trust your initial instincts and the results of your due diligence in making sure this was something worth starting wayback when.

2a. Don't start it until you know for sure it's got legs. This stage for me usually occurs when I'm writing my script. I'll do an outline, then a full screenplay for the film. If I can't solve my major issues in Word, no amount of work in Maya is gonna fix it.

3. Make an inspirational clip. What I do, fairly early on in the production stage, I'll make a clip that is taken all the way out to final render & post. This step usually requires that at least one character and one location be finished and the Look of Film exploraton stage has been pretty well worked out. I then will animate this one character in this one location, light it, render it and post it all the way til it's final quality. I then keep this clip on my hard drive. When I'm losing a sense of purpose or focus on the project, I pull this little clip out and remind myself that when I'm done I'm gonna have 3-6 minutes of a film and every frame of it will look this cool when it's done. It's a great pick me up.

4. When you're really burnt, walk away for at least 2 weeks. This was a real problem for me on my short film "Evelyn". At one point I was so frustrated with the software and the computer, the story felt sappy and manipulative and not sincere, the poigniant moments had been blanched to feel like a cheap Vegas showgirl and it was starting to affect the quality of the work. When this happens, take a minimum 2 week break. I am just now coming off of a 2 month long break that I imposed on myself on my current short. I had just finished my location modeling & texturing and character rigging as well as scripting an entire workflow pipeline in MEL & Maxscript and was starting into my 3d animatic when I knew that my camera choices were all wrong and my sense of composition was not working. So I took a break to give my mind a rest and allow it to defocus from the very techie stuff I had been working on for months. During that 2 months I did a bunch of animation tests, something new and fresh and different, and best of all, each one very short and focused. I also did some writing, a little designing, reading, etc. Now that I've come back to the film I've got a fresh eye and a spring to my step that was lacking before.

5. Know what you're good at and design a story/premise/film that takes the best advantage of your preferences and strengths. If you hate to model (that'd be me) and find character rigging & skinning is a chore (guilty as charged, your honor) or if you find yourself in a glassy eyed stupor whenever you start messing with particles (who me?) then make sure you don't do something as elaborate as Doug Chiang's "Robota" or that really well done 12 minute student work "f8". Design to fit your prefs and you'll better avoid feeling trapped by a story/film that is more work than fun.

6. As soon as you can, cut together as much finished footage as you have. This for me usually occurs somewhere in the middle of animation. I'm tired, I've been working piecemeal on different components for months. I have lost the sense of wholeness in all the prop modeling, texture painting, lighting tests, animation, rigging, 3d layout. It feels more like a giant pile of spare parts than a film. So I'll take a week or so to light and render what animation I have finished, and then cut it together in Premiere with the music and a few sound fx. Next thing you know you've got 30 seconds of cool stuff that's finished and you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. This has really helped me get some second wind for the home stretch.

Anyhow, that's what I try and do. It's helped me finish 5 short films (altho the first two barely count, being only 55 & 200 seconds long) and it's helping me to keep going on my 6th. And yes, the inklings of an idea for #7 are starting to stick up through the soil and I may need to take my day off here soon to try and capture that.

The thing I need help with is promotions. I have to say I envy Brian's ability to promote his project. I just find myself wanting to be done with it, so I've mostly let the films die after completion. Submission to fests, keeping up a regular website, cranking out sneek peek renders... I need an intern.
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MoonUnit: hee hee my flim is 'kind of' about a new start to the world.

sounds interesting, be sure to keep us posted :)

Thats an excellent set of rules to follow. I think #1 caused us the most problems, plus lack of organisation between the group (one guy should be doing one thing so that another guy can get his job done, etc). I assume your working on this individually so you thats one problem you won't have to worry about.

What makes a good short film?

Story.

Its not within my powers to help you there. Because its somthing im learning as well. Id suggest a copy of Robert McKee's book 'Story' its a book on how to write screenplay.

If your looking for helpfull feedback here is an exerpt.

"A writer secure in his talent Knows there's no limit to what he can create, and so he trashes everything less than his best on a quest for a gem quality story"

Somthing ive found particulay interesting, is his decription of "writing from the inside out"

Basically he says that the strrggling writer tends to have a way of working that goes somthing like this.
He dreams up an idea, noodles on it for a while, then rushes to the keyboard, and he imagines and writes, writes and dreams, untill he reaches 120 pages and stops. He then hands out copies to freinds and back come their reactions.

"I liked the scene with the kids and the paint, that was soo sweet. The beach scene was so romantic, and when the car blew up, exciting. But i dont know... theres somthing about the ending... and the middle... and the way it starts... that dosnt work for me."

So the struggling writer goes back and does a re-write, clinging on to those few good ideas and trying desperatly to make it fit. Again the reaction from his freinds are the same, so he does a thirddraft, and a forth and fith, but the process is always the same. Cling onto those few good scenes retelling the story, trying to make it fit.
Untill one day he burns out, declares the story finished, and releases a flop. Blaming the philistine tastes of the audience.

that is the "Writing from the outside in"

what he suggests is "writing from the inside out" which is

these writers typically spend the first four monthes writing on stacks of 3by5 cards: a stack for each act. On the cards they create a step outline.
Using one or 2 sentances, the writer clearly describes what happens in each scene, how it builds and turns. for eg "He enters expecting to find her at home, but instead discovers her note saying shes left for good" On the back of each card the writer indicates what step in the design of the story he sees this scene fulfillng
He confines himself to stacks of cards for months on end for this critical reason: He knows that 90% of what he writes is mediocre at best, regardless of his genuis, he is not affraid to toss a good idea away.
Day after day the huge stac grows, they are biographies, the fictional world and its history.
Finally after months, the writer discovers his stories climax. Whith that in hand, he reworks, as needed, backward from it. At last he has a story.

Now he goes to his freinds, but rather than asking for a day of their lives reading his script. He asks for ten minuts of thier time pours a cup of coffee. Then he pitches his story.

Without showing the step outline, he pitches his idea, and studies their reaction, seeing if thier eyes wander, and that he is holding thier attention, all the way up to the stories climax, did it get the reaction he was hoping for. Untill a good majority respond with enthusiasm, there is no point going forward.

Just a reminder from the [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/scalendar.asp"]Sumea Calendar[/url] that the locally made 22 minute clay-mation short film "Harvie Krumpet" that won the Academy Award for Best Short Film (Animated) is going to be on SBS on Monday 8 March at 9.00pm.

I'll make a news post on Monday as a reminder for everyone.

please do, ive been dying to see that, theres a banner thing out front of the vic colledge of the arts saying "well done on the oscar adam" (or something to that effect) :P and damn right to! (i would never have thought someone like a small time melbounrne claymation animator could win a oscar!!)

"i would never have thought someone like a small time melbounrne claymation animator could win a oscar!!"

Dont assume that just because its australian its small, or that it is somehow the underdog.

Especially when Adams uncle, Geoffrey Rush, is lending voice talent.
along with other notable aussie icons as Julie Forsyth, Kamahl, and
John Flaus.

This is not Adams first success either. The trilogy, Uncle, Cousin and Brother are also award winning. I woldnt call that small time.
Harvie Krumpet would have been alot of grueling work. And I know that $377,000 compared to the multi-million dollar productions of the other contenders isnt much, but its no chump-change.

Harvie Krumpet is a great short, and it really was my favorite of the ones that where nominated.

But i dont like the mentality that australians are less likly to find success or recognition abroad. Or that just because it is australian it must be small time.

I agree if you havnt seen it, you must watch it tonight. And even if you have its worth a second veiwing.

storyboard everything! and I mean Everything! planning is the most important part... remember it dosent matter how good your story is.. but how you deliver it, use narrative techniques whereever possible! I wouldnt start work until your storyboard flows as your want and actually works to deliver the content of the story!

It petty much is painting on a mesh in the view port in 3D. It is very helpful for many things, and helps many tools work easier and faster, Which Maya has been using for some time and max is starting to use more.

So is it like a texture painted on in 3D

In most 3d games, each vertex is "painted" a colour between white and black to "light" the object. If you have a sphere with the sky above it, the vertices on the top will be white, whereas the ones underneath may be a dark blue or gray.

Usually the colour of the vertices is calculated and changed in realtime (characters from Quake, UT or Soul calibur). But there can be coloured before they reach the game engine; you can paint them in a 3d program, or even apply complex lighting (radiosity).

HOW these vertex colours are used is where the issue gets tricky. But its fair to say that vertex colours are an incredibly cheap way of faking nicer lighting, different coloured textures or even simply applying transparency to geometry.

cheers

Heh, success for me in art is being able to draw/paint something and not get frustrated by how bad it is.

Interesting read, btw
Thanks for sharing

Personally I stick to edit mesh, it's just what I learnt to use first. The only real difference between the two is the toolset that's available. Edit poly has a lot more so-called time saving tools, like hinge extrude, extrude along spline etc. One other difference is that in edit poly mode you are unable to select and modify hidden edges, which is what frustrates me.

The main difference between the two is the tools.

Yeah, edit mesh is mainly for triangles, while edit poly isn't limited by the number of verts per face. But those are secondary, you can get around it in both modes..

Edit poly is better, simply because the tools it has have greater flexibility and the work flow is much improved over edit mesh.

Edit mesh is still handy for when you need to finalise your model, make sure everything is working at an edge level - remember that all games work off triangulated meshes, so when you convert it from edit poly, you could get some horrible looking faces.. Just have edge turn handy and you're set.

Edit poly, is easily the best tool for hi-poly meshes. It shits all over splines and nurbs in terms of control and usefulness.

But yeah, simply telling you the benefits they each have is pretty silly, it's much better if you go in, have a play with each, see what one works best for you. That is ultimately the most important thing.

Thanks guys, i wil have a play. But it's just that i don't havetime these days. I'am either at work, school or doing homework.

Can't wait 4 the holidaze.

I prefer edit mesh for the most part, I cant say I have a reason, I guess because this is what I learned with as well, also with edit poly sometimes you cant weld the vertices that you want to which is annoying

Edit poly all the way, unless you need to add changes to a model when you have important modifiers on your stack, skin etc.

Edit poly does nearlyeverything edit mesh can do, just differently, and it also has more tools on top of that.
The only things major differences in my opinion is that edit poly can't have non manifold extruded edges and turning triangles takes a few more step, but considering the increase of speed the other tools give you, thats reasonable to forgive.

Not many peaople working on characters here at work use edit mesh, only one I think. [:P]

But its all triangles in the end so its what you feel comfortable with, if you can model the same thing just as fast in edit mesh then more power too you, I just personally wouldn't as it is getting really dated and its alot slower once you learn edit poly.

So will learning and using edit mesh decrease your chance of getting a job?

Silly question :), to which I'll give a cliche answer.
It doesn't matter what tool you use, so long as you use it well.

Naturally, understanding different tools will give you greater flexibility, but ultimately, all it comes down to is the end result. Studios are after artists, not max/maya/etc users.

Yeah i suppose it was silly, but a good answer none the less

Sorry if I offended you in anyway :)

It's a question that gets asked alot.. I think every person on these boards has asked it at least once, not here necessarily.
(which program will get me a job, will knowing this get me a job etc)

No offense taken :)

Bullet: if your comfortable with edit mesh then thats fine, it may be a problem for some people, only because some 3Dites tend to be opinionated about what is right and wrong. [:P]

In the end like Sorcerer Bob said, its the end product that matters not the process.
I would still suggest learning edit poly but thats only because everyone I know who takes the time is converted to it because it basically is "edit mesh 2.0 Super Humdinger whoop whoop version" [:)]

Yeah it is all about the end product but i just got thrown of a bit when u said that there's only one edit mesh guy at your work.:)

..That I know of.. [:P]
The others might be hidding under the stairs wearing fur pelts and painting buffalo on the walls. Ug Ug.

Malus u are weird my friend

*slowly backs away from the computer arms semi raised*

....Hello Clarice....

I only use edit mesh.

I find edit poly quite limiting, taking away the lowest level of control from the artist. It replaces this low level control with more tools -- that's all well and good... but the tools I already use I can work with much faster and with more control in a much tighter work-flow.

To each their own [:)]

Malus needs help, the kind we don't offer at sumea.[:D]

You could be special and use both..

The speed of edit poly, and the fine tuning of edit mesh.

whatever gets the job done.

i remember my first day, first job - a guy working there comes up and asked me
'are you an edit poly or an edit mesh guy?' i just laughed.

inglis, shoulda said 'nurbs'

Which do you use Inglis? aren't you a high poly person, so you would use Nurbs wouldn't you? Inglis, Inglis are you there wasn't that the problem in the first place Moe that we were your only customers Moe.

Sorry i have this Temporary illness where everything i say turn into something out of the simpsons.

Wow Inglis, i just went to your sight and it all seemed very high poly. It also had the best muscle definition i've seen ever, the vains look so real. the phrase more real than real comes to mind. Then i went to the about me section and it says you like body building, is that where you get all that detail from? How much lag do you experiance when doing that crazy shit?

i use poly 99% of the time. i dont do much game art etc so i dont have much use for tris.
havent used nurbs for quite sometime- mostly because nurbs in max are a bit retarded. dont mind them in maya.
no i dont experience any lag working on my stuff- its subd....and a lot of the things on the site i have ramped up the smoothing just for the renders.

yeah i do bodybuilding (not at a competitive level..i just do it for myself) so i guess i have a good understanding of anatomy from that.....although some of my creations, they are a little extreme and go beyond reality in that department.

thanks bullet.

So what are these 'Big 6' that the guy is talking about? I can think of Max, Maya, Softimage, Lightwave and possibly Houdini, what else?

Scratch the inquiry, looked down the bottom, it's Cinema 4D.

very interesting, a good toilet read (not a shit read, but a read you want to sit alone and read in-depth)

Haven't read it, I'm busy right now. But look like a good read.

Could you be a little more specific? What software are you using? How do you want to rig it? How detailed will it be (shocks and all suspension?).

Chances are, you will have to learn to make your own bone rigs with IK and/or slidding joints.

hi sorry!

the car will be detailed ie yes there will be shocks/suspension etc.

I'm using Maya 5.0

I don't know how to rig it though that's why I was posting.

I could just use bones to drive the wheels. I thought if there was a right way to rig a car it would be good to know. At the moment I'm just making it up!

any advice from someone who's done this before would be appreciated!!

thanks[:D]

What else really moves in a car except the wheels. I'm guessing that they are only going to see the outside so why do you need to really rig the wheels for animation.

Bullet21 - He stated in his first post that it would be a F1 car. You can see the details of it's suspension very clearly from the outside. That is why I was interested to know how detailed he wanted it before I posted a proper reply.

Gojira - A simple bone rig with some IK would work quite well for the car and suspension. For extras like the shocks, you will have to then use either simple deformers hooked up to expressions, or blendshapes (up to you).

As a start, read this tute.
http://www.gignews.com/kappmarch02.htm

You may also want to read up on some expressions and Set Driven Key at
http://www.learning-maya.com/tutorials.php

The tute has a good way of doing it, but to make your life easier, you may want to make a more detailed skeleton that starts at the top of the car, and then branches down to the axels and wheels.

Do you have the model finished yet? If so could you post a few pics, and I can draw some lines showing what I mean.

Hey Aven,

thanks for those links they're great[:D]! the car tute is exactly what I was looking for!!!

I'm still working on the model, I'd be to embarrassed to post it now, but I'll post it when it's done!

thanks for your help that rocks dude!

have a search on the forum. this topic has come up a few times before.

Paul Steed's stuff is pretty good, How to model a character in 3dsmax, this is my opinion though. There are people on the forum whopick up a rifle soon as u say that name though.

Paul Steed...........Paul Steed[:)]

I know the 'Borders' chain of stores have a huge number of 3D related books, but be prepared to pay about 10% more than other stores. Personally I'd purchase online, much cheaper.

yeh what i did was hit borders and i came away with the 3DS Max Bible (mine was for ver 3 tho). Its a good reference book (eg: "NURBS.. err what are they.. ill check my book") but not something that you could really read through cover to cover. Just didnt seem to be structured that way.

im in perth try boffins its sorta on the way up to 78 records
they have a lot of 3d books upstairs

Okay. The good news was that I could download it and install it.

The bad news is that damned if I can get it to work :/ The installer installs it where it wants to (in a very odd location), and then adds in the Environmental Paths. It then does nothing. The command doesn't seem to work. It just says to me that it cannot find the Mesh.

I also tried another two scripts there, an I couldn't get those to work either.

Another way you can handle it is as follows.

1. Duplicate your mesh and mirror it.
2. Duplicate your orginal mesh and drag it over top.
3. Grab the verts one-by-one on the original duplicate mesh and using your vert snapping, snap each vert to the placement on the mirrored edge.

Although it isn't as easy as just running a script, it at least works :) If the mesh isn't too dense, then it doesn't take very long to do either.

If you would still ike the script, then let me know. I just don't know how you would go around installing it on a Mac. Perhaps your should give him an email and ask for some assistance. He may be able to help you out.

I'll give your suggestion a try--I've never used vert snapping before so it will be an adventure. As for the maker of the plugin, I tried e-mailing him in the first place a while ago (pre-my Sumea days), and he never got back to me, but I'll give him another try.

Thanks again, Aven!

Travis

A quick search through the forums, using the word 'tablet' as the main search parameter comes up with 6 topics. They all have information in regards to what you'll get out of a graphic tablets, and issues that surround them.

Here are the ones that best deal with the topic of buying a graphics tablet.

http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=296 - the most informative.. Should be stickied.
http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=970 - more of the same.

I think the general consensus is that wacom are quality, while the others can be regarded as semi dodgy. Though I know of a few people who have had good experiences with them.

You should be able to pick up a baseline wacom tablet (graphire series most likely) for about $160. Could be wrong though, was two years since I've had mine (not a single problem with it.) The software shop in Phillip(woden - I think thats where it is) stocks them.. You can also pick up cheap and nasty ones at computer fairs for a low price. But I generally regard these as flimsay (the stylus is as breakable as a piece of wet cardboard.).

Hope this helps.

Sorry, i forgot too search!

Thanks for that. Im liking the look of the Graphire3 6x8 for $264. It looks great and is cheap but i think it might be worth the extra 1000 DPI over the Graphire2 [:p].

Is 6x8 a bigger enough working space for drawings etc...?

Thanks!

The Software Shop
www.softawreshop.com.au
They are fantastic people and are always willing to help out. I just can't say enough good things about them :)

I personally run a Wacom Intuos2 6x8. I find that 6x8 has become a lot more comfortable to use than the 4x5. I don't really know what the larger ones are like as I have never used one to any great length.

When deciding on a tablet ask one question. What do I want to do with it? If it is just to get away from those lovely RSI inducing devices more commonly known as a mouse, then a cheap no-name brand would probably do quite an adequite job. If you want to get into digital art/painting, then you will probably have to start parting with a bit more cash. Size just comes down to preference. Some people hate anything larger than 6x8s, some people refuse to use anything less than a 12x12. A Graphire is perfect for most things, but if you really want to get into apps like Painter, I really do recomend the Intuos'. The Stylus Tilt and Stylus Velocity are just excelent to have.

If I had my way (and more money :p), then I would buy a Wacom Cintiq 18SX in a second
http://www.wacom.com/lcdtablets/index_18sx.cfm
Absolutely spooge worthy :0~~~~~~

I will probably be using it for tracing over scanned images etc or just plane drawing concept art [;)] and maybe a little comic...

What exactly does Stylus Tilt and Stylus Velocity do?

Anyhow i think a Graphire3 would suit me unless Stylus Tilt/Velocity is something really cool. As for the Cintiq 18SX, wouldnt it make more sense for that price to buy a whole new kickass system and a 12x12 Intuos2 or a good TabletPC?

6"x8" is fine - that's what I use at work. At home I use a smaller cheapy thang (said all of this before in those other threads Matt posted, so I won't go off on a tangent here [:)]). that's fine too. Everything in my website is done on that, and had no troubles at all; in a lot of ways I prefer it over the intuos 2 i use at work sad enough [:)]

Sorry to ask but which one do you use Graphire2 or Graphire3? [:p]

i just got a graphire3 today! i cant use it yet, really wierd to use.

it was only $140 aus, from harvey norman.

Here is a quick example of brushes in Painter

[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/Painter_brushes.jpg[/img]

The top black line is made with a Fine Airbrush. The pen is pointing directly down at the tablet. The black arc at the bottom was made by holding the pen at an angle and just pressing it down.

The two Oil Paint colours are to show off Stylus Velocity. The top smear was made by dragging the brush slowly across the paint. The bottom one was done with the same amount of pressure, but a lot quicker. As you can see, it bleeds a lot more paint across.

Although I don't use Stylus Tilt too much, Stylus Velocity is very handy to have.

Photoshop’s brush tool is pressure sensitive and thus using a pen tablet here is very helpful. 
I am a professional artist who largely draws comics. I do my work entirely in Photoshop and Illustrator, with a Wacom tablet. 
Wacom has two options: Intuos and Cintiq.
I recommend Wacom Intuos as a beginner tablet, affordable and 4 express keys will makes your workflow a bit easier.
If you can shell out the bit extra, get the Cintiq,  because it is much more easier and intuitive to draw directly on something that you can see.

Been a while since I've used max 4.

Did you try pressing 'F1' and typing in 'flipping normals'? The help files are very useful when you hit areas like this.

Anyhow.. Heres how you do it

Edit mesh modifier
Sub-object face

Surface Properties
Flip
Unify
Flip normal mode.

Select the face and hit 'flip'

added to this, the normal direction is based off whether the face/polygon was created clockwise or counter clockwise - you can always undo it and create in the opposite direction :)

thanks guys.

select the inverted polygons, the press flip :)

Sounds a lot easier Gibbz!

I havent read them my self but from what I hear they are pretty good

I wouldn't recommend them, personally think they're very poor, but hey, you may get something out of them.

Edit: Just wanted to add, I don't want to dismiss it altogethor, it introduces the beginner to quite a few techniques and methods, and does explain why things are happening as they do; having said that, my main problem with it is with it's target audience skill level and the material it gives; yes although it's a good starting point for the beginner, it also introduces a lot of "do it my way or no way" type of bad practices. For the skill level it's aimed at, which is modelling foundations and practices, I've seen it have a bad effect on people who get molded to it and find it very hard to break out of. I'm a firm believer of learning to crawl before you walk. Kind of feeds into the "lets do a chick with huge tits and an attitude to learn the basics" way of thinking, which is similar to the "lets animate a huge army battle scene to learn animation basics" [;)]

I'm not as good a modeller as JI over there, but I found it quite useful. I've sort of alway struggled to find my way around interfaces until I 'find my own way' of doing things, and there's lots of pictures in the 'Modelling for 3dsMax' book so it's hard to get lost. Also, I find that Paul Steed often explains 'why' things are done the way they are. To me, this is just as important as 'how'. I hate not knowing why something is the way it is.

It's a book for the beginner (I think) or at least, those who don't make lots of models all the time. I really gained a lot from it but it's written for Max3.1, I think.

I have it. Didnt really like it how it teaches a basic foundation on one method, then goes onto another method for the next chapter. Would have preffered if it used the one method for the entire book.
Jack of all trades, master of none.

It is well written and easy to follow though

JI hav u got some kinda beef with Paul Steed. U don't seem to take to kindly to him in my good books thread either.

Paul Steed is a very talented man who just has an ego that is just way over the top. I have never read his books, but I used to be a big fan of his 'Thinking Outside The Box' segment he used to have on Loonigames ages ago. He could make some really good characters using less than 1000 polys, but anything over that and they just started to suck badly. As Joel has mentioned, Steed has a great habbit of saying that you should do something his way just because he does it that way. Quite a few times it is because it is the best way to do things, but then there are times where there are better ways of doing it, but he just refuses to do it.

Steed is also responsible for half the amature modelling population always making big boobed/booted babes with guns.

As Joel also mentioned, you should probably learn to do more basic things before you jump into making a Steed like character. I can honestly talk from experience there. As I said, I started out be reading the old Steed articles and trying to learn that way. I really wish that I didn't do that. Although I learnt a lot, I also learnt a lot of bad habbits, that three years later I am still trying to break away from.

If you want to buy them, it is up to you. Just remember to use them as reference books. Nothing more. Don't treat it as a bible like so many others do. Find your style.

[EDIT] I should actually write in why I personally didn't like learning from Steed (figuratively speaking of course). I had been using Max for a few months (maybe six at the most), when I heard of Paul Steed and his work. Read through his site quite a few times and then tried it myself. I ended up really pissed off, as I was some young guy that had been using the app for a few months and wanted to be at the level of Paul Steed. So much, that my models just ended up looking like his... Just not as good.

The other problem with Steed is that he never used to give a shit about edge loops (correct me if his book is different). This means that his meshes are fairly messy. This style of modelling really bit me hard when I started learning high poly SubD modelling. Thankfully, I have had to drop a lot of those bad habbits to make my models the best they can be. I am still trying though :)[/EDIT]

I haven't actually read this book, but learned the techniques through other people.

Was it useful.. Yes. But I think to get the most out of the ideas outlined in the book, it's essential to have a solid understanding of character modelling before you open to page 1.

Why? Someone with a decent understanding of max and modelling techniques can remain objective to the ideas in the book, taking the good, and leaving the bad behind. Whereas a beginner will suffer from the problems outlined by Aven/Ji.

In my opinion.. Someone who wants to learn to model would be better off picking up an anatomy book, and then learn the tools on their own. It may sound harder - with no one holding your hand through the process.. But it's starting at the bottom, rather than the midpoint. I know everyone wants to model super cool-mega-awesome things, but it is better to take baby steps first.

Would I recommend them. The techniques shown in the book helped me get past a fairly big rut in my artwork. But I was modelling fairly confidently at that stage. Just wasn't improving as quickly as I could have been :) After learning the new 'tricks' my confidence shot forward.
My answer... Get a mate to buy it, then get him to show you 'some tricks' :D

quote:Originally posted by Aven

Steed is also responsible for half the amature modelling population always making big boobed/booted babes with guns.

You cant blame him for rampant hormones and lack of imagination on the part of said artists.

I hate the big boots syndrome too. It's almost gotten to the atage where the shoes and shoulders are the first things I look at in a character.

I think he's got a huge fanbase in Oz. In this months atomic they said at the AGDC his speech on "how to build a digital goddess" or something got the highest attendance and it would seem that the writers of Atomic love him as well.

Hehe, damn Aven... I should pay you an agents fee and keep getting you to post - means I don't have to! [:D] Couldn't of said it all any better [:)]

Bullet21: I actually walked out of his private talk, and I skipped his presentation at AGDC - I don't have any problems with him; he is who he is, and I respect that. Just I hold no real interest in the things he has to talk about and does, and I really don't agree with a lot of of his opinions (and yes, he has a lot of them). He's just another guy out there. Like I said, I like certain aspects of his books and work, but dislike and disagree with others. Nothing personal against the guy [:)]

I saw his talk at AGDC on how to build a digital goddess and well didnt really learn anything from it. well didnt really learn anything from the whole conference, but thats only my opinion !!!

i learnt something, that dude who had played midi mazed was nuts... crazy bearded men are allways around at any convention :P

that and theres some cosmic force that seems to be protecting every computer and miscelanious hardware from getting hit in the expo room from various projectiles and sponsored objects, or did i just miss the mayhem :P

quote:Originally posted by bullet21

and it would seem that the writers of Atomic love him as well.

Have you ever met the editor (or who ever the head guys is) of Atomic?

Errrr.... I did. And Joel, too.

He (and many other males) would love Paul Steeds work. Big breasts and moon boots.

Just a note - we had a small talk at school yesterday with all the females and most of them want to get into film mainly because the games industry offends them with work just like that.

quote:Originally posted by Jacana
Just a note - we had a small talk at school yesterday with all the females and most of them want to get into film mainly because the games industry offends them with work just like that.

Hey, computer nerds are allowed to dream aren't they?... most realise they'll never get within spitting distance of their ideal woman, so why not create her the only way they know how [:p]

And thus the mentality that will alienate women from the industry :)

I have a copy, and it did amazing things for me. I sure Sorceror Bob (matt) can confirm this. I did my first year at the AIE, and over the chiasmas brake I read the book and modelled a character with the help of it, The character was about 300% better then any I have done before.

The book is now a little old, but the base information in it will always be true and wroth knowing.

I can't really put it into word what this book done for me. But the bottom line is that I learnt more from that one book then my entire time at the AIE. The AIE showed me Max, Paul Steed showed me how to model.

The animation book I would like to get, but I have not seen it.

quote:Originally posted by Makk

I have it. Didnt really like it how it teaches a basic foundation on one method, then goes onto another method for the next chapter. Would have preffered if it used the one method for the entire book.
Jack of all trades, master of none.

It is well written and easy to follow though

I don't believe in what you have just said here. The best thing about the book is that there are about 40 different modelling methods. Different people think in different ways and showing all these methods give people the chace to see what work for them. Which I think is the one thing that keep people improving (well me and everyone I have talked about it) is trying new methods to do something, then using what works for them.

quote:Originally posted by Aven


Just remember to use them as reference books. Nothing more. Don't treat it as a bible like so many others do. Find your style.

This should be the rule to all modelling books and tutorials. And a point I make very clear in both my writen tutroial and the DVD one I'm doing for some weekend work.

Does anyone here know where i can get this book from, seems that it is good. Is it in book shops, or in Libarys, order over the internet? Also, what is the full name and the Aathor of it please.
Thankaz in advanced guys and gals.

Cod, didn't you read the first post in this thread.
And try amazon.com

Here are the Amazon links.

Modelling a character
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1556228155/qid=1077167764…

Animation
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1584502703/qid=1077167764…

Amazon are really good, and their packaging is top notch. I was after some books, but found that book store copies had been thumbed to death. Amazon's came in perfect condition. It is also waiting and doing one large order as it can save you quite a bit on postage.

If you are uneasy with online shopping (which is fair enough), then just write down the BSB number for each book and any book store should be able to order it in for you. If main stream book stores have difficulties getting them in, then try Uni book stores (the ones in Canberra are called 'The Co-Op Book Store', I'm not sure if other states have the same ones). Uni Book stores generally get in a better range of reference books as their customers are nearly all students :)

Just a note about Amazon -

As the Aust $ is quite good right now you may be better off looking at amazon.ca That is their Canadian site and right now the Aust $ is just a few cents off the Cdn $. The reason to note that is because the price will translate across to about the exact same.

If you would rather buy within Australia take a look at www.bookware.com.au they have shops in Canberra and Sydney (thanks redwyre for putting me on to these guys) and for local sales their prices are good and love the delivery :) A few of the books I wanted were at their Canberra store so they just used courier instead of post.

One last warning about ordering over-seas. Because of the base cost for the shipping as well as the price per an item you may be better off waiting till you order a few items at once. And beware on Amazon. Their cheapest delivery price can take up to 12 weeks to arrive. That is being shipped by boat!

Ah. Cool link Chezza. Thanks.

If you are ordering from over-seas, and you go sea mail, then you really are just being cheap :p There was a time when air mail was insanely expensive, but those days are really dying quickly. It's just a pain in the arse that news agencies still get their international mags by sea mail. Damn waiting three months for a 'new' magazine :/

Cody try Angerson robertson bookstore, if they don't have it they will order it in.

I ordered, and got the book today, around 30 dollars for it, another 30 dollars for postage, shipping, and delivery, so all upm 60 dollars. Anyways, i have 3D Studio Max 2.5, but the book is for version 4 or 5, but i find it practicly the same as in the book to the version i have. Anyways, i have started a bit, first time using 3D Studio Max, so i will post my progress as i go, dont get knocked out by the poor quality, so yeah.

Where did you get it from, at angerson robertson it was 114 dollars? and did you pay on delivary?

My bro orded it ordered it from www.amazon.com, got it with credit card, i also got the fastest delivery, so maby the shpping costs where so high.

oh ok, was it $60 aus or us, i am not to comfy with ordering stuff over the net. Is it possible to pay on delivery

Unlikey you could pay on delivery, but hay, you never now. Don't worry about ordering it from the internet, it is safe, and if it wasn't, that site would not be so popular.

Metagons has been down for a little while now. It is unfortunate as it was a really good site. They had two meshes that you were able to download, but you had to use Getright (or similar) to browse the directories and find the files. The main reason why that site was really good though was because of it's Wireframe Gallery.

www.3dcafe.com has meshes to download.

All textorter is for is to output your UV's to a texture, it doesnt do anything like uvwunwrapping

www.3dcafe.com has really shotty meshes to download. :)

http://www.3dtotal.com has meshes downloadable from its competitions it runs - great resource for the beginner to look at and learn, especially setting up good rigs.

Texporter is a plugin which takes your uvw texture coordinates you've unwrapped and outputs an image by the settings you give it so you can take it into your favourite paint program and use as a template and guide to texture your model. Virtually a necessity for doing game assets with 3dsmax.

Y not just unwrap the uv's and do a screen grab. Wut r the benefits.

I has options like colour coding the faces to indicate angle and other such good stuff.

Trust us, you want texporter

Pantmonger

Plus, if you want to make a really high res texture for a really dense mesh, you will need it. Try screen grabbing a 2048^2 UV Unwrap :)

Ok i'll get it, i'll get it

It all stems from computers running on a binary number system (I hope you know what that means). The reason textures are usually restricted to squares that are whole binary numbers (best way I can think of saying it, eg. 2 to the power of 9= 512) is that computers find it a lot easier to process them this way. I'm not too sure on the theory behind it all, and any stabs in the dark I take would probably be misguided, but I hope this gives you a start.

Thanks, but that doesn't really answer my question. I know why at their lowest levels computers use binary, but application software abstracts us from that low level.

What I would like to know is why in the specific case of 3D image maps these limits are in place.

If memory serves me correctly, all graphics cards from the GeForce 3s up can support non-squared textures. I'm pretty sure that it does come with a preformance hit though.

The programmers may be a little better suited to handle this one :)

the reason behind it is purely efficiency - the binary system dictates that it can send through so many bits (8 iirc) of data in one packet; when conforming to the power of 2, so when it's called, it doesn't have to do more transfers than is necessary because it's just below, or just above that data range. In the end it can have a fairly nasty knock-on effect with transfer bandwidth speeds, and also in most all game cases if a texture isn't a power of 2 it'll be resized onboard to make it that before passing it down the pipeline (which results in some poor handling, sampling, and quality issues).

for example, if you do something like support 'mirroring' of textures in the hardware, you need to be doing mathamatical manipulation of the texture coordinates, and if you can just do it in some binnary shifts, it is a lot easier than hold number, add number, subtract, change sign.....

this i guess gets more relevant for doing mipmapping, but i dont know for certain what hardware support has been done for mipmapping.

yes, cards may do nonpower2 sizes, but internally, it probablt is putting them onto powerof2 texture memory anyrate....

Well, this is always a fun one to do. Unfortunately there is no quick way you can do it. All ways will require a bit of effort. The way I would do it is by using the Curve Follow technique.

When you are making terrain, try to make the surface using NURBS. Unless you really need odd shaped terrian, NURBS will be a lot easier and quicker to work with. This tutorial has the terrain as a NURBS surface. If you want to use a polygon based surface, you will need to download the Bonus Tools 5 from www.alias.com They are needed so that you can detach a polyginal edge as a curve.

Let us begin.

1. Start by making a NURBS plane. Give it the dimensions and settings you want. Then using the Sculpt Surfaces Tool (Edit NURBS > Sculpt Surfaces Tool), start painting in your uneveness. Use Push, Pull and Flood Smooth to achieve this. Be fairly rough to give it a more natural feel.

[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/tutes/cf_01.jpg[/img]

2. Make your vehicle. I know that it will be hard to make a car that looks better than mine, but give it a try anyway :p Make sure that the vehicle's Pivot Point is at the bottom of it, otherwise the car will sink through the ground. The placement of the car isn't important at all. Just stick it wherever.

[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/tutes/cf_02.jpg[/img]

3. Now. Go into Component Mode and select one of the terrain's Isoparms. This will be path that the car will drive along. With the Isoparm selected, go to Edit Curves > Duplicate Surface Curves. This will make a duplicate that Isoparm as a Curve and attach it to the NURBS mesh. When you edit the NURBS mesh, the Curve will sick to that Isoparm exactly.

[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/tutes/cf_03.jpg[/img][img]http://ho…]

4. Select the Curve and the Shift+Select the car. Go to Animate > Motion Paths > Attach To Motion Path. If you go to the Option Box, you can change the start and end times for the movement. Otherwise it will just use the first and last frame of your current scene as reference. They can be changed later on as well. When you do this, the car should jump straight to the start of the curve. If the start of the curve is the wrong way around (ie, the car will be going the wrong way), then you just have to reverse the curve's direction. This is done by selecting the curve and going to Edit Curves > Reverse Curve Direction. The car should now flip around and go the right way.

[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/tutes/cf_06.jpg[/img]

5. Chances are that your car will not be facing the right direction, and it will be flipped all over the place. Ie, the front of the car will be facing down and the roof will be the front. Open up the Attribute Editor and select the Motion Path tab. Just play around with the Front Axis and Up Axis options. You may also need to check the Invert check boxes.

[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/tutes/cf_07.jpg[/img]

6. You now have a car that moves smoothly along a curve. There are a few things that can now be done to that animation to make it look a little better now.
. The curve doesn't have to straight, it can be crooked as you like. Just edit your NURBS surface and the curve will update (see pic below).
. The Timing for the Motion Path will be very smooth and even. You can change this so that the car will accelerate or slow down at different times. To do this, move the Time Slider to a frame in the animation. In the Channel Box, type in a value in the U Value Box, and key it (Right ClickHold on the box and select Key Selected).
. The car's base will be travelling parallel to the origin. If your terrain has bumps, then it will look odd and flat. You can go in and manually key the car so that it will roll correctly. Just make sure that the Rotate Tool's setting is on Local or Object and not world. This is where you will have to spend a bit of time to get it to look good.

[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/tutes/cf_08.jpg[/img]

I hope that this helps you out a little. It was writen up as soon as I saw your question, so if it is poorly written, just let me know. Good luck.

Sorry, I would have had this up sooner, but Sumea was wigging out on me.

My God, Aven! You didn't have to go to so much trouble! That's going to be a huge help in one of two similar problems. In the other I was hoping to be able to move the "vehicle" (very nice car, by the way!), virtually anywhere over the terrain, not necessarily over a single curve on the surface...in fact, in this case (especially since this one HAS to be a sub-d terrain), I'm not even so sure I could get a curve on the surface to act as the path and still have the surface look the way I want it to. Any ideas on this one? Thanks again for the well instructed tutorial, Aven...it's much appreciated!

-Travis

One more piece of info--in this case, the sub-d terrain is also attached to a skeleton, so it will move all around as well. The "vehicle" would be bound to the skeleton as well or maybe parented to the terrain. At any rate, I just wanted to add that in case it changes the way you would attack the problem.

Sweet merciful crap, you're getting yourself in the deep end :p

I will actually need you to tell me what it is you need to do. Not similarities. That is if you are allowed to. Sketched would also help. By the sounds of it though, you want to try to make an insect crawl over someone's skin?

When you say 'all over the terrain', can it still be done using a singular spline? Is it only on object, or will there be multiple objects? If it is a singular object that can follow one continuous path, then a say keep with the Motion Path method. It can be modified as such.

1. Make your SubD surface. In my case I am just using a low poly cage, but you get the idea. Using the EP Curve Tool, create your path. I made a spiral just as an example. Select the Curve and then Shift+Select the SubD mesh.

[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/tutes/cw_01.jpg[/img]

2. Go to Deform > Create Wrap. Play around with the settings in the Channel Box. Keep in mind that the Max distance is in Maya Units.

3. Now when the mesh deforms, the curve will follow it.

WARNING!!! There is one major flaw with doing it this way. The way a Wrap deformer works, is by taking the transform values from a vert on the parent mesh, and feeding it through to the transform value of the closest vert(s) (or CVs in this case) on the child mesh. This is basically skinning with out using bones. The problem is that you do not have a lot of control over how the verts will control the CVs. No ability to paint weights (that I know of at least). This means that you will have to try to make the Curve have a CV near every vert that the curve will pass through. Otherwise when you deform the base mesh, the curve will not deform well. This will require a fair bit of planning and work to make sure that the curve is well made and follows the mesh properly.

[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/tutes/cw_02.jpg[/img]
I only used four CVs per rotation on the Curve, yet there are eight verts in each rotation on the mesh.

[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/tutes/cw_03.jpg[/img]
The CVs that are near the verts deform really well, but...

[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/tutes/cw_04.jpg[/img]
If you move a vert that has no CV near it, then it wont do anything. Just be careful of that.

You can now just go ahead and apply the Motion path as normal.

If the surface doesn't actually deform as such, and is only bound to a skeleton, you will be able to just parent the Curve straight to the Skeleton and be done with it. Parenting wont work if you have to have the curve go over a flexing joint though. If you require more than a couple of objects to be moving over the surface, you may want to have a look at Particle Flows. I have never really done much with Particles in Maya though, so I am not the person to ask.

Thanks Aven! I tried out ALL your advice and I found out key framing it is absolutely the best method...I don't know why I was so afraid to just do that in the first place. I was just worried that my "vehicle" surface would sink into the "terrain," but it really doesn't. Furthermore, by keyframing, I get a more hand-crafted feel...it doesn't look as "impossibly smooth" as it does when you first set up on a curve (of course this can be adjusted later, but I get effect more quickly and with more flexibility by keyframing).

So thanks for all your help, it was very necessary in figuring out the right method for me. As always, I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. By the way, I had a buddy download Bonus Tools for me, I'll be installing it soon--thanks for the tip!

GO Aven U Good thing! :)

That's the problem. All animation deformers are nice and quick and easy, but you don't have a lot of control. Keyframing gives you that. No easy fix-ups unfortunately :/

It is good to hear that you have found out a way to achieve what it is you wanted to do. If it works, then there is nothing wrong with it :) Good Luck.

I have to admit that I have NEVER used Bonus Tools. There is only one tool that I find to be really useful, and that is the Count Tris HUD Display. I will have ti install it for the current competition :)

damn, I doing a DVD tutorial on animation (and modelling one also) but they will not be out for a few months, But Paul steed was writing I book on animation I have not seen it and don't know if it is out, but is it is anything like his modelling one it will be good.

I think I've seen the Paul Steed one on animation. It seemed quite good - the thing is, it doesn't really pump the 'Paul Steed' name like the other one, I think. If it's here in NZ, it'll be in Aussie.

"How to animate large breasted warrior chicks in large metal boots for games"

Yeah. *high fives Malus*
I should probably stop ragging on Paul Steed...

By far the best book I have got about 3D modelling is, Paul Steeds, Character Modelling in 3DSMax. For Low Res character. I don't have any other book I find the Tut in max and the max manuals work just fine.

How to make a big breasted woman with large boots. lol
Seriously though it has some decent information but its getting pretty dated as far as modelling processes and techniques go, its all edit mesh if I remember rightly, urgh.

Most books out there aren't really geared towards game-dev, the best place to look in my opinion is net based tutorials and just look at how other models are made by other people.

Probably the best way to learn how to model is to download some of the SDK's running around on sites like Polycount and check out the construction and flow that those guys put in.

!!Warning, warning!! don't just replicate there models, its not just nasty and illegal to blatantly copy someones work its also never going to help you get better, use them as a reference only.

Keep in mind areas that are going to need to be flexible during animation, spine, ankles, hips, shoulders, knees, elbows, wrists and neck etc. These areas need to deform correctly so watch how other people go about doing it. [:)]

I used to like buying books as I too enjoyed the ability to just glance down at a book while keeping the app up at all times. That was until I became very tired of spending $100+ on some poorly written joke, where the information can be found on the net for free and is often more useful.

Malus really has said the best way to do it. If you are after processes for making characters (high or low), then look at other people's meshes. It isn't difficult to learn how to extrude a face. Learning how edge loops and good silhouettes work are most important. Unfortunately, you can't really be taught how to make those, it comes from looking, trying and re-trying.

I?ve got a small collection of 3d max and various programming books. In the early days I found the max books (like 3ds max bible, and max fundamentals) to be of great value, but the reference and tutorials in max itself to be of the most help. Now that I know the basics, I haven?t seen any good books out there ? the Internet seems to be the best recourse. Though I really want to get a good book just about animation (anyone know any?).

Programming is a different story to digital art though. The more books that one has, the better. Apart from all the standard learn to program in C++ 101 type of books (which continue to be used for reference years later), I have some great texts in my slowly growing library. I found Lamothe?s Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus to be simply brilliant. It?s a great insight into game development, though it is very in depth and gets pretty hard-core. This is the kind of thing you need if you want to learn how to write your own game engine? Something I?m not quite ready for, but still it's great reading and very helpful for understanding the concepts of games programming.

However, my favourite book at the moment is Rabin?s AI Game Programming Wisdom. This was extremely valuable for me as I attempted to create some AI for a project I?m working on. While I still haven?t got the code in my project to work[:(], this text is great reading, filled with many useful articles from over 45 different industry experts. It?s an insight into the cutting edge technology of game AI.

The only real "technical" book I've used was a copy of Inside 3DS MAX 2.x - it's a help through the basics sort of thing, but past that I'm a strong believer of practical use - experiment with everything, ask people, watch people, learn from using. I've never got much from technical books - I don't place much value in them for artists. I'm more of a believer in the art side than the technical, and to that effect I have to say the best books I've learnt the most from are collections of art - Brom, Sweet, Frazetta, Mullins, etc. All "Art of..." type books. Look at them. Study them. Apply what you see.

I have to agree Steeds book is... Dated. That's a nice way of me holding back and not giving in to the urge to type, "it's an absolute waste of shelf space which could've been used to better effect with a solid anatomy or colour theory book. It's outdated, the author is an egotistical prude with dry technical and design knowledge, and the subject material isn't anything more you could gather from a 15 minute search on the net (minus his many "this is why I'm so fantastic" annecdotes)"... but I won't type that. That wouldn't be nice to the fanboys [:)]

I totally agree with u AVEN. Nearly all the books related to 3D cost above 90 dollars (the extreme minimum). You can't rely on reviews either cos it might be good for one person and not for the other. I guess i was lucky with Inside Lightwave 7, it cost 119 dollars and is quite great but i've read some books for 3Dsmax which i thought were the worst thing since Eiffel 65's second song :).

I can't be the biggest help here as I don't touch animation too much. I will give it a go though, and if I can't help, I have a friend who can (or your money back). The question is a little vague though. Are you saying that you have created a rig for a character and you have posed that character? You now want to save that pose so that you can paste it in later on?

Have you tried Character Sets? Have a look in the help file or check out this link
http://sumea.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1091
Learning Maya will be invaluable to you.

Although rigging a character in Maya is a hell of a lot more difficult than CS, you can make it however you want and create all kinds of slidders and controllers for it.

Let me know if that helps, or try to write down what you are after, and I can ask my friend.

hi Aven, actually I'd completed the rig and weighted it.

I was trying to store poses as all of my rigs have the same structural/joint names so I can bounce animations/poses from one rig to the next and then just tweak it.

However I had put Expressions on the 3 spine joints (they each slightly affect each other when the rig is rotated from these joints, like with a real spine). Unfortunaly all of the "store pose" mels I've been able to get my hands on REALLY didn't like storing information from joints with expressions on them.

someone recommended the "Pose_2_shelf" mel from highend 3d
( http://www.highend3d.com/maya/mel/?group=melscripts&section=animation )
and it seems to do a good job (a little fiddly but then isn't everything).

Thanks for the character sets suggestion I'll look into that too!

thanks for you help again Aven! :)

Right. Now I know what you are trying to achieve :)

I can't help you out with that one I'm sorry. Another little thing you may want to check out is a free rig called IK Joe. It is basically Biped for Maya. I haven't used it, but my friend has said some good things about it.
http://www.vfs.com/~m07goosh/rigging101/freestuff.htm

I remember during my early primary school years the teacher would tell the class to form into groups to work on a project, I always had kids trying to bribe me (usually with offers of being my best freind) to come into their groups so I could look after the artwork :)

LOL @ souri, we couldnt have a messy boy going outside the lines now could we? :P

my best friend since about yr2 was really into art, drawing that sort of thing, so we would draw together and stuff, thats when i started doing cartoony drawings. He wanted to be a cartoonist so i wouldo do cartoons n stuff with him.

I remember growing up having paper all over the house, this was before primary school - I'd run around collecting every single pen, pencil, texta, crayon, etc and dump it all in the middle of the lounge room. I'd lay back in the beanbag with a heavy book for a flat surface and go through hundreds of pieces of paper just trying different combinations of things, usually drawing the same thing (say our dog for example) or studying and mimicing a cartoon that was on tv or a picture in a newspaper or magazine.

I continued drawing until mid primary school, and subsequently lost my drawing hand when I was introduced to computer art; mspaint, neopaint, Imagine... yeehaw [:)]

only in the last few years have I been getting my drawing arm back; I've found I've still got the ability and knowledge in shade/colour/lighting I had back then, but form and style I had to re-learn from scratch. Ah well, nowadays I get paid for the scribbles I do, so it was all worth it, and I'm happy [:D]

The first time I can really remember drawing was in Kindergarten. We had to draw pics of families, houses, pets. All the usual crap. The first pic we had to draw was a cat. Everyone just had stick figures with a straight tail and some triangles for ears. I drew a balloon animal with whiskers, a curvy tail and so on. My teacher would just stand there looking saying it was very nice. I had a feeling from there.

I would then get heaps of colouring books and copy the line art. Draw from photos, and then move up to things like comics. In high school I was really put down by art teachers as 'comic drawing isn't art'. Plus whenever I made anything else (sculpture mainly), it was stolen or broken :/ I stopped trying at around year 8/9 and didn't start again until college. I taught myself to draw again, and I am still trying to evolve my style to my tastes :)

What a funny thread :D One of my earliest recollections (I only remember it because I got into lots of trouble) was of when I was in early primary and drew a miniature elevation of a house behind the television, right next to the powerpoint. I think Dad was proud (he's an architect) but Mum was pissed because she was the one who had to try to remove crayon from house paint.

I first started drawing about grades 1-3. I would write books then illustrate them, they were cartoony. About Grades 4-9 I really stopped drawing. The next few years I did draw a bit, but not much. These last 2-3 years I have been drawing the most.

I remember when we were doing ink blowing in kindi, and I drank the ink instead of blowing it. Thats why I;m the way I am.

Scott.

As a kid i enjoyed drawing, but never considered myself good at it... and i wasn't! (well I was probably average.) I had little patience for detail or shading so all of my pics looked fairly unimpressive in all respects.

When I think of early drawing efforts I recall doing a daily diary whilst on a family holiday to Europe (I was 10ish), I think I was meant to fill a page a day. Not being big on the written word I would do a small amount of prose and then draw things that I had seen that day. The images below are a few scans from said diary. Niffty eh!

The text in my diary doesn't identify the castle [:(] It was in France and I am guessing from the following diary entry within a days travel of Leonardo daVinci's house. If anyone recognises it and knows its name please let me know [;)]

[img]http://home.iprimus.com.au/johnnewall/extras/pic-from-85.jpg[/img]

Jacobt> being only 13 (yeah I checked your profile) that memory can't have been from too long ago! [:0] teeheehee

My earliest memory isn?t that early, I didn?t start drawing till high school. And then it was just fantasy monsters because I was a big role playing geek.

GM: ?You walk around the corner and are surprised by this!? Flashes Crap picture.
Player: ?Ahhh, mine old foe, the crudely drawn sphere with wings, I whilt banish thee back the graphite pit that spawned thee.?

Pantmonger

i read about that in the news paper recently, its funny, the paper writer was fully baffled about this whole sort of digital world.

Okay. Here are some blendshape helpers for Maya.

1. Complete the character with UV maps and rigging. Trust me, this will save you a LOT of time. Do it once. Do it properly.
2. Decide what blendshapes you need. and lay them out on a piece of paper in rows. ie, have all your eyebrow shapes on one row, phonemes on another, other mouth shapes on another. Duplicate the base mesh as many times as you need for the shapes. Duplicate ANOTHER mesh for each row. This mesh will be called eyebrow_target
3. Select each blendshape in a row at a time using Shift+select. With the final selection, select the eyebrow_target mesh. Create a blendshape for the eyebrows.
4. Continue this pattern for all the rows.
5. Select all the blendshape_target meshes at one time and then select the original mesh. Create another blendshape. You should now have a blendshape window with all you shapes set up nice and neatly.

The reason why you have to have those dummy targets that are compounded to the original mesh is so that all the shapes can be blended together. This makes it easier for large amounts of shapes as you can group them in catogories. If you don't have the dummy meshes and you have different groups, then the shapes wont be compouded, they will just be replaced.

You can also blend groups. This is really useful for making a whole head with a tounge and then grouping all the targets. Blend the groups, and you can have multiple meshes blending at once.

Make sure that you name everything really well. It will save you a lot of time and frustration later.

Make sure that you don't make changes to the mesh integrity. ie, don't add in extra faces/edges/verts. It wont be able to blend.

Don't change the pivot point for each mesh. Blendshapes (like morphs in Max) work on moving a vert to it's new place inb relation to the mesh's pivot. This also means that you can't just make the left eye wink, duplicate that mesh and mirror it. The whole mesh will flip due to vert numbering.

I am just writing this up quickly before I go to work, so there aren't any pics. If you need some, let me know.

I'm yet to actually see any really good facial expression tutes. Most just teach you the basics and leave it there.

hi Aven!

Thanks your a legend!

I should have been clearer though (guilty cringe...sorry) I'm not ALLOWED to use blend shapes. just to make life difficult! Apparently blend shapes won't export to games engines.

I've been told that in 3DS max you can constrain verticies to objects (ie locator) and then paint the weights to respond to the object as well as the bones. but I can't figure out how to do anything like that with Maya. Any ideas?

thanks again!

Some game engines can use any type of animtaion deformer you throw at it though (even dynamics). Quake2 was a good example as it used vert location info. Basically the character was just one big blendshape. I think that Warcraft3 uses the same technique if I'm correct (if someone could tell me I would really appreciate it).

Anyway. Maya can do that multiple ways. Clusters, Wrap defomers, and probably a whole bunch of other ways I don't know of :p

Clusters
Select the verts/edges/faces on the mesh that you would like to bind. The right eyebrow for example. Make sure you are in your Animation Menu Set. With the component selection active, go to Deform>Create Cluster. Just use the defaults, don't bother using the option box. A little 'C' should now be in the center of the selection. All the verts will be 100% bound to the culster, but you can fix that. Select the mesh and go to Deform>Paint Cluster Weights Tool. Go to the Tool window and paint away with whatever setting you need. You can add or subtract or smooth. If you have used any of Maya's Artican tools than you will be fine. If not just let me know. I'm not too sure if that cluster will be classed as an object for your exporter though.

Wrap Deformer
Although this can be fantastic for a lot of areas, it is very loose and can't be edited overly well. Create a mesh that will be your influence mesh/object. Place it around the verts you need. Select the character mesh and then Shift+Select the influence mesh. Move the influnce mesh and change the values in the Wrap Deformers tab in the Attribute Editor (or Channel Box). This is a really good way for setting up simple muscle controls for characters, but it's lack of editablilty will really harm you with facial expressions.

Bones
If the engine can handle enough bones, then why not just use them? Read this tute. It's by some Aussies who won a short film festival last year, so they do know what they are up to :)
http://www.cane-toad.com/tuteRig_Facial.htm

If you have any questions, about Clusters or Wrapping, thenread through the Maya Help File. It is really good and has every single attribute listed as well as it's function.

It just seems really odd that you aren't allowed to use Blendshapes. Once the History has been deleted, it shouldn't really matter as the animation will just remember the vert postions. Oh well. I hope that helped a little. Good luck :D

hey! thanks Aven!

clusters sound perfect for what I need! thanks so much for your time I REALLY appreciate it! :) :)