This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.
Search Results (89 messages)
Rick, you should contact Syndesis Corp., in Jefferson WI (sorry I have no tel. #). They make a conversion program that goes at the least from Alias model to 3DS model. It may go the other way as well. Eric Chadwick Mechaeus
Peter, Nope no shininess. Self-Illum 100%. Re-created the PRJ and it went away. Bad mesh? Thanks. Eric
Jonas, Tried both Gamma on and off (still playing with and learning those settings). I found that when I completely re-created the PRJ, it went away. Just a corrupted mesh I guess. Eric
#Opacity Problem. Help!!!
Message #174973
Hello all: I'm getting a rendering error with Opacity mapping in 3D Studio r4c1, where the 0,0,0 area of the bitmap is not completely transparent. The only setting that seems to alter the problem, if not in the way I'd hoped, is the NEW-SUBTRACTIVE-TRANSPARENCY setting in the 3DS.SET file. If…
Dennis, As far as I know, smoothing groups won't help out wiht that… they only define whether adjacent faces are rendered with gouraud (or higher) shading, or are rendered with flat shading. The best would be to model it in the Lofter.
Bones Pro bending leg
Message #167342
James, One more hint: try moving the bones towards the front surface of the leg mesh (while still inside the mesh)– this seems to be helping me with an elbow I'm working on. Since my bones will be animated with motion capture data, I can't scale a joint-bone each time…
Thanks to all for your responses. Am checking out Yost Tempo and Keyman, as well as Ed's Keyscript. Someone here also wrote a C++ routine for it… Eric @Mechadeus
#XYZ to vector/angle?
Message #166117
Everyone, I'm working on a script which will load motion capture info and attach it to mesh in the KF. My question is embedded in the script below. Pardon my possible ignorance… this is my first attempt with the scripter. ——————————- DefPosition tran DefRotate rot tran = 0 rot =…
#Scale Segment bug?
Message #166084
Hiya all… I'm importing motion capture data into 3DS with Schreiber's Puppeteer (and BTW having a tough time of it), and I need to sample the data down from 50 samples/second to 15/sec. The problem is that Time/Scale Segment doesn't work properly when there's a keyframe on every key. All…
Motion Capture ?
Message #163955
Anyone out there importing motion capture data to 3DStudio? We here are trying to get Schreiber's Puppeteer to work, but to litle avail– it's very buggy still. Is there anyone using Puppeteer for motion capture? Is there anyone using some other program to import human motion-capture data into 3DS? Do…
>>32bit TGA files to our PowerMac and getting all the files together with Painter 3.0 to make Quicktime movies
Erik, The MOVIED_I.IXP makes a MOV file, but doesn't support an alpha channel yet, which is what I need. They say they'll support alpha when the next version comes out– sometime early 1995. Also, I had a weird palette problem with the MOV, which they're checking out for me. The…
>>GO EVIEWER (I think). Thanks Dave. I'll check it out. Eric
QuickTime and DOS?
Message #142383
Anyone know of a DOS-based exe that will play Quick-Time 24-bit MOV files? I'd like to use it with the MOVIED_I.IXP demo MOV-maker. I do have a Windows player, but would like one that'd work in a 3DS DOS shell.
Welcome to Asoft. Yes, you'll probably get a lot of usage out of the book/CD! It is full of useful ideas/maps/meshes. Do you own 3DStudio? Do you have a 24-bit graphics card? If yes, then go for it. I'd suggest buying some more RAM, if you can afford it, but…
Thanks Jonas.
You're welcome.
Martin, Re: images of Tia Carrere… I haven't forgotten you, I just have to clear it with Mechadeus' marketing person before I put more images on CS. BTW, she looks great… Eric Chadwick Mechadeus
QuickTime EXE
Message #141622
Anyone know of a DOS-based exe that will play Quick-Time 24-bit MOV files? I'd like to use it with the QTIME_I.IXP demo, as a better way to view 24-bit anims in DOS, in a 3DS shell, to check for rendering errors. The QTIME IXP would be great because, after I…
LOL?
#Where do wishes go?
Message #141620
Hi Jonas, I've seen some great and not-so-great wishes stream through here. Where do they all end up? Assuming you must have a huge database of these… do the engineers at Adesk go through them all now and then? Curiously yours, Eric Chadwick Mechadeus
Alex, If you'd like stars like you see in StarTrek The Next Gen., you'd be better off using Scatter or Array to create 200-500 copies of a single star geometry. This way, the stars vary in size as much as you like, and they move at different rates, and you…
Mitch Yeah, Gary's right. It sounds real straightforward. I'd create a Skin object that covers the whole length of the paper's path, then create both an animated opacity map and an anim texture map that have the right speed to match the rollers. The hard part, I think, would be…
Hey Joe, >>planet exploding with the explode ipas.. . I don't know if this is too simplistic of a solution, but you could use the time envelope commands built into explode: Explode the planet, then scale the bounding box way way down, so the particles look like they become a…
Martin, >>very nice indeed. Thanks! I'll see what I can do about shots of the actors. There may be a publicity "gag order" for images of Tia, related to some other work of hers coming up soon…. I'll check into it for you… :'> Eric Chadwick Mechadeus
Hey. Glad you liked the show. Mechadeus isn't for sale (I hope), but the game will be. Early 2nd quarter 1995. Eric
Thanks.
Tim, >>How did you do the wispy glowing plasma…? I'll assume you mean the sun images– I explained it a while back in this thread, but I'll put it up here again for you. It's definitely quicker than painting by hand, and the resulting animation isn't rotoscoped-looking. One of the…
>>fabulous. Keep up the excellent work. Thanks. Just wait'll you see what's next on our plate…. Eric
>>Wait until April-June?? Yup. We were hoping on a Christmas release, but the scope of Daedalus demanded the extra development time. I know it'll be worth waiting for. Eric
>>when will it be out? Deirdre sez "early 2nd quarter," so that's it. Eric
James, If the head consists of one seamless skin, then you'd have to start over. It would help to freeze the existing head and use it as a template for making the second one. I'd try working from the mouth backward through the head and down the neck. That way…
Hi John. We recently used some free nebula images from the internet, from NASA I think, as a background for ships-in-space. I took the JPG into Photoshop to edited it down so that the left and right edges matched up (for no seam), and the top and bottom faded out…
Bill, >>traveling matte Great idea. Thanks. Eric
Gary, Thanks for the info. I tend to use SMOKE a lot– the versatility of the dialog settings keeps me coming back. Thanks. SXPs in general solve many of the map tasks that we find impossible or improbable to do with traditional mapping coords. Keep up the great work. Eric
#SXP shimmering
Message #136500
Hi Jonas, We've had filtering anamolies with SXPs in 3DS where the pixels will shimmer as you dolly the camera away from the textured surface. I was reading the recent article "3D Comparison + Difference" by Henry Thomas (Analog and Digital Design Graphics, issue 5, Oct 1994), where he said…
>>HOT OIL Whoa there…. maybe we should move to one of those other forums… Thanks for the praise. The thanks (and oil!) also goes to all the other Mecha artists who are making this stuff possible. Hope you've got a big bottle….
>>Very very nice Thanks! We worked hard for 'em. Eric
Ara, >>MASTER! Does this mean you'll kiss our feet and massage our weary backs with scented oils? >>Are they a part of an animation?? >>CD rom?? Video?? Each of the screen shots are part of longer animations between(or a part of) interactivity. The game will be out on 2 -…
Alan, Whoa…. I think my head is going to explode! Thanks… it felt good :} Eric
Kevin,
David, I'll be uploading some JPEGs pretty soon here in Images/Anims. Is the format of 3D/XP going to be similar to the 3DStudio Special Effects book, where a chapter is devoted to each effect how-to, or more of a listing, or ??? Eric
A few JPEGs are coming soon. Actually, the animations are all 24-bit, 320×240. Most of the time, we'll be doubling them to fullscreen, but processor power and the color depth depend of course on the machine. The JPEGs will be un-video-compressed, unlike the anims, which we'd like to have run…
Thanks.
Dave, Hey, glad you like it… a few JPEGs comin your way. Eric
PMJI, but I'd like to see/contribute to such a compilation of the tips seen here in the forum. I've been collecting threads on motion capture, SKIN.AXP, landscape making, other IPASs, etc. I'm I guess one of the Senior Animator/Designers for Mechadeus, a CDROM entertainment developer in San Francisco. We designed,…
Bill, Sounds great. BTW, I'm kind of new to compuserve, and I'd like to upload some sample animations and stills from our upcoming game The Daedalus Encounter. What file formats do you think would be best for forum members? I'd like to show the anims in 24-bit if possible. Eric
Howdy Martin! I think what you're describing is what Schreiber's software already does. It links directly to the MC hardware, and uses an IK-like skeleton to animate the mesh. Our problem lies in animating seamless joints without the use of morphs– we can't attatch morphs to motion capture, and I…
Thanks… we'll need the luck… We're using MC data through Puppeteer to completely animate the characters, then I hope to use IK for tweaking. The real problem lies in animating seamless joints without the use of morphs– we can't attatch morphs to motion capture, and I haven't found(or heard)of a…
Bill, The reason I'd use metaballs for the hands is meta's on-the-fly animated surfacing, not for modeling a polygon mesh. If polygons could be deformed actively by attaching control vertices to motion capture receivers, then that'd be perfect. I'm guessing that the only way to attach 3d fingers and hands…
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