CompuServe Messages

<< know more about the meta plug in>> Metaballs works on the basis of reference spheres. Where YOU create and place spheres that the Plug-in will use as a base to create the geometry. If you look at the top portion of the METAMUSC image, you'll see the reference spheres that I created in order to get the resulting form (bottom). The colors of the balls determine their "fusion values" or how hard or soft they are. The method by which I created the muscles is through the Snapshot command. Snapshot is located in the KeyFramer. It enables you to create objects based on the position, scale, and rotation of one object that you animate. So, if you have an object at frame 0 and you move, scale and rotate the object over 30 frames, Snapshot creates NEW objects that reflect the certain deformations at any point over those 30 frames. So, at say, you create 30 snapshot objects from your 'master' object – it will give you a new object at each position that the master obj. goes through, but It'll carry the deformations as well. Snapshot also works with morphed objects. The Snapshot command is discussed further in the 3DS reference manual on page 8-64. <<also some explaining the difference between metaballs and kinezmodels, and humanoid.>> To the best of my knowledge, I believe that Humanoid and Kinemodelz are pre-created models that you can use in your animations. Metaballs is a TOOL, that you can use to create totally new objects for your animations. As far as a difference between Kinemodelz and Humanoid, I'm at a loss, as I am not very familiar with them. Maybe someone else in the forum could jump in here? -Kyle