Buenos tardes, amigos.
12 messages in this thread
Gary –
Welcome Back! Glad to here that you had a great time wandering around the
Yucatan. I was down there with a couple of years ago with some people from
school. Although our trip was somewhat organized, we spent two weeks riding
on a bus from Cancun, through several ruins, and finally to Oaxaca in the
west. Nothing will clear your mind faster than driving over the countless
"topes" (speed bumps) in every small village. Once again, welcome back, and
I hope you get to feeling better soon!
Peter, ARCHIMAGE
P.S. Did you happen to stumble on Palenque in your travels?
Heya Peter (and Richard),
We discovered the simplicity of using topes instead of stop lights or stop
signs. Works great, and keeps the local mechanics gainfully employed. Very
exciting when you hit one of those at 20km/hour and go airborne.
We didn't go as far south as Palenque, unfortunately. But we did manage to
get to Chichen Itza, Uxmal, Labna, Sayel, Bekah, Tulum, and Coba. That's
probably about 10% of the Mayan sites in C. America, but it felt like we
got a pretty rich picture of life there during the last 1500 years. I even
learned a few Mayan words! Do you know what "shnook" means in Mayan (as
compared to the Yiddish version…)??
– G
Hi Gary,
When you feel up to it, I'd be grateful for a solution to my problem of
trying to replace a clone of a Viewpoint human figure (HF) with a new mesh
HF. Copy tracks doesn't seem to work. John Mellor couldn't help. (see my
message #15240).
I might also point out that "Buenas Tardes" is spelled "BuenAs" — not with
an "O" — as it takes the feminine form. This grammatical fact is clearly
explained on page 864 of the "Pinche Diccionaria de Gramatica Andalusena."
Glad you're back.
Alec Jason
Alec,
You should be able to accomplish your mesh replacement by following
the steps Jack outlined. Save the object into its own 3DS file. Load it
and rename the parts so they are exactly the same names as the geometry you
want to replace. Save again. Reload the original complex 3DS scene and
Merge in the new geometry, which will replace the old geometry of the same
name and inherit all its keyframes.
Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates
Kevin,
Thanks for your input, but . . .
Maybe I don't get it but I can't make your (or Jack's) procedure work. The
object I want to replace is an instance object (clone) which means it does
not exist in the 3D Editor: only in the Keyframer. There is no way that I
know of to "save the object in its own 3DS file."
The command "save selected" only works in the 3D Editor and I do not know
of any other way to save the clone without saving the original object it
"came" from. I could delete every object in the segment until I got down to
the original human form (HF) and its clone. If I delete the original HF,
the clone will also be deleted.
Is there a way to save an instance object into a new 3ds file ?
Alec Jason
Hi Alec,
There's no way to replace an "instanced" clone of an object(s) in the
Editor or Keyframer. If that's what you want to do, you need to use master
objects instead of clones.
The reason why you're having problems with objects being rotated when you
copy tracks is because the objects you're copying the animation data to
were made in a different original orientation than the objects from which
you're copying the animation data. For example, if you copy animation from
an arm that was made in the top viewport to an arm that was made in the
front viewport, the animation data will be 90-degrees offset for the copy.
The only way around this is to reset the new objects orientation to that of
the original. There's a long convoluted way to do this that I'd probably
have to show you in person. I'll be happy to do that at the user group
meeting on the 30th.
Basically, if you know that you're going to want to substitute objects for
other objects, you should avoid using instances. That makes it very easy
to just use the Replace function… that's why we put that feature in
there!
BuenAs NochEs, AmigO. (is that right?)
– G
Si, Senor!
Yeah, I know I should have used mesh objects instead of clones. I didn't
realize that I was painting myself into a corner until late in the job. I
might be able to live with the situation if I can change the HF's hair
color by linking on a new mesh hair object over the existing hair object
(after scaling the existing one down.) I haven't tried it yet. Animating
people is hard work.
I'm looking forward to learning your other solution at the meeting.
Thanks for your help.
Alec Jason
Note Bene to All: There is a "DESKTOP VIDEO/92" Expo at the Hyatt Regency
near the San Franciso Airport, May 21-23. I don't know much about this
event but its likely to have interesting video hardware. The info number is
800-322-6442.
Gary –
Asked around and nobody here speaks mayan. I must add that while on my
trip, a group of us got a little drunk at Chichen-Itza and climbed to the
top of the big pyramid in the middle of the night! We all got a little
spooked and climbed down before we disturbed the gods. On the serious side
there is nothing like wandering around the entire place in total darkness
by yourself, with no tourists, to feel the power of the mayan culture.
Unfortunately one feels nothing but nausea after that cheesy light show.
– Peter, ARCHIMAGE
P.S. Did you get a lucky Choc-Mool keychain, or candle holder? Es muy bueno
senor y solamente diez mil pesos. Siete mil. Cinco……….<g>
Funny that you mention that… our first shot of the temple at C.I. was at
9pm, in the dark (before the cheesy light show). It was pretty amazing to
first set eyes on it in the dark — I've got no idea how they let you climb
around on it at night.
The light show at Uxmal was actually pretty hip. Did you catch it?
– G
PS: Instead of the keychain, I picked up the Belam T-shirt of the Jaguar
eating the human heart. It gave us a great idea for a concession at the
temple… rasberry heart-shaped popsicles!
Gary –
Actually, they don't let climb up there at night. It's just difficult to
keep several bored college kids from sneeking in. We stayed in a hotel on
the oposite side from the visitor center (the back entrance?). It was real
spooky walking through the jungle, having not seen the temples yet, and
suddenly stepping into the clearing about 100 yards from the base. You
could almost sense what it was like for the original explorers.
We also spent a couple of days at Uxmal, which I think I liked more. Fewer
people? The light show was much better, only no sneaking around here as
there were guards with machine guns! Another thing about Uxmal was that
once something got wet, it never dried out.
– Peter, ARCHIMAGE
P.S. Did you get to see fertility temple? I didn't, but I heard it was
interesting.
Did you stay at the Mayaland hotel at CI and the Hacienda at Uxmal? We
fell in love with both of those places… was like staying in a botanical
park with an aviary.
In addition to the fertility temple at Uxmal, there was a series of
fertility carvings in Sayel that were mind boggling… Long Dong Silver had
absolutely NOTHING on the star of those.
– G
Temple carvings, eh?
Sayyyyyy…. what a project for 3D Studio!