What if you were spline modelling...

[Grey]

lots of people uses splines :D

Rhino is a fancy spline modeller.

[Nonproductive]

Look at the inorganic modeling tutorials here:
http://www.hash.com/sherwood/index.asp

[MukMan]

hmm... my email notification is messed up... Anyway, the links are mostly helpful, I have added them to my favorites ofr easy reference. Thanks. Where can you go to see things done with Rhino. If it's all done with splines than that might help.

[Raji]

well, if you're asking us how to make edges harder, just bring the splines really close to eachother. Once you do that, you'll have hard-looking edges and the bevelled look you want as well.

A:M _is_ a pretty sad little program... I switched to Maya after 2 years and believe me it was worth it! No more headaches, no more crashes... Move to either MAX or Maya if you want my opinion. It will save you a lot of suffering in the long run.

My 2 cents.

Raji

[typeA]

holly crap if i had to use am i would kill my computer....

[Raji]

:D

i almost did then i realized that it was the _program_ now the computer!!

I'll admit that A:M is actually good, but the bugs were mostly what drove me insane.

anyway... how did this thread start again?... hehe

:D

Raji

[MukMan]

THis thread started because I need some more info on how to model with these spline things. I have alot I want to see in 3D and I need to know how to do it. ANimation Master does crash alot and it bugs me to no end, but I have to use it because it's all i got. My home PC is a 133mhz pentium. At school we have Macs with 700+mhz G4's. If I am gonna do animation, I gotta use what they give me.

[Rabid pitbull]

animation master isn't my favorite program either, but i did use it for a long time. it is really good in the animation department, so after the slow modeling process you will have fun animating.

ok as for crisp edges isn't there a button to make the cp a sharp edge versus a bezier curve?? was when i used it (2 years ago..) there are many tutorials for animation master .... sherwoodforest.com??? check hash's site they link to it.

oh and to chime in on great software to use... dont forget to demo lightwave too, it is extremely capable.

[MukMan]

Sherwood forest is a limited resource. Of course I have been to the website of the poeple who made Animaiton Master. The main page links to sherwood, but they are mostly old tutorials that dont take advantage of the stuff in the 9.5version and they dont do a whole lot in the modelling department, mainly just character animation.

[Nonproductive]

What exactly are you looking for?

Sherwood forest has at least 15 modeling tutorials and by following some of the links to user sites you can find a bunch more. Modeling *anything* is time well spent - and will help you when it comes time for you to build the mechanical models you want to do. Hash is primarily a character animation package - so most of the tutorial material will be geared to that end.

Try:
Rodger Reynolds has some nice tips and tuts for mechanical modeling.
http://www.netcore.ca/~reynolds/text/tips.htm

David Rodgers book "Animation:Master 2002 A Complete Guide" covers pretty much all the new features as well as containing some of the best tutorial material I've seen in print for A:M. Well worth the $50 if you will be spending a lot of time with A:M.

-----------
You also seem very down on A:M. I've used it since version 4. It is finicky, flakey and about as tempermental a piece of software as I've ever used. It's render engine is pretty poor and the entire App suffers from "Never quite complete" feature creep. (which I believe is part of Hash's master "marketing" plan - you'll upgrade to get more stable versions of the features that were supposed to be in the previous versions.)

With that said:

Hash materials are excellent. You can take any knowledge gained building materials in A:M and carry it over to Maya, Lightwave, etc...

Modeling with splines, while tedious and sometimes frustrating, will help you when it comes time to build SubD cages in other apps. Hash likes 4 pt splines and the few patches required to form a surface will get you thinking about keeping your cages light and as all quads.

Hash's animation tools are some of the best going. If the app was more stable and less "closed" I would almost say they are the *best* character animation tools available. You can very quickly rough out timing changes and motion. You can combine motions non linearly (is that a word?). It is (in my opinion) the best bang for the buck if you want to learn to animate. In addition, all those skills you develop in A:M animating will also carry over to other tools. The principles of animation are consistant from tool to tool - only the icons change.

So...
Dig in to A:M! Buckle down and get as much use out of the school computers as you can. Model anything and everything. Animate as much as you can. Look at some of the great work done with A:M (Avalanche Software, Eggingtons team...) if you need more inspiration.

When the time comes that you can afford to step up to the more stable, traditional tools - you will have a HUGE leg up on the guy that jumps into Maya or Lightwave or Max as his first tool. You will already have all the groundwork laid out and simply need to understand the operating paradigm of whatever app you end up with.

-------------
If all else fails and you simply want to model and nothing more. You can always check out www.wings3d.com. I'm not sure if it will work on your machine at home, but it is a free sub division modeler that is very capable and easy to use. You can also model in Wings and via either the .mdl export plugin for Wings or the .obj import plugin for Hash - do anything else in A:M.

[MukMan]

Wow, a positive outlook on ANimation Master. Thanks alot! Suddenly I dont feel so bad about getting this when the school could easily have let me use LW or Maya. I'lll see what wings can do. Also, I have read somewhere that models can be exprted into lightwave and 3Ds Max right? That way, all my work (if any is good) can be used later on newer software.

[Raji]

yeah A:M isn't 100% bad... the reason i hated it was because of how unstable it was. I couldn't get into anything big with it. I used to love a lot about it, though even there, I was never completely satisfied. As NonProductive said, it is a very good program to start with, but you'll eventually want to make the step into another program.

Yes you can export your A:M files into other programs but you'll need to clean them up somewhat. I cleaned up a ton of models that were exported from A:M to Lightwave. It wasn't bad once you got used to the cleaning. :)

Good luck!

Raji

[kokoro]

hello Mukman - to encourage you - i am also using animation master - and it is much more stable than it used before. and you can also do mechanical things. you can peak the splines for example or bring more closer together and you will break the overall smooth look.

i do not mean it is a great program, the renderer is quite bad. but its good to learn things...

also here is another great site for A:M. hope it helps you with your project. ah - and always make a lot copies of your working project - so you are on the safe side when A:M chrashes. :cool:

http://www.am-user.de/mmnews/index.php

[Modulok]

I'm a spline modeler (rhino) :D ...but yeah, it can get really frustrating at times, especially when trying to do complex organic stuff with the lack of the cool tools like point selection grouping, and that other cool stuff, but you eventually get there. For mecha, splines are sweet, to check out some rhino stuff as you asked...go here:

http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?Sectionid=12

Or here is my rhino $hit...

http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Y&Artist=Modulok

Best of luck with the splines man!
-Modulok-

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