Anim8or Community

A problem has developed when attempting to paint weights.  This has been working fine, but today, suddenly, when I select the tool and click on the figure, I get a shutdown.  Only had a couple of bones to go to finish!

Error message " drwtsn32.exe - Entry point not found.
The procedure entry point SymSetSymWithAddr 64 could not be located in the dynamic link library DBGHELP.dll".  When I search, I find six instances of DBGHELP.dll file - how come Windows (or Anim8or )  can't find it 

I have occasionally had this problem when moving points with the slider - after shutdown I re-open and all's well - but not this time.  I have done a registry cleanup and rebooted, system restored - no luck.   Also tried with a fresh download of V096 - same problem in all my models.  I only ever have experienced this when working in Anim8or.

A possible clue - don't know how relative it is - before this problem started, the mesh in figure mode, with painting weights selected, was yellow, instead of the normal red, but worked just fine.  I then installed the cog plugin, made a few cogs and painted them.  One particular cog, when being painted, the paint would jump across and suffuse a whole area of the mesh in the vicinity - there were no connecting lines,  no overlap and the brush was not even close.  Other than that, the animation worked fine.  Have removed the cog plugin, but makes no difference.

Adding a mesh to bones works fine - its only when using the influences tool that the problem occurs.

Someone please help - would really appreciate advice as I love Anim8or and don't want to have to give up on it 

To add to this - in a previous post I asked for advice regarding keeping sharp edges in parts of a model after subdividing - my model is complex, so cutting in edge re-enforcement is not an option, it would become too confusing and messy.  After a lot of experimentation, it turns out that changing the default edge smooth setting to rounded, with a value of 3, for a single subdivision gives a perfectly sharp edge - use 2 for a softer edge - without all the extra lines.  Seems that the value must be 1 higher than the number of subdivisions for a soft edge and 2 higher for a sharp, hard edge.
Just thought I'd share this, for what its worth

Thanks guys - this is exactly what I saw before - this time I've saved it!  I almost got it with the spring method, but it looked more like Tarzan's jungle vine than a rope - in an effort to save on polys, I only used two cylinders and that came very close.  Got a very good example off the net, from one of those pay sites and knew if it could be done, Anim8or could do it

A while back I saw a reference to making twisted rope (if I remember correctly it was making two cylinders twist around each other) on one of the forums, but have searched them all and can't locate it.  Anyone know how to do this, or know where to find a reference?

The model I'm making needs to be mostly smoothed, but parts to stay hard and sharp - I normally use edge re-enforcement, by cutting through close to the edge and this works fine, but in this model that method would be way too complex and really messy.  I tried using edge properties, with a setting of creased, value 2, but when I convert to subdivided
(just a single subdivision), there is no difference - everything is rounded.

What sort of settings should I be using?

Well done and thanks, Steve - great "clean and streamlined look"