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Topics - selden

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General Anim8or Forum / mesh axes not shown -- can't adjust rotational axes

« on: September 04, 2017, 09:58:27 am »

I need to adjust the location and orientation of the rotational axes of a mesh, but for some reason its origin and axes aren't being shown when the mesh is selected. What am I overlooking or doing wrong?

Anim8or v1.0 Discussion Forum / V1.0b -- Rotate Custom rotates a tiny angle instead of 45 degrees

« on: September 01, 2017, 06:40:49 pm »

When using Anim8or v1.0b, in the Object editor, if I try to custom rotate a centered cylinder by 45 degrees, it instead rotates some small angle. The builtin 90 degree rotations work OK. The problem is seen for all rotation axes.

This problem is not seen in Anim8or v1.0: a custom rotation of 45 degrees works fine.

Here are a couple of screengrabs of 1.0 and 1.0b after a custom 45 degree rotation about the Z axis.

General Anim8or Forum / Updates to the Ray Tracer documentation?

« on: August 28, 2017, 08:05:59 am »

Is there any chance that the documentation for entering the class parameters for the Ray Tracer could be updated to include some explicit examples?

Although they mention the Attributes menu and list class settings, they don't actually say how and where to enter the various multi-level class parameters.

I'm in the process of searching the forum for posts describing how to use them, and I've found a few, but it's quite frustrating.

In particular, I'm trying to make ripples in a cup of tea look realistic, but it's a struggle.

Anim8or v0.98 Discussion Forum / v1.0 beta: export complains "invalid file name" for all names (intermittent)

« on: March 23, 2017, 07:33:08 am »

The first time I tried to use my CMOD export script, Anim8or v1.0 beta complained that the file name was invalid.

To prepare to report this bug, I then opened the help -> about window to screengrab/record Anim8or's version number.

Then when I opened the export window, it worked fine and did not complain about the file name.

*sigh*

Anim8or v0.98 Discussion Forum / v1.0 beta announcement page still says v0.95

« on: March 23, 2017, 07:27:19 am »

The section "Reporting Bugs" still says v0.95 instead of v1.0 beta.

It also does not say where to report bugs.

Anim8or v0.98 Discussion Forum / Bug: Drag-select doesn't select all meshes

« on: October 11, 2016, 06:20:55 pm »

Bug:

Running Anim8or v0.98b, build 1253, in the Object Edit mode, the "select multiple" tool doesn't select all of the meshes that it should.

This bug has been present for quite a few builds.

This bug can be demonstrated using the enclosed .an8 file (in the .zip) and is illustrated
in the enclosed screengrabs.

Instructions to duplicate this bug:

In the Object editor, drag select so that all of the individual meshes
are outlined. Release the mouse button. Only a few of the meshes
are highlighted and selected. They all should be selected.

This isn't a big deal when only a few meshes need to be selected, but it
is quite painful when most, but not all, of a large number of objects
need to be selected.

Selden

Finished Works and Works in Progress / Interactive notebook: a WIP

« on: September 28, 2016, 06:12:15 am »

I'm in the process of constructing an interactive notebook for use with Celestia. Of course, I'm using Anim8or to design its models. It's interactive in the sense that one can turn its pages, not that one can create new entries. Writing on a page has to be done "out of band" by painting the surface texture for each leaf of the notebook.

A sub-project was to create what looks like a taped-in photograph. It'll be used in several places. I made that available on DeviantArt yesterday at http://celestiaguru.deviantart.com/art/Photo-03-taped-instant-photo-636917231

Anim8or v0.98 Discussion Forum / Anim8or continuing to use CPU after "exiting"

« on: September 13, 2016, 04:37:14 pm »

Recently I've noticed a copy of Anim8or continuing to run, saturating a core, after I've closed Anim8or's design window. The design window has closed and Anim8or's icon has disappeared from the taskbar. I've had to use the task manager's "end process tree" command to get rid of the rogue process. Anim8or's model file seems to have been output properly, so I'm not at all sure what it's trying to do.

I've only been using the Object editor, none of the other design windows, and it only happens some of the time.

This happens with Anim8or build 1247 running under a fully patched Windows 7.

How can I find out where it's looping?

Anim8or v0.98 Discussion Forum / Wrong texture mapping after point edits

« on: September 06, 2016, 07:53:47 pm »

Problem: surface texture image mapped incorrectly after "point edit inset" followed by "point edit extrude faces"

My continuing saga of trying to model an open book:

I'm trying to model the inside of a book's cover, with the endpapers seeming to be overlaying the edges of the leather covering that's wrapped around the coverboards. I decided that one way to do this would be slightly depress the interior area of the inside of the cover mesh, so that it'd have a raised area next to the edges where the leather is, and a slightly depressed area where the endpapers would be directly against the coverboards. From past experience, I knew I could do this using "point edit inset" followed by "point edit extrude faces".

To accomplish this, I used the following steps:

1. merged the facets on the right and left interior sides of the cover model into one large facet each.
2. applied the surface texture images to those facets
3. adjusted the mappings of those images slightly using the UV editor.
(Those three steps worked fine.)

Then, watching closely at the top edge of the model:
4. used "point edit inset" to generate a slightly smaller region in the interior of the front endpaper region.
5. used "point edit extrude faces" to slightly depress that smaller region.

I then changed the view to look at the front of the model and discovered that it no longer showed the image of the front endpaper. Instead it was a uniform purple.

Using "drag select" to select the appropriate facets of the model and then "apply" of the appropriate material did nothing visible. FWIW, when I defined a new material with no associated diffuse surface texture image, it did recolor those facets to the new uniform color, but nothing I do can make it draw a surface texture image on those facets.

This zip file contains a model showing this problem. As best I can tell, this time I've included all of the necessary surface texture images.

Thanks for whatever help you can provide, but I suspect this is a bug in Anim8or. I'm using build 1247.

Anim8or v0.98 Discussion Forum / Object exported to .an8 loses some textures

« on: September 05, 2016, 05:59:18 pm »

Sometimes when an object is exported to its own .AN8 model file, the resulting model loses some of its texture image files.

When the exported .AN8 model file is opened in Anim8or, several of its materials no longer have any textures associated with them although the original model did have those textures.

This problem is seen with Anim8or v0.98a (build 1247) and previous versions.

To reproduce this problem:
1. open the included model file reassembled_closed_book_3.an8

Note that the spine and back cover are brown.

2. export the object reassembled_book_3 to temp.an8 file

3. open temp.an8

Note that the spine and back cover are the default grey.

I've included screengrabs showing this happening on my computer.
I'm running Anim8or v0.98a (build 1247) under Windows 7.

General Anim8or Forum / "Fix Normals" is greyed out. How to enable it?

« on: August 13, 2016, 05:57:43 pm »

What circumstances cause the option "Fix Normals" to be unavailable?
How can I persuade it to be available?

I'd like not to have to manually select each of the faces with reversed normals to repair them. Unfortunately, the "Fix Normals" option is greyed-out. See the attached screengrab.

Finished Works and Works in Progress / Modeling for the Gaea trilogy

« on: June 20, 2016, 04:10:39 pm »

A recent personal project has been to model a couple of the objects described in John Varley's Gaea trilogy.

I use Anim8or to create the models and Celestia to display them.

I've been posting some of my preliminary efforts at http://celestiaguru.blogspot.com/

Here are a couple screengrabs, early versions of Gaea and of DSV Ringmaster.

General Anim8or Forum / Where's the menu to select texture projection?

« on: June 11, 2016, 01:21:51 pm »

Long ago I stumbled across a menu in Anim8or where one could select the type of projection used to place a texture on an object mesh -- cylindrical, cube, etc. Unfortunately, now I can't find it.

Was I dreaming?

If not, how does one invoke it?

ASL Scripts / How to retrieve a texture's BlendMode ?

« on: October 28, 2015, 07:05:33 pm »

How can I retrieve the BlendMode associated with a Texture in the export script that I'm working on?
(I'm trying to improve the functionality of my CMOD export script.)

The documentation at http://anim8or.com/scripts/spec/index.html shows "int GetBlendMode(int mode);" to be an element of "struct material" except that can't be right. That would allow only one BlendMode per material, while there actually can be many BlendModes in a material, one associated with each of a Material's Textures. Unfortunately, my attempts to retrieve it as if it were an element of a texture structure don't work.

Anim8or v0.98 Discussion Forum / Can't import .LWO models: missing LWOBJ

« on: October 20, 2015, 07:14:06 pm »

When I try to import a Lightwave .lwo model file, Anim8or fails. It generates an error popup complaining

Just so you'd know...
Missing LWOBJ

Where can I get a copy of "LWOBJ" and where should it be put?
I have a trial version of Lightwave v 2015.3 installed, but it does not include any file with that name.

Edited to add: this failure is seen in Anim8or v0.98 and v0.98a [build 1185]