Anim8or Community

I've used anim8or almost exclusively for my models since at least 1999 so I'm familiar with the program.  It has been so long since the last update that I don't know if Steve is still working on it or not, but I'll post this in case he is as I haven't found any other modeler I like as well.

This is a problem that I've noticed for a long time, but it is so small that I wasn't sure what I was seeing.  I've had models go bad in small ways when saved in an an8 file and reopened and I've rebuilt them many times.  Points will move a tiny amount, twisting a sphere or pole, skewing a box, etc.  

Now I've spent three days trying to discover why my splines (using them to make neon tubing) have worked at first then later created twisted tubes instead of the nice smooth curves I had drawn.

It doesn't break consistently.  Ten minutes ago I redrew one of my splines, it extruded perfectly.  I saved the an8 file, reopened it, and the spline points had moved a tiny amount on the Z axis so the bends were twisted.  I fixed the spline point by point in order to post an example of it, saved it, but this time it opened fine (maybe because they'd been fixed manually).

Part of the problem is that even though I have Z unchecked, anim8or doesn't consistently put my Z axis at 0 for the points, even within the same spline they are back and forth across the zero line by a tiny amount, enough to ruin the extrusion.  What is really weird is that extruding before saving and reopening produces an okay result even though it looks the same.  After saving and reopening the file it is ruined.

What i want is to be able to keep all points where I put them.  In this case that means that when I uncheck Z they all shouldn't vary in Z at all.



Greg

I've made a cross-section of a railroad track, and extruded it along a curved path to create a railroad line.  How do make it so the extrusion is denser so the curves are smoother?

I have a simple scene:

One object flying along a path.  One infinite light.  One camera.
Scanline renderer, .bmp output.  Nvidia GeForce 7600 GS

When the light is set to cast volume shadows, the scene animation renders.  When I set it to raytrace, ordered or monte carlo, it renders a few frames and crashes.  This happens in 095 and 097.  During any kind of rendering, still or movie, my monitor randomly goes black, and even off throughout the process.

It has been a couple of years since I rendered animations but never had this trouble with anim8or before.  Can anyone help please.

Edit:

Just tested again:  it renders 7 frames then crashes.  I render the next set and again, seven frames then crash.