Anim8or Community

Looks pretty accurate so far, I like you progress

Some of the smaller details aren't dead-on (like the rivet heads between the treads, the original has two circular indentions and a long thin bump on the top), but that's getting anal

The texturing is alright, can't complain too much there except that the only real way to make it look better would be to customize it a bit and add dirt and wear and tear, like in the original. You should also add another sand-colored light source facing from the ground to give it some backlight and make the render a little more realistic. Generally you should have two or more lights in a lighting setup if you want to go for more than a basic render.

Keep it up!

Fixed, but you've probably got a lot missing. I recommend not subdividing your mesh permanently like that next time and model more efficiently...you could have gotten the same result with 1/10th the number of polygons or less. The more polygons, edges, and vertices in your model, the higher the likelihood of corruption when saving (especially on older computers and operating systems), though usually it shouldn't happen.

Err, have you really even tried this script out? It doesn't mirror exactly across the Y-axis from the original mesh, the normals are flipped, and on line 48:
NewS.CloseFace();

Needs to be:
$NewS.CloseFace();

Or else there'll be errors.

Well, that's for me anyway, with 0.97d. I do hope you get this working well enough! Perhaps turn it into a button in the toolbar where you select the mesh instead, then press the button to activate the mirroring on that mesh? Also, support for subdivision meshes would be outstanding (and as I mentioned before, group the mirrored portion so that it's locked and can't be manipulated by the user)

A general "Pick from the list of attributes" button replacing the "User Attributes Editor" dialog (and even a brief description of each item in the list) would be great instead/as well. This list would be dynamic based on if it's a material/object/figure/sequence/scene, showing only the items pertaining to those said editors. Maybe even make it accessible to ASL so that users can add script-required attributes to the list to make it easier for the end user.

Something like....


 -------------------------------                   -------------------------------        ------------------------
|      List of predefined       |                 |          User Picked          |      |      Description       |
|           Attributes          |     [ --> ]     |           Attributes          |      |      Of Selected       |
|                               |                 |                               |      |       Attribute        |
|                               |     [ NEW ]     |                               |      |                        |
|                               |                 |                               |      |                        |
|                               |     [ EDIT ]    |                               |      |                        |
|                               |                 |                               |      |                        |
|                               |    [ DELETE ]   |                               |      |                        |
|                               |                 |                               |      |                        |
 -------------------------------                   -------------------------------        ------------------------


The --> Button transfers in-house attributes (pops up the dialog to define the float/int/strings/etc first) from the list. "NEW" of course allows the user to define a custom one, "DELETE" deletes from the selected User Picked Attributes, and "EDIT" edits the selected User Picked Attributes.

Also, in order to rename an attribute we have to delete and then make a new one, it'd be nice to be able to rename it without having to do that...

And better yet, just make it a global attributes editor so that you can edit any attribute from any editor. Just color-code the listing and add filter checkboxes to the top of the dialog to filter All/Material/Object/Figure/Sequence/Scene/Whatever from the list.

I think for some reason you have to add a light, then the scene tones down...

http://web.t-online.hu/karpo/

Seems to be a new converter that might convert to the proper format. Seriously though, don't resurrect dead topics...

Now you're just being picky. Something like the splash screen serves not just to show off some sort of graphic, it's crediting Steve for his work. It's the least he can ask of you.

Steve, I think a great investment of your an8 dev time would be to support the COLLADA (.dae) or Filmbox (.fbx) format. Just pick one and focus on it as the primary export format and update it regularly with each release, and you'll be opening a lot more avenues for Anim8or to be used with! These formats are specifically for interchanging between 3d applications, and they're also being more widely used in game engines, so it's like knocking out several birds with one stone.

But aside from that, I think an upgrade in the modeling tools to make it more intuitive would be great, it's fallen behind compared to the other programs out there. 3D widgets, a "tweak" tool similar to that in softimage XSI or wings3D (with soft selection), real-time mirroring, etc.

And IMO, the skeletal animation system needs a complete overhaul.

Thanks for your time and effort!